Alarm Load Shedding Solutions

With the ongoing power crises in our country and load shedding firmly established as part of our lives, keeping our alarm systems functioning during power outages is a serious issue. Most alarm systems have a control panel that houses a 12 volt, 7AH or 8AH battery. Our personal experience is that the 8AH gel batteries do offer a longer backup time than the SLA batteries however they are still not sufficient during periods of extended load shedding. Further the useful life of both the SLA and gel batteries is adversely effected by the constant charging and discharging process.

New lithium batteries have been introduced to the market which provide a longer backup times which is great news, however these batteries cannot be installed directly in an alarm panel so some additional thought is required.

We have found a solution that works for us! We use an external boxed power supply, e.g Securi-Prod 3 Amp 12 V DC powered with a lithium 12V battery, to power the alarm beams and PIR sensors. The alarm panel is powered using a regular 7AH battery. By separating the power and allocating the lithium battery to the more "power hungry" devices, we have been able to keep our alarm system functioning even through the longer power outages.

For larger systems it is proposed that additional boxed power supplies are installed to split devices ensuring there is a balanced power distribution.