I’ve seen a few different people fake out the battery supervision on some fire alarm panels by running the +24v of the Aux power over to the + side of the battery terminal, I was wondering if there are any large risks related to doing this.
I was also wondering if this same ‘hack’ could be used on any of my panels. I have both a Simplex 4010 and a 4002 and I have seen some references to using a capacitor on the 4010, and I actually believe that that was in my original thread from a few years ago asking some general questions about Simplex equipment.
Does anyone have experience doing this on either of these panels? If so have you seen any negative consequences?
I have used the capacitor fake out on both a 4002 and 4010. Even a small capacitor will work. I have used 33 uF on a 4002 and 100 uF on a 4010. These should be a 50 volt or higher capacitor. On a 4002 it works under all conditions. A 4010 turns off the battery charger in alarm to divert that power to the NACs. The capacitor will discharge during that time and cause a battery trouble which will clear when the panel is reset.
I would hesitate to connect the AUX power to the battery terminals and have never tried that. On both the 4002 and 4010 the battery charger has a separate transformer output at a higher voltage than the panel power output. This is to have high enough voltage to fully charge the batteries. It is possible that the charger circuit could “see” the other power supply as a battery in need of high rate charging. This could cause the charger circuit to be in permanent high rate and heat up unnecessarily.
[quote="Retired STR-SG" post_id=85130 time=1569874327 user_id=3047]
I have used the capacitor fake out on both a 4002 and 4010. Even a small capacitor will work. I have used 33 uF on both. These should be a 50 volt or higher capacitor. On a 4002 it works under all conditions. A 4010 turns off the battery charger in alarm to divert that power to the NACs. The capacitor will discharge during that time and cause a battery trouble which will clear when the panel is reset.
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Okay, so something like this 80v 33uF cap from Panasonic (https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Panasonic/80SXE33M?qs=sGAEpiMZZMukHu%252BjC5l7YbZJogKwR3uACjTNwTrdMIQ%3D) should work?
[quote="Retired STR-SG" post_id=85130 time=1569874327 user_id=3047]
On both the 4002 and 4010 the battery charger has a separate transformer output at a higher voltage than the panel power output.
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I find this pretty interesting as I’ve never heard of this before. I am assuming that it is either using a different tap on the same transformer or is just using different voltage regulation circuitry to create a higher charge voltage for the batteries?
Should I take special care to disconnect the capacitors as you would if you were disconnecting batteries from the panel to prevent damage or should it just be left in during power up and downs?
The transformer on both panels use secondary windings with different taps for the panel voltage and the battery charger.
I leave the capacitors connected all the time.
4002
- CPU 562-909:
P4-1 (gray) & P4-2 (red) - CPU System Voltage 21VAC
P4-3 (yellow) & P4-4 (brown) - Battery Charger Voltage 24.5VAC
- CPU 565-180:
P4-8 (gray) & P4-7 (red) - CPU System Voltage 21VAC
P4-6 (yellow) & P4-5 (brown) - Battery Charger Voltage 24.5VAC
Diagram of 4010 transformer connections.