What all alarm systems and energizers are struggling with during Stage 4 to Stage 6 load shedding is charging the battery fast enough to get a substantial charge into the battery.
On average your alarm system will charge the battery @ 0,6ah per hour and your energizer @ 0,4ah per hour which is extremely slow. This means a 12v 8ah battery would need +- 13 hours to fully charge if charging from its lowest point and this would increase to +- 20 hours on an energizer. If you had a bigger 12v 18ah battery installed on your alarm this would require +- 30 hours to fully charge if charging from its lowest point.
This is the main reason you will have alarms acting up with ghost signals being received at the control room when a signal has been received but the alarm has not activated, false alarms on zones, the alarm being unresponsive and the alarm activating when the power goes off or comes back on which is one of many ways that alarms misbehave when running off a critically low internal battery. More importantly, your battery requires a decent charge in it to send an alarm, electric fence or panic signal to the control room thus if there is not enough power for the radio transmitter to draw, a signal may not be received which could put your safety in jeopardy. Irrespective of the age of your battery, you might have installed a new battery recently, the battery could still be good and working correctly but it’s still restricted by how slowly the alarm or energizer will charge the battery.
There is a Solution
There is a device called a Sherlotronics 6.4ah Backup Power Supply Unit that can be installed that will fit either the smaller or the bigger battery and will charge the battery @ 3ah per hour which is 5 times faster than your alarm system and 7.5 times faster than your energizer can manage.
Your battery will come out of the alarm or energizer and be installed in the Backup PSU and then linked via a cable run. This would mean a 12v 8ah battery only requires between 2 to 3 hours of uninterrupted power to fully charge and a 12v 18ah battery +- 6 hours of uninterrupted power if charging from its lowest point but if the battery already had half a charge those times would be halved and so on and so forth. This would be a single-battery solution but will make sure your battery is recharged faster.
Having the battery fully charged will prolong the lifespan of the battery compared to one continuously charging and discharging and running off a low charge.
Our Recommendation
Our recommendation would be to consider a dual battery solution for both your alarm system and electric fence which will automatically increase your security but also eliminate the reasons mentioned above in regards to your system not functioning correctly or dying.
The Sherlo 6.4ah Backup PSU will be mounted near a power point with a 12v 18ah Gel battery installed inside with a relay attached. There would be a 12v 8ah Gel or 12v 7ah Lithium battery installed at the control panel and this battery will remain fully charged and only be used once the bigger battery runs low and the relay switches the power over to the smaller battery.
This means your alarm system or fence will be running a 26ah battery solution which on average should keep the system up for + – 11 to 14 hours depending on the load placed on the batteries. There is a possibility we can use your current battery but the technician would need to test it to make sure it’s in good condition and then only one additional battery would be required. This solution will work on all alarm systems except AJAX.
Your other solutions which are pricier are a generator, an inverter or solar which will allow for the battery to get power whilst load shedding is in effect.
Don’t miss out on our February 2023 Dual Battery solution promotion. Contact us today to come and check your current battery and to quote.
