Alarm Battery Charging

[DaavG]

Hi All,

My batteries are not lasting during load shedding and I think the batteries are not getting properly recharged before the next round hits, damaging the batteries (I have 3 batteries, 1 x wired to alarm panel, 2 x external with their own power source).

I have a DSC alarm and think the charger charges at 0.5Ah.

I would like to change batteries to 18Ah batteries and install smart chargers to speed up the batteries charging but my alarm guy says its going to damage or blow my alarm panel board.

At some point I will go the inverter and battery solution wired into the DB board but not there yet.

Any thoughts / comments or ideas?

[aimpoint]

Not with regards to charging, but i recently had the same issues. The security shop then sold me batteries that contain gel. Works much better and they last the 4 hour cuts as-well, but could obviously also be that they are new?


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[shooty]

I use a Opttimate charger.

Note those 7Ah 12v batteries have at best a years life on them.

ACDC and Brights in CPT selss them for reasonable prices. ACDC now has a Lipo one or some or other type thats about R800 that is said to be able to last couple years and alot more charges

[Pirate]

low tech solution:

last time I had to replace mine, I bought two, and put wired them to the panel in parallel, effectively becoming a single battery of double the capacity. thus, the depth of discharge for the individual batteries are far less.

what's important is to not wire two lead acid batteries of different capacities or no-load voltages in parallel, then one gets fully charged before the other and then niks is lekker nie alles is kak. I actually ran two "ewe poegaai" batteries in parallel for a long while, and they worked just fine, until both became "fully poegaai". subsequently replaced them with two new brand new ones, and it works well.

[Teamcam]

Try sourcing a gel or a lithium battery.
These seem to last longer than the usual lead acid that we use to...

[DaavG]

I'll look into the gel batteries, thank you. My alarm actually mentioned the same. Doubling the capacity or new bigger (say 18Ah) battery makes sense to reduce depth of discharge.

Can the standard panel charger charge lithium? I thought it couldn't.

My biggest issue is that the charger in the alarm power sources seems to charge so slowly - surely there is a way to install an external, smart charger to boost the batteries?

[SoldierMan]

You need a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery. They can discharge to near empty and still lose no capacity.

This is a drop-in replacement for the crappy lead acid alarm batteries.

https://www.sustainable.co.za/collec...ifepo4-battery

[shooty]

You might have difficulty finding batteries.

As every time Load Shedding hits. People realize there Alarm or drive gate motors are not correct anymore.

So every time people buy all stock in shops

[oafpatroll]

Hi All,

My batteries are not lasting during load shedding and I think the batteries are not getting properly recharged before the next round hits, damaging the batteries (I have 3 batteries, 1 x wired to alarm panel, 2 x external with their own power source).

I have a DSC alarm and think the charger charges at 0.5Ah.

I have run 15ah lead acid gel batteries on my DSC Power 832 based alarm system, outdoor beam backups and electric fence for years without issue. They last a hell of a lot longer than the 7ah ones due to a reduced depth of discharge.

When these kak, I will replace them with LiFeP04 drop in replacements from ACDC. They have built in battery management which mimics the charge characteristics of lead acid so you don't need to do anything to the chargers on the devices. They re now only slightly more expensive than lead acid so make sense due to their much higher charge cycle capacity.

[S14Phoenix]

just fitted a lithium-ion 12V 10ah to replace the lead acid 12v 7ah on my alarm... now lasted without issue on the 5hr stage 5 loadshedding. direct swop out - did nothing else.