12V batteries for Loxone Power Supply and Backup

[Thorfun]

@Temp fyi https://www.loxone.com/enen/kb/power-supply-backup/

[Thorfun]

28 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

First two of them are not essential, third is debatable.

 

Maybe look at what you really do need i.e. heat, light, cooking, the rest can be disconnected for several hours without impacting anything.

sorry but the sump pumps are most definitely essential! if you've read my basement flooding thread you'll know the pain we went through when a pump wasn't working. 😢

 

the internet is also essential so our flood detectors are able to communicate and alert if required

 

also we've only got 16A max so any heating won't be able to be run (max 3.6kW) and the house is insulated and airtight enough for us to not worry about heat loss too much.

 

food? that's what local takeaways are for.

[SteamyTea]

5 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

if you've read my basement flooding thread you'll know the pain we went through

I haven't, against popular misconception, I don't really take pleasure in others misfortune.

[Thorfun]

batteries installed and 42Ah backup available. I like the reporting capabilities of the Power Supply and Backup on top of the whole 7 x PSUs in one unit. nice bit of kit. expensive, but nice! I'll test the battery backup during the day when the family aren't using their lights. 😉 

 

Current usage is 93W so even if we maintained that in a power cut that would give us over 10hrs of 24V backup lighting. more than enough I think.

 

 

what the reporting also shows is that we have loads of headroom on the PSUs.  the ones with 10A fuses in them can take 240W so I could actually amalgamate some of the lights if I need more than the one spare output I have left.

[Johnnyire]

On 07/04/2024 at 17:48, Thorfun said:

greetings. looking for batteries for backup to my 24V Loxone stuff via the power supply and backup. I need 3 x 12V batteries and I'm thinking AGM batteries are the way to go as this website seems to suggest they're more efficient and according to the Loxone knowledge base they say 

 

 

All my 24V lights running at the same time would be around 40A or 960W. so let's assume that I have 3 x 15Ah batteries that would mean I could only run the 24V lights for only 2hrs max! doesn't seem like a long time. so, therefore, I need bigger capacity batteries, right? but then the cost starts increasing dramatically!

 

if I look at Tanya.co.uk a 45Ah battery is about £175. so 3 of those is just over £500. but that would give me 135Ah of backup which would run the lights for 5hrs.

 

which doesn't seem a lot either!

 

has anyone out there who has a power supply & backup connected 36V batteries and, if so, which did you go for?

 

(note. if my maths above is wrong please feel free to correct me! I think you know by now that maths/physics/electrics are not my strong point)

Have you solar and a battery? I am building and installing Loxone. Was thinking I will get the Gateway with a Sigenergy system so can run the house if we lose power. 

[Thorfun]

11 hours ago, Johnnyire said:

Have you solar and a battery? I am building and installing Loxone. Was thinking I will get the Gateway with a Sigenergy system so can run the house if we lose power. 

I do have solar pv (10.5kWp array) and batteries (LuxPower with 6.4kWh storage) but the LuxPower has a max 13A on the EPS so we only have a few emergency items running from it in case of a power cut. 

 

I didn't want to put the whole house lights through it hence looking for 24V batteries so Loxone can run and can power the low voltage lighting which is enough to allow us to see in all rooms of the house if needed.

 

I also found that the LuxPower is not quick enough to react to a power cut (despite what their manual says) and my computer equipment did not remain on in the last power trip we had. and so I have bought a dedicated UPS for that simply to keep the equipment going until the LuxPower kicks in. yet to test it in anger yet though but it should mean that our wifi and router remain active allowing me to wfh in a power cut.

 

my advice is to make sure you know how much power the battery system for your whole house backup can run.

[Alan Ambrose]

While I’m sure I might be inclined to head down this rabbit hole as well when the time comes, it occurs to me that a standard consumer UPS for anything computery plus a couple of standard battery-backed emergency lights (like they have in offices and blocks of flats) would be v cheap and simple and cope with the majority of the power cut risk. Do you really need to plan for the 2nd order risk of power cut plus rain storm and therefore need battery backup of the sump pumps?

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, Alan Ambrose said:

While I’m sure I might be inclined to head down this rabbit hole as well when the time comes, it occurs to me that a standard consumer UPS for anything computery plus a couple of standard battery-backed emergency lights (like they have in offices and blocks of flats) would be v cheap and simple and cope with the majority of the power cut risk. Do you really need to plan for the 2nd order risk of power cut plus rain storm and therefore need battery backup of the sump pumps?

the water in to the sump is constant! there's an aquifer that runs under the sandstone 2m down and the flow is constant. so without power we will soon flood regardless of the weather. 😞 

 

it is more of a trickle in the summer months so it does ebb and flow with the seasons.

[joth]

On 17/11/2024 at 08:33, Thorfun said:

I also found that the LuxPower is not quick enough to react to a power cut (despite what their manual says) and my computer equipment did not remain on in the last power trip we had. and so I have bought a dedicated UPS for that simply to keep the equipment going until the LuxPower kicks in. yet to test it in anger yet though but it should mean that our wifi and router remain active allowing me to wfh in a power cut.

 

ON  a recent install we intentionally turned up the EPS switch over time to several seconds. Computer kit inc PoE switch is already on a UPS anyway, and this way most manually operated appliances in the house (microwave, ovens, dishwasher, projector etc) will have a clear 10sec power loss and won't reset/resume when powered back on. this was the whole house can switch to EPS but actually come back up with a relatively low power demand

The other cunning idea was redundant powering Loxone miniserver from both its own dedicated 24V PSU and the UPS backed PoE feed. This gives protection against PSU failure as well as power cuts, and cost order of magnitude less than the Loxone PS+B (given the UPS was being installed regardless)

 

 

[jav]

I wouldn't use that Loxone power supply personally. It's not scalable way too expensive. @Rob99's N+1 set up (especially as Meanwell also provide a UPS and ATS solution) is straight out of datacentre best practice and given with an 8-way 960W/40A devices it's scalable to 7.68kW DC power, on paper, it's awesome.

 

However, given you have the LuxPower setup, if you feel you're worried about the 16A max, then my recommendations would be:

1) Get a second inverter and split the solar and batteries across both, thus you get redundancy, twice the MPPTs and double the EPS power. Especially the redundancy point given how critical you're saying those sump pumps are.

2) Use Loxone's Load Manager logic block and have Loxone govern peak loads to keep it under 16A, including those sump pumps, so your power usage is actively managed and 'smart' based on the actual load being used in real time. I'd still get a second inverter though and have peak load to 32A with an emergency 16A if one of the inverters goes kaput.

 

You say the inverter doesn't switch quick enough? It may be a wiring issue as it's not detecting grid power loss fast enough. Have a look at that, as even a 'slow' switch should be 2-5ms, which is well within what a capacitor in a DC PSU should be able to withstand. If not... Meanwell seems to have your back covered again.