ACIII Pro Power Outage reporting

[Submerged]

Hi All,

Tis a bit windy here in NH today. As a result, my power went out at around 10 am. I'm currently at work. Power was restored sometime before noon. I know this b/c my ACIII is webserved and is reporting a data log for 12:00 and 1:00. Curriously, the ACIII Pro doesn't seem to know that its power was disrupted. Either that, or it doesn't want to admit it...

The Aquacontrolled HTTP page tells me:

Power Failed: None
Power Restored: None

It (and my wireless) are NOT connected to a backup power supply. Thus, both went off with the outage. Presumably, the backup battery kept the ACIII on...but I would think it would have noted a main power supply disruption? No?

 

[kattner]

You have to hook it up a different way. The ACIIIPro detects a power outage when the power fails on the main power input for the ACIIIPro, BUT you have to have a source of backup power for the unit to log the failure. That is what the backup power plug is for on the unit. So you would get an extra power supply for the backup plug and run that off a computer backup power UPS. You would also need your router and modem on backup power so you could get email alerts.

See this too:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=629036&highlight=battery


Ken

 

[Submerged]

You would also need your router and modem on backup power so you could get email alerts.

Yeah- I figured that much...I would need two ups as my modem is in a different room.

I guess I thought the unit would be smart enough to log a main power failure regardless of whether I had a power adapter attached to the backup plug. Presumably, the unit knows the power was lost on the main supply regardless of whether it has a backup source of power; it reboots when power is restored. Seems like it would just be simple programming to put 2 and 2 together and log that when the machine reboots.

 

[kattner]

I think the unit has a lithium battery inside just to keep the clock and program memory alive, but if the main power supply is off with no backup, then it has no way to sense a power failure. It just wakes back up thinking nothing has happened. That's why it has the back up battery supply line. Curt can confirm.

 

[clp]

The lithium battery only keeps the clock running in the controller. If there is no secondary power source, it would be easy make the power restored time report when the controller's power is restored or first powered on, and a bit more difficult to report when power failed, but possible. I just question the value of this information. I'd think you'd want to be notified when a power failure occurred, not have a log that reported power was out for the previous 5 hours after the fact. If users want this feature, I'll add it to the feature enhancement list.
Note if this feature is added there will always be a power failed time, and a power restored time until the power log is manually cleared.

Curt

 

[Submerged]

Ok, I was confused some...I assumed the lithium battery took the place of the 9v that is used in the ACII, which would continue to run the display screen and also would note power failures.

So that I understand correctly, the only reason for having the backup plug (connected to a UPS) is so the unit can detect/report a loss of power on the main supply? That is, we could presumably plug the main into a UPS to power the unit, but then it would never detect an outage (so long as the UPS ran).

 

[kattner]

You're correct. The lithium battery is not he same as the nine volt on the ACII (it doesn't keep the unit running so it can detect power failure)

And you're correct that if the main power plug is connected to a UPS, it will never detect the power failure because from the unit's perspective, power has been uninterrupted. That's why there are two plugs - one to be connected to the power supply (that might be interrupted) and the other to be connected to a battery backup or UPS (that cannot be interrupted).