GFCI, EB8, and UPS

[AlanM]

I'm trying to figure out how to connect my devices in a safe way while keeping a failsafe on the EB8 for power outages.

 

I installed an AFCI breaker, pulled 12G wire to the sump location, and installed a GFCI outlet at that location. I plugged a 1000VA UPS into it and had the EB8 plugged in to the output of the UPS. Then I plugged a 12V adapter into the other outlet on the GFCI to send power to the Apex main unit. I figured if the GFCI trips or if the house loses power, the UPS will keep the EB8 up and running a couple of Tunze powerheads and will send me an email because it senses the loss of 12V power on the main unit.

 

This seemed like a great idea, but if some device goes bad, the UPS will happily supply lots of power to the bad device even after the GFCI tripped, and the AC-DC-AC conversion process might even prevent the GFCI from tripping at all if I'm running everything through the UPS.

 

I have a couple of GFCI extension cords that I could use to provide protection to individual devices beyond the EB8. Is that what I should be using? Putting those protected extension cords on each outlet? I just can't picture how else to combine the pieces to keep protection from shocks while keeping some power outage failsafe.

[scott711]

What is your main goal? There are a lot of different ways to use your Apex to do power management/notification.

[AlanM]

What is your main goal? There are a lot of different ways to use your Apex to do power management/notification.

 

First goal is not burning the house down or electrocuting the fish. So Safety is first goal. (AFCI and GFCI and ground probe)

 

Second goal is livestock preservation and notification in event of power outage. (UPS and outage detection emails from Apex and failback outlets on EB8)

 

Third goal is ease of operation and maintenance on a daily basis. (EB8 programability and Apex web interface)

[Coral Hind]

Depending on your main pump or your lighting you may get nuisance tripping on the AFCI. I have had to remove both of mine from my tank circuits. I have over 20 AFCI in my panels but I had to go back to regular breakers for the fridge, washer, and the tank.

 

Having the individual GFCI cords is best so only the item which has a fault is turned off and not the whole system. Things like heaters and submerged pumps or power heads should be protected as those are the items that normally fail.

 

I would have one tunze and the apex power supply on the UPS. Adding more items on it will reduce your backup time. If you have a router in the house make sure it is also on a UPS or when power goes out the signal will stop there.

[scott711]

I am not an expert on the first, but I would imagine having your EB8 or UPS plugged into a GFCI would be the most helpful in achieving this.

 

Second, is not hard. A couple of questions. Do you have one or two EB8's? There are a number of ways to do what you want. You could:

 

if you have one EB8 -plug the 12v into the wall. Have the EB8 plugged into the UPS. You will use the feature called "Power Monitor" (this is in the system, Misc menu and is by default off). Then you would add some programming language to achieve email/text alerts and turn off/on devices.

 

If you have 2 EB's then you can do things a little differently.

 

to answer your third question. You can do almost anything with your apex. If you have programming questions, just let me know or post them here.

 

Keep in mind that if you want an email when the power goes out, your router/modem needs to be on a UPS as well.

Edited April 17, 2013 by scott711

[scott711]

My EB8's are plugged into GFCI outlets.

[AlanM]

Depending on your main pump or your lighting you may get nuisance tripping on the AFCI. I have had to remove both of mine from my tank circuits. I have over 20 AFCI in my panels but I had to go back to regular breakers for the fridge, washer, and the tank.

 

I'm prepared to switch it out if I get nuisance trips. I'd read about those, so I am ready for it. The wiring for the AFCI is a bit weird where both the neutral and hot go to the breaker and then a pigtail goes to the neutral bus, so it's annoying to replace because it would be more work to clean up the inside of the panel, but it's not that big of a deal.

 

Having the individual GFCI cords is best so only the item which has a fault is turned off and not the whole system. Things like heaters and submerged pumps or power heads should be protected as those are the items that normally fail.

 

OK, they're $20 each, so I was hoping to avoid a bunch of them, but 6-7 of them isn't so bad, I guess, compared to how much everything costs.

 

I would have one tunze and the apex power supply on the UPS. Adding more items on it will reduce your backup time. If you have a router in the house make sure it is also on a UPS or when power goes out the signal will stop there.

 

As I understand how the Apex works, you put the entire EB8 on the UPS, and it supplies power through the USB cable to the Apex main unit. The 12V power on the main unit is supposed to go on wall power, and you set the Apex to detect when the 12V drops, which then puts the EB8 into failsafe mode and turns off all of the outlets except for the one Tunze and the power it supplies to the main unit. Maybe I've got it all wrong, so please correct me if I understand it wrong.

 

Thanks for the reminder about the router. The FIOS box has a battery backup, but the router does not, so I'll have to get one for that too.

 

I am not an expert on the first, but I would imagine having your EB8 or UPS plugged into a GFCI would be the most helpful in achieving this.

 

OK. I think Coral Hind got me sorted on this. It sounds like I'd need to have individual GFCI cords to do what I want, and if I'm doing that I probably want to put the UPS and EB8 on a regular outlet. Doing it this way, however, means that I won't get an emailed notice about the trip because it will be happening downstream from the Apex unless I can set an alarm that sends an email when power usage on an outlet drops below an expected level of continuous draw.

 

Also, I'm not sure a ground fault would travel through the EB8 and then through the UPS and trip the GFCI plug it was plugged into, but if it did it would take down the UPS input, but the UPS would happily keep supplying power to the faulty device and frying whatever was in the tank.

 

I could always plug the EB8 into a UPS into a GFCI and plug the 12V Apex power into the same GFCI. Then the trip would trigger a power monitor event and kick off an email and switch things off except for a Tunze running on UPS, which is low voltage DC and less of a risk. But that would depend on the ground fault travelling back through the EB8 and UPS to be sensed by the outlet. I have one of those testers. I'll check that to see if it does.

 

Maybe Neptune Systems needs to start building individually switching GFCI circuits into each outlet of the EB8. 8)

 

Second, is not hard. A couple of questions. Do you have one or two EB8's? There are a number of ways to do what you want. You could:

 

if you have one EB8 -plug the 12v into the wall. Have the EB8 plugged into the UPS. You will use the feature called "Power Monitor" (this is in the system, Misc menu and is by default off). Then you would add some programming language to achieve email/text alerts and turn off/on devices.

 

If you have 2 EB's then you can do things a little differently.

 

to answer your third question. You can do almost anything with your apex. If you have programming questions, just let me know or post them here.

 

Keep in mind that if you want an email when the power goes out, your router/modem needs to be on a UPS as well.

 

I have only one EB8. I'm not sure I understand the 2 EB8 diagrams that I've seen.

Edited April 17, 2013 by AlanM

[scott711]

As long as the 12v power supply is plugged into a wall outlet (if it loses power), you can do most of what you are wanting. I haven't experimented with amperage reporting yet. Supposedly, it is with the virtual probe "Amp_n"

 

Adding a second EB8 just gives you more outlets. You can also add a statement to the UPS powered EB8 saying that "if Power EBx_x OFF". You can then program things to turn off/on based on a power loss. You don't need an extra EB8 to do power management.

[AlanM]

Scott,

 

Thanks for the advice. I went home at lunch and tested it out by doing how it sounds like you have yours. I plugged the UPS into the GFCI outlet and plugged the EB8 into the UPS and then put in my circuit wiring tester and hit the GFCI test button.

 

It tripped the GFCI plugged in directly, tripped it when plugged in to the "power protected" side of the UPS and also tripped it when plugged in to any of the outlets of the EB8 (when the Apex had them switched on that is). I hadn't expected it to work on the battery side of the UPS, but it does.

 

I'm also going to use an individual GFCI cord to power those devices I want to stay on if something trips the wall GFCI or if I have a power outage. So I'll have the Tunze on outlet 1, for instance, and I'll put a GFCI cord on that one, and will program the Apex to keep power to that one if I lose house power. This will shut that one off too if I do have an outage rather than leaving it as a risk. It should prevent the UPS from continuing to dump current into the tank when the GFCI has tripped.

[Coral Hind]

As I understand it. The Apex gets power from the EB8's. It has an internal battery for the clock only. The 12v power supply is what goes into the UPS so notification can be sent out when power goes out. When utility power fails, the Apex controller detects a power fail on the EB8 but itself has power from the 12v on the UPS. Sends the email due to the alarm statement. However you set it up just do multiple "failure" checks to make sure it all works.

[AlanM]

As I understand it. The Apex gets power from the EB8's. It has an internal battery for the clock only. The 12v power supply is what goes into the UPS so notification can be sent out when power goes out. When utility power fails, the Apex controller detects a power fail on the EB8 but itself has power from the 12v on the UPS. Sends the email due to the alarm statement. However you set it up just do multiple "failure" checks to make sure it all works.

 

OK, so that's backwards from how Scott says it works. I read the info on the Apex webpage, and that's what they say as well, which makes it sound like you need two different EB8's in order to get redundancy. One to report the outage, and another to stay up because it's plugged in to the UPS. This does seem to be what they describe here:

 

http://www.neptunesystems.com/products/apex-controllers/apex-controller-system/

 

It's possible that this has changed now, though, because in the Comprehensive Reference Manual it says:

 

There are two power sources available to the base module – via the EB8 and via a 12v adapter.

Beginning with release 4.03, a new option has been added, enabling the base module to detect a power

failure on the 12v port in addition to the EB8 AquaBus port. You can read more about this feature and

how to provide uninterrupted power to your controller in the FAQ section at the back of this document.

 

The FAQ question is on page 112 of that document.

[scott711]

Scott,

 

Thanks for the advice. I went home at lunch and tested it out by doing how it sounds like you have yours. I plugged the UPS into the GFCI outlet and plugged the EB8 into the UPS and then put in my circuit wiring tester and hit the GFCI test button.

 

 

No problem. It can get very confusing. I do a lot of things that used to be done manually with my Apex. There are also a lot of things you can do to alert you of issues, create "if statements", day of the week, and program down to the seconds if you want. Options are almost endless.

 

The Apex gets power from either the EB8 or 12v power supply. Most people don't have the power supply so it gets the power from the EB8. It is actually the other way around using the "power monitor" function. This enables the base module to sense a loss of power on the supplemental 12v power port. This gives you the ability to put your EB8 on a UPS and plug the 12v adapter into a regular wall outlet. If power fails, the ‘If Power Apex’ statement will detect it while the UPS provides uninterrupted power to the EB8 and through that, the base module.

[Coral Hind]

It seems as long as the 12v power supply and the EB8 are plugged into different sources, one the wall and one the UPS you will be fine. Scott's way sounds good, just write statements so if power is lost only keep on the basics like the tunze to save the battery from draining down.

[AlanM]

Ok, great. Yesterday I pulled wire to the tank location from the basement sump area for LED power (I am keeping the power supply in the basement because its fan is so loud), Tunze power, Tunze-Apex VDM signal, and Cat5e to the sump area, so I'm getting there.