Battery Back up Power supply

Expansion modules and attachments
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fckgravity
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:11 am

Battery Back up Power supply

Post by fckgravity »

I tried to plug in my 12v instead of my 24v power supplies into the battery backup (powerhead input power) to cut the power of the pumps some (no battery or charger attached yet), and the pumps didnt run.

Since the 24v works fine and a 12v doesn't, am I correct in assuming that the way it works is whenever the voltage on the pump power supply side is below 12v or so, it switches to to battery side? So if I ran say a 14v power supply to my pumps would it work again?
rimai
Posts: 12881
Joined: Fri Mar 18, 2011 6:47 pm

Re: Battery Back up Power supply

Post by rimai »

It is hard to tell.
The module uses a relay with a 24V coil. There is a minimum voltage that needs to be applied for it to kick in.
You would have to play with it to find out what it is.
Not all coils will have the same threshold, but they will definitely kick in at the 24V mark.
May I ask why you want to use 12V instead of 24V?
Roberto.
fckgravity
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:11 am

Re: Battery Back up Power supply

Post by fckgravity »

Thanks for the reply. I have a couple of rw-4's and they are too powerful in my tank to run over 40-50% power, but I would still like to run the programs that are in the wizard. So if I use the programs and have a max value of say 40% there is very little change its almost like im running them on constant in any mode besides the pulse modes because of the minumum threshhold of the pumps being around 30%. So I was hoping if I could cut the voltage going into the pumps by half then run the programs at 100% (reefcrest etc...) I could get some varied output from the pumps and still not overpower my tank.
fckgravity
Posts: 33
Joined: Tue Aug 06, 2013 5:11 am

Re: Battery Back up Power supply

Post by fckgravity »

So I found I can still activate the pumps with a 14v laptop power supply, Is this going to damage anything if I run it continually ?
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lnevo
Posts: 5430
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2012 9:42 am

Re: Battery Back up Power supply

Post by lnevo »

At the end of the day it won't be much different. Your cutoff will probably end up being 60% instead of 30% and your high level will be 80. At the end of the day its still the same range. I would focus more on alternating patterns between two pumps then trying to get a lot of randomness in such a small range. And constant is OK too. Don't have to overthink it if its such a small tank.
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