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Alternate to AMX power supply
davidv
Posts: 90
I am looking for a reliable alternate for a power supply.
PSN 4.4
PSN 6.5
Has anyone been using a different power supply by a generic company?
PSN 4.4
PSN 6.5
Has anyone been using a different power supply by a generic company?
0
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AMX's electrons are no different from anyone else's electrons.
As long as your power supply meets or exceeds the wattage / amperage required by the devices and is nice clean DC power of the correct voltage, you should be just fine.
I have a system from my previous job that I ran from one 12 Volt 20 amp power supply that was laboratory clean DC power and it functioned flawlessly.
I completely agree with you. My engineering team is telling me that its not worth the risk. Do you have the manufacturer of the power supply that you used?
We use Mean Well SP-150-13.5 power supplies. They are switching supplies that have 13.5v 7.5a capability, plus over voltage and over current protection and are self-restoring except for a dead short.
You can get them from Mouser Electronics for $97, or about $60 from Falcon supply if you have one around your area.
These are modular supplies. You have to add your own power cord and they have DIN mounts available for mounting in racks, etc.
We've never, not ever, no never ever (never ever?) had an AMX 6.5a supply fail. We got a bad one once, but that was out of the box manufacturing error.
Anyway, yes. At your own risk. You simply can't tell what a cheap product will do down the road. They are built for hobbyists who know what to do when it fails, for whom saving $200 now matters more than replacing it in 3 years. But when it fails at a customer site, it costs you a lot to replace.
It better not be. AMX's power supplies do not pass inspection in hospital environments here, so we have to go with someone else's power supplies whenever we do work in a hospital.
That likely has nothing to do with their reliability though. I haven't seen an AMX power supply ever go bad in 6 years despite all the wiring errors made. You get what you pay for, someone once said.
Paul
Even well known brands (eg. Extron) have huge issues with the reliability of their power supplies.
It is a testament that I too have never seen an AMX supply that has gone bad, and many of those I encounter have been in the field for better than a decade.
I would advise that, given the choice, you should stick with the supplies AMX have sourced - unless the quality slips at some point in the future. Given their track record this hopefully won't happen.
It would be nice to put in a single 15-20 amp power supply (behind a UPS and AC regeneration unit) to power the entire AMX system and all touch panels instead of using 3 or 4 6.5amp power supplies.
We like using something like these breaker panels for managing individual device power, but it gets to be a pain to wire when you have multiple power supplies.
I was thinking something like this Rackmount Model
Thanks.
I don't know what Extron was thinking putting cheap power supplies in expensive switchers. If you have ever looked at one, they look like a cheap Chinese Radio Shack part. The replacement ones look better, but still.
Paul
When you put all the eggs in one basket, you lose all the eggs at once when it drops.
We always recommend an isolated power supply for the NetLinx and rack, and several, preferably distributed supplies for panels at any distance from the rack. Consider that in a big job you might have a quarter mile of power wire in all, and it takes a short only one place to take it all down if there is only one supply. With enough amperage available, maybe you can get a fire for your trouble, too.
And all that wire eats power too. We've often traced flaky and random panel mis-operation to low power at the panel. And we've seen NetLinx appear to operate at low volts, but not be able to send RS232 and IR or close relays.
There's a good reason for the concentration AMX puts on calculating power needs in their training sessions.
http://www.altronix.com/index.php?pid=2&model_num=R615DC1016CB
Each output is limited to 3.5 amps or 2.5 amps respectively. It's factory set for 12vdc out but has trim pot that adjusts the output from 6-15vdc (all outs). Ideally there would a trim pot for each out to compensate for the voltage drop of each output's wire run and at a max of 3.5amp it dosen't quite cut it your larger TPs. It's rack mountable and looks cool but how well it's built and how reliable it is any bodies guess.
I did buy one a few years back cuz I do like the idea of central power since it makes "rebooting" the connected devices easier but as JN said some runs are just to long and are really suited for local power supplies unless a heavy gauge wire is run and even then sometimes it's just to far. It never made it out of the box so if anybody wants a deal......
Wow. As easy as it is to get a short on the nasty phoenix connectors at a panel, I wouldn't want all that current available everywhere. Ever see what a spark shower you can get from a car battery short? This is one easy path to a fire. How's your business insurance carrier with this practice?
I think you missed this " (through an individually fused power take-off panel)". But otherwise you would have the portentail of running high current through undersized wires an that could be bad. A dead short could cause the wire to turn cherry red before anything tripped. Even with a medium resistive short the wires could get hot enough to burn.
I also like the modular, higher current medels as well such as those from TwinFly.
On several systems I have used two supplies where one is a backup. Power supply one feeds the system and holds a switchover relay open. If the power supply would quit, the switchover relay would close and allow power supply two to power the system. A large electrolytic cap across the DC output of the relay provides enough backup for that moment of switchover to prevent any errors. You can also use an additional pole of the relay to close a controller's I/O port to notify of power supply problems.
I understand the risk of putting the whole system on a single point of failure and that is a decision that I have been debating with myself.
We routinely run centralized power setups, but it is with multiple PSN-6.5s and multiple AC-RKs. We overcome voltage drop by pulling properly sized wire to the touch panel locations.
Wire shorts and fires are not a problem. I don't think anyone on these forums would be dumb enough to run a lot of current throughout a large house without fuses or breakers. The Paneltronics power panel that I liked above is available in 4,8,or 16 port modules and every switch is actually a circuit breaker that is configurable per order from 2.5 Amp - 20 Amp, so every output is individually protected and the homeowner is able to reset the panels without help from us.
There isn't always a choice though. I remember like it was yesterday, installing a telephone system and telling the homeowner he absolutely had to get his electrician in to provide a dedicated outlet for it. The only one available was a GFI that fed his outdoor lighting. Of course, he didn't do it. Every time it rained, he lost his telephones and called in a panic. For years I would run out there, reset the breaker, and explain once again why he really needed that outlet. In the end, I guess he decided it was cheaper for a service call to reset the breaker than pay an electrician, because he never did get it done.
I have repaired NUMEROUS Extron and AMX power supplies over the past couple years. Most of the time an electrolytic capacitor has failed.
ERIC
98% of dead extron switches are the power supply and nothing else...