DC electric question

2

2_zoa

New member
I'll admit right up front I did not search for this before this thread. What I'd like to do is, use one power supply that is well made and will last a while to supply my power heads. I'd like to get rid of the wall worts and just wire in a single heavier duty power supply.

I've gotten rid of my jeabo controllers and have them running off my profilux 4 0-10 volt signals. Works awesome. I'm happy with that. But if I could free up outlet or outlets in the future. That would be great.

Now, I've burned up a few electronics in the past thinking 12 volts is 12 volts. I'm not sure where I went wrong in the past........I do know the polarity was correct though.

The jeabo power supplies I'm wanting to replace are 24 volt 1 amp wall worts.

My questions are,
Has anyone done this?
If I buy a large power supply will it burn up motors if the voltage is correct? What I mean is, if it's a 5 amp supply and I only have a motor that needs 1/2 or 3/4 of an amp. Will it burn up the motor?

This just seems like a good way to power these pumps. Probably even a more stable and clean power which might increase the life span. Not that I've had one fail yet.
 
No, they won't burn up.

The rating on a power supply eg 12v 4 amps is the MAX it can supply. It's totally fine to run less load on it. Think of it this way- the power supply doesn't "˜push' 4 amps at the ph, your powerhead "˜pulls' whatever it needs from the power supply

If you hook up a 12v 1 amp powerhead, it'll pull one amp from the power supply, and run just as well as with its own power supply. You could actually use 4 such powerheads on that supply, and gave them run (but don't- you never want to run a power supply at 100% duty, so I'd do 3 ph on that 4 amp supply fir a 75% duty).

If you had the same 12v 4amp supply, but this time run a 12v 5 amp pump, it'll run, but not give you 100%. It'll be underpowered.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Just make sure the total additional amp draw from the powerheads you put on one DC supply are not above the total amp it can supply.

As neil said, its the max.

Make sure if you are daisy chaining more then one pump off the supply you wire them parallel, not series.
 
I concur with all except that if you connected a 5 amp motor to a 4 amp power supply it will burn up the power supply. Most power supplies (especially the bricks) don't have a built in circuit protection to shut off if the load (current/amperage) exceeds it's intended rating, That's probably the reason why you burned things up in the past. There are power supplies out there that will only deliver the 4 amps to a 5 amp circuit but not the ones you speak of.

As stated, be sure to run all your DC pumps off the new appropriately sized power supply in parallel.
 
Thank you all for the input. I truly appreciate it.

I just ordered a mean well driver capable of 24 volts and 14.6 amps. If I drive all three of my pumps (2 power heads and my return pump) I will be at 8 amps according to the current power supplies rated outputs.
 
I like your idea. I have a battery back up that uses 24 volt batteries, but I do not know the charge rate. The only bad thing is if your power supply goes bad for some reason, then you will have no flow. I would use at least 2 power supplies for redundancy.
 
laverda said:
I like your idea. I have a battery back up that uses 24 volt batteries, but I do not know the charge rate. The only bad thing is if your power supply goes bad for some reason, then you will have no flow. I would use at least 2 power supplies for redundancy.
Click to expand...

I did think of the dead power supply means no flow. I actually deleted that before posting the thread.
I've pondering this and I'm just not sure how I want to approach it. Two power supplies if definitely an option. I've planned on ordering a second power supply for back up but that doesn't help me while I'm away.

Do you have any info on your battery backup? Did you build it?
 
2_zoa said:
I did think of the dead power supply means no flow. I actually deleted that before posting the thread.
I’ve pondering this and I’m just not sure how I want to approach it. Two power supplies if definitely an option. I’ve planned on ordering a second power supply for back up but that doesn’t help me while I’m away.

Do you have any info on your battery backup? Did you build it?
Click to expand...

I built one in this thread...

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2656048&page=2

Starts at the top of the second page.

My particular setup works as well as it does because my powerheads already have a dedicated port for a backup that 'switches' on its own, so I did not need to do anything electrically to make sure the system can detect an outage and switches for me; The ecotechs did all of that on their own.

EDIT: And as an aside, we lost power after a thunderstorm yesterday. I got home to check on the system, and power was out everywhere but my two powerheads were both churning along merrily and keeping the flow going. I had tested it on their own obviously, but it was good to see it worked in practice. As soon as power game back on the battery started to recharge and the ecotechs switched back to main power.
 
I currently power four vortechs from two 24vdc din mount power supplies.

I bought pigtails from Ebay so I dont have to cut the power cords for resale.

One thing I strongly recommend. Is to place a fuse or circuit breaker between the supply itself and the wall plug. And also between the power head and the supply. An off the shelf power supply wont have any over current protection and you risk a fire. Also make sure the wire size is proper for the current draw.

You want an overhead too. So assume everything will use 125% of the rating on the label and size the wire appropriately. The fuses you can be closer to required draw just dont go larger then the wire size will allow

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:
2_zoa said:
I did think of the dead power supply means no flow. I actually deleted that before posting the thread.
I've pondering this and I'm just not sure how I want to approach it. Two power supplies if definitely an option. I've planned on ordering a second power supply for back up but that doesn't help me while I'm away.

Do you have any info on your battery backup? Did you build it?
Click to expand...

This is the one I have with an additional battery pack. https://www.amazon.com/APC-Back-UPS-Battery-Protector-BR1500G/dp/B003Y24DEU
Sometimes you can find them much cheaper on Amazon. I got a new one for under $50. Not that long ago. I was skeptical when I ordered it, as the price was less than 2 new batteries were.
 
Engineer here.

No, a power supply rated for a higher current will not effect your motor.

Here's something I tell people when trying to explain electricity. Electricity is like a rope. It can be pulled, but it cannot be pushed.

What that power supply rating of 5 amps tell you, is that it CAN output up 5 amps if the electrical device plugged up to it NEEDS 5 amps.
 
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