Looking for a 12v UPS (battery charger and power supply)

[vinthewrench]

I am looking for a module that I can use as a 12V (around 5A max) power supply that will fall back to a simple 12v 6Ah type AGM.

My intent is to power the Raspberry PI circuit that I use to control the actuator that I use to open my chicken coop door. At full load these devices could use up about 5A at 12v. The motor only has to run a few time a day, but I'd like to keep the Pi circuit up for a few hours (maybe it's using around 300ma).

I have a small switcher to convert the 12v to 5v for the PI, and I tried using an off the shelf plugin battery charger, but those things seem to switch off after a while.. Any advice on a module that can do the job..

something that has 120v in, Battery +/- and 12v Power Supply out +/-

I thought that these things were fairly common, but I am striking out on web searching..
many thx.

 

[Bud Martin]

I am looking for a module that I can use as a 12V (around 5A max) power supply that will fall back to a simple 12v 6Ah type AGM.

My intent is to power the Raspberry PI circuit that I use to control the actuator that I use to open my chicken coop door. At full load these devices could use up about 5A at 12v. The motor only has to run a few time a day, but I'd like to keep the Pi circuit up for a few hours (maybe it's using around 300ma).

I have a small switcher to convert the 12v to 5v for the PI, and I tried using an off the shelf plugin battery charger, but those things seem to switch off after a while.. Any advice on a module that can do the job..

something that has 120v in, Battery +/- and 12v Power Supply out +/-

I thought that these things were fairly common, but I am striking out on web searching..
many thx.

What do you mean by 'switch off after a while'?
What is the spec of the actuator/motor? Does it have in-rush current rating?

 

[vinthewrench]

thx Bud. I mean the charger switches off. I am not even using the actuator in this test. but now that you ask , I have had luck using using the standard PA-14 https://www.progressiveautomations.com/products/mini-linear-actuator, at worse case it's about 5A, lifting up.. going down it's minimal. It's this project, but I have updated to an Rpi.. https://vinthewrench.substack.com/p/chicken-coop-automation-using-the-arduino-platform-4c572d9a940a

 

[Bud Martin]

Some of the battery charger will not come on if it does not sense the minimum battery Voltage is present, I do not know for sure why your battery charger comes on and then shutoff after a while. Make and model of the charger?
BTW, the power supply should be running at 80% of the max rating to give it some headroom.

 

[T-486 Ashepoo]

some Victron chargers can double as a power supply.

https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Folder-A5-Blue-Smart-IP65-Charger-120V_EN_web.pdf

 

[Samsonite801]

I am looking for a module that I can use as a 12V (around 5A max) power supply that will fall back to a simple 12v 6Ah type AGM.

My intent is to power the Raspberry PI circuit that I use to control the actuator that I use to open my chicken coop door. At full load these devices could use up about 5A at 12v. The motor only has to run a few time a day, but I'd like to keep the Pi circuit up for a few hours (maybe it's using around 300ma).

I have a small switcher to convert the 12v to 5v for the PI, and I tried using an off the shelf plugin battery charger, but those things seem to switch off after a while.. Any advice on a module that can do the job..

something that has 120v in, Battery +/- and 12v Power Supply out +/-

I thought that these things were fairly common, but I am striking out on web searching..
many thx.

Have you ever checked out Powerstream? They are right in my area, I've bought several DC-DC converters from them, they have lots of items to look at which could help.

I bought a 9-16v DC to 12v DC converter before, to power all my routers off 12v battery directly and it works good to hold the operating voltage stable.

Then the routers would just run off of battery power (not AC source) all the time, and I would use an IOTA DLS-45/IQ4 45a power supply (w/ the IQ4 3-stage charging piggyback module installed on it), to hold / float the battery full all the time (it would never shut off, it always works, except if the power went out)... They make those IOTA power supply / chargers in various different amperages, I just happened to go for the 45a one...

Would that be some kind of thing that could help?

Then you just keep the battery charged with the AC charger/maintainer (IOTA) instead (or a solar charge controller), and bypass the AC power adapter / UPS idea altogether...

Powerstream also has many other AC to DC power supplies, battery chargers, as well as custom UPS stuff...

Ref: Powerstream

Injection molding, Batteries, Battery Chargers, Custom UPS, and power supplies for OEMs in a hurry from PowerStream

PowerStream helps companies develop new products with power supplies, batteries and battery packs, DC/DC converters, and battery chargrers including information for design engineers

www.powerstream.com

Ref: IOTA DLS-45/IQ4

Amazon.com

 

[meetyg]

Are looking to use solar as your charging, or AC ?
If you go solar, many PWM and some MPPT solar charge controllers have a 5v USB port too.
A cheap but good solution would be a Wincong SL-03 PWM SCC:

7.99US $ |Pwm Wincong Solar Charge Controller 30a 10a 20a 3a 6v 12v 24v 48v 60v Li-ion Ni-mh Lifepo4 Battery - Solar Controllers - AliExpress

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www.aliexpress.com

I have a the 20A model. It also has a Load terminal that you can connect your actuator to (12v if using a 12v battery).
It has nice features like disabling the load if the battery gets too low (I think the USB is always on).

So in short, all you need is a small solar panel (20w and above), a 12v AGM battery, this Wincong PWM SCC (or similar) and some wires.

I actually did a similar setup a while ago, running an RPi for some solar monitoring.
Since then I move to a "smart" inverter with wifi, so I took this setup apart.

I found a picture, but this wasn't exactly the final setup.... (you won't need an inverter).