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Whole house "battery" wiring/power...

B

Bill

Jan 1, 1970
0
How about getting rid of all those batteries in various devices in the home
and connecting the battery connections to one central battery?

That is to run separate wires when wiring a home and these would carry say
12 volts DC. There would be a central large battery and battery charger like
the type used in a computer UPS.

Then at each electronic gizmo which needs a battery, use a "battery
eliminator" along with a voltage regulator to supply it with the correct
voltage. And plug this into a nearby 12 volts DC "outlet".

This could provide battery power to smoke detectors, carbon monoxide
detectors, HVAC thermostat, security system, clocks, digital thermometers,
computer UPS, phone answering machine, etc.

Then only ONE battery to worry about...

A 9 volt battery eliminator picture...
http://www.wirelessmicrocolorcam.co...ID=47&osCsid=86e4daf8d5319ed8efaa7a77410624ea
 
E

EXT

Jan 1, 1970
0
MikeB said:
If I am not mistaken, at low (12v) voltages, there is substantial
voltage loss in longer cable runs. Also, many DC devices operate on
other voltages, like 9V, 6V, 19V, 20V, etc. There is also not a
universal DC power outlet, unless you think of the car lighter type
plug, but I've seen other outlets in airplanes, etc.

That means my camera, TV remote controls and many other items would revert
to "wired", each with a wire running to a plug!!!!!!!! No way!!!!!!!!
 
J

Jules

Jan 1, 1970
0
How about getting rid of all those batteries in various devices in the home
and connecting the battery connections to one central battery?

That is to run separate wires when wiring a home and these would carry say
12 volts DC. There would be a central large battery and battery charger like
the type used in a computer UPS.

When I was thinking about this, I was going to put a bank of inexpensive
(relatively) car/truck batteries in a dedicated vented area out behind my
workshop and potentially move to 24VDC rather than 12 due to the losses
involved in low-voltage DC appls over any kind of distance (initially
testing just for the workshop, and if successful wiring the house, too).

Charging / supplemental power could be via all sorts of means, of course.
Then at each electronic gizmo which needs a battery, use a "battery
eliminator" along with a voltage regulator to supply it with the correct
voltage. And plug this into a nearby 12 volts DC "outlet".

The problem is that you'll either have the inefficiency of running DC-DC
convertors all over the place, or in hacking your devices to better match
them to the available power (lots of stuff does the regulation on-board
rather than in the wall-wart).

Personally I was thinking along the lines of doing it to power some of
the lighting and things like my laptop which can be easily adapted, but
it wouldn't be possible to completely switch off the AC supply at present
- but maybe one day there'll be a standard for low-voltage DC outlets and
devices will be available that'll just use them.

cheers

Jules
 
J

James Sweet

Jan 1, 1970
0
Bill said:
How about getting rid of all those batteries in various devices in the home
and connecting the battery connections to one central battery?

That is to run separate wires when wiring a home and these would carry say
12 volts DC. There would be a central large battery and battery charger like
the type used in a computer UPS.

Then at each electronic gizmo which needs a battery, use a "battery
eliminator" along with a voltage regulator to supply it with the correct
voltage. And plug this into a nearby 12 volts DC "outlet".

This could provide battery power to smoke detectors, carbon monoxide
detectors, HVAC thermostat, security system, clocks, digital thermometers,
computer UPS, phone answering machine, etc.

Then only ONE battery to worry about...

A 9 volt battery eliminator picture...
http://www.wirelessmicrocolorcam.co...ID=47&osCsid=86e4daf8d5319ed8efaa7a77410624ea


Or how about saving all that hassle and just using a switchmode wall
wart to power each battery operated device? Those are pretty efficient
these days, and cheap.

I can't actually think of anything battery powered in my house that
doesn't require portability, except for my weather station but the
Eneloops in that go around a year on a charge, and charging those is a
lot easier than running wires.
 
J

James Sweet

Jan 1, 1970
0
Personally I was thinking along the lines of doing it to power some of
the lighting and things like my laptop which can be easily adapted, but
it wouldn't be possible to completely switch off the AC supply at present
- but maybe one day there'll be a standard for low-voltage DC outlets and
devices will be available that'll just use them.


There already are, have been for decades. Originally they were cigarette
lighters, but these days plenty are designed as power receptacles only.

As someone else said, there's far too much loss in 12V to pipe it all
over the house, you get much higher efficiency by converting the 120 or
240V already wired at each point of use.
 
J

James Sweet

Jan 1, 1970
0
bob said:
feds should mandate a wall wort standard, the wide variety of them
clogging the landfills is very wasteful. all wall wart devices could
be designed to accept a standard voltage.,....... same for a cell
phone charger standard to cut down on trash



There's only a handful of different voltages in common use. Most stuff
is 5V, 9V, or 12V, with 5 and 12 being the most common.

I save wall warts and reuse them all the time, I don't think we need a
law to mandate they all be the same.
 
K

krw

Jan 1, 1970
0
How about getting rid of all those batteries in various devices in the home
and connecting the battery connections to one central battery?

That is to run separate wires when wiring a home and these would carry say
12 volts DC. There would be a central large battery and battery charger like
the type used in a computer UPS.

Then at each electronic gizmo which needs a battery, use a "battery
eliminator" along with a voltage regulator to supply it with the correct
voltage. And plug this into a nearby 12 volts DC "outlet".

This could provide battery power to smoke detectors, carbon monoxide
detectors, HVAC thermostat, security system, clocks, digital thermometers,
computer UPS, phone answering machine, etc.

Then only ONE battery to worry about...

A 9 volt battery eliminator picture...
http://www.wirelessmicrocolorcam.co...ID=47&osCsid=86e4daf8d5319ed8efaa7a77410624ea

Hmm, I generally use batteries for *PORTABLE* devices. The stuff that
sits in one place is all AC operated. I think your idea needs work.
 
J

James Sweet

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ed said:
His idea may need work, but I still have plenty non portable things with
battery power or battery backup. Both thermostats have AA cells. My light
timer and clock radio use batteries for backup. Telephone memory has 4
cells, a caller ID unit has a 9V. Some of those items have plug in
adapters, some don't. I have one smoke/co detector that is battery
operated, the others are had wired.


The batteries in clocks and thermostats generally last years. Smoke
alarms are best served by lithium cells which will last 5-10 years. For
everything else, there's rechargeable cells. They have improved a great
deal in recent years and I find they work well in nearly everything.

I got sick of the 9V batteries in my clocks always being dead when I
needed them so I added a resistor across the isolation diode and
installed a "9V" NiCD battery in each of them which is trickle charged
through the resistor. It's been great, I've never had to reset a clock
after a power outage since.
 
S

Stormin Mormon

Jan 1, 1970
0
There is already a trend, in the free market. Lets encourage
them (as consumers). The last thing the USA needs is more
federal regulation.

--
Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..



feds should mandate a wall wort standard, the wide variety
of them
clogging the landfills is very wasteful. all wall wart
devices could
be designed to accept a standard voltage.,....... same for a
cell
phone charger standard to cut down on trash
 
B

Bill

Jan 1, 1970
0
"bob haller" wrote in message
...all wall wart devices could be designed to accept a standard
voltage.,....... same for a cell phone charger standard to cut down on
trash

That is another interesting idea!

Many "wall warts" provide DC to all these electronic gizmos. So perhaps
connect these to the DC system - do away with the "wall warts".

So the central battery would provide battery backup AND DC power to
electronic gizmos (instead of using wall warts).

This could help to solve another problem which is voltage surges. The "whole
house" DC electronic power supply in the home could be well protected from
voltage surges, thus you don't need surge protectors at every outlet where
an electronic device is plugged in.

Also these electronic gizmos would continue to work during power outages.

As to voltage drop, make the main supply 24 volts DC if necessary. That
should give you over 12 volts DC at the end of the line.
 
K

krw

Jan 1, 1970
0
His idea may need work, but I still have plenty non portable things with
battery power or battery backup.

Most have none ;maybe an old clock radio.
Both thermostats have AA cells.

Nope. None here. Both powered off the heat pumps. It doesn't take
much of a battery to keep a clock going. A button cell should last
the life of the clock.
My light timer and clock radio use batteries for backup. Telephone memory has 4
cells, a caller ID unit has a 9V. Some of those items have plug in
adapters, some don't.

See above. You bought junk.
I have one smoke/co detector that is battery
operated, the others are had wired.

Wired is a requirement now.
 
T

Tomi Holger Engdahl

Jan 1, 1970
0
Bill said:
"bob haller" wrote in message

That is another interesting idea!

Many "wall warts" provide DC to all these electronic gizmos. So perhaps
connect these to the DC system - do away with the "wall warts".

So the central battery would provide battery backup AND DC power to
electronic gizmos (instead of using wall warts).

One problem whigh you might ecounter when powering devices from
one DC power supply: Ground loop. If you feed everythign with
one power supply, is is very asy to get noise problems to system
if those parts were originally designed t work with their wall warts
what provide isolated power. Then worst case would be if one equipment
would have - side grounded to case and other one + connected to case...
This could help to solve another problem which is voltage surges. The "whole
house" DC electronic power supply in the home could be well protected from
voltage surges, thus you don't need surge protectors at every outlet where
an electronic device is plugged in.

There are whole house surge protectors that plug to main electrical
panel. The DC power distribution system on the other hand could have
it's own surges when things are plugged in and out...
Also these electronic gizmos would continue to work during power outages.

As to voltage drop, make the main supply 24 volts DC if necessary. That
should give you over 12 volts DC at the end of the line.

24V distributed around and locally converted to 12V or whatever needed
is a working idea. A suitable switch mode power supply circuit could do
that (and provide isolation if needed). The problem here is that you
need that small converter box near the outlet.. not much different from
small switch mode type wall wart in size. If you plan to hide those
things inside wall electrical box, then it would not be much different
than having the wall warts hidden somewhere inside the wall
(many same problems).
 
T

Tzortzakakis Dimitrios

Jan 1, 1970
0
? "Tomi Holger Engdahl said:
One problem whigh you might ecounter when powering devices from
one DC power supply: Ground loop. If you feed everythign with
one power supply, is is very asy to get noise problems to system
if those parts were originally designed t work with their wall warts
what provide isolated power. Then worst case would be if one equipment
would have - side grounded to case and other one + connected to case...


There are whole house surge protectors that plug to main electrical
panel. The DC power distribution system on the other hand could have
it's own surges when things are plugged in and out...


24V distributed around and locally converted to 12V or whatever needed
is a working idea. A suitable switch mode power supply circuit could do
that (and provide isolation if needed). The problem here is that you
need that small converter box near the outlet.. not much different from
small switch mode type wall wart in size. If you plan to hide those
things inside wall electrical box, then it would not be much different
than having the wall warts hidden somewhere inside the wall
(many same problems).
Indeed. Many things have proprietary wall warts anyway, with ferrite stubs
(like my turntable/RIAA preamp compo, each came with its own 16 V wall
wart;the preamp, a Cambridge Audio (www.cambridgeaudio.com) 540 PP moving
magnet preamp, 16 V with a ferrit stub, the turntable, a Pro-ject
(www.project-audio.com_ )Debut III with a physically (and probably
electrically) same 16 V wall wart, with the same male jack, but without a
ferrit stub). The only place I've seen that has a dc grid, is a 300 MW steam
power station, fossil fired with brown coal, but I have forgotten the
details, since it's been 15 years or so. It's in Kozani, west macedonia (not
the country, province of Greece). They needed it for the excitation circuits
of the main alternators. While large AC trasformers have a very high
efficiency (99% at full load) wall warts have a much lower, 50% IIRC. And if
they're DC/DC it needs more advanced technology. Not mentioning needing
probably #4 wires for the DC grid of a residence....
 
How about getting rid of all those batteries in various devices in the home
and connecting the battery connections to one central battery?


Remember that 9 volts will loose voltage in a short run. By
the time you get it trough a wire from one end of the house to
another, you might be down to 7 volts and that might not work too
well.
 
T

The Daring Dufas

Jan 1, 1970
0
MikeB said:
That URL resized my Firefox Browser window! Not cool.

Look at the URL, it's for a popup window.

TDD
 
T

The Daring Dufas

Jan 1, 1970
0
Bill said:
How about getting rid of all those batteries in various devices in the home
and connecting the battery connections to one central battery?

That is to run separate wires when wiring a home and these would carry say
12 volts DC. There would be a central large battery and battery charger like
the type used in a computer UPS.

Then at each electronic gizmo which needs a battery, use a "battery
eliminator" along with a voltage regulator to supply it with the correct
voltage. And plug this into a nearby 12 volts DC "outlet".

This could provide battery power to smoke detectors, carbon monoxide
detectors, HVAC thermostat, security system, clocks, digital thermometers,
computer UPS, phone answering machine, etc.

Then only ONE battery to worry about...

A 9 volt battery eliminator picture...
http://www.wirelessmicrocolorcam.co...ID=47&osCsid=86e4daf8d5319ed8efaa7a77410624ea

My suggestion would be for a 48 volt DC system. Plain
old telephone service uses 48 volts DC for battery and
PoE, power over Ethernet is usually 48 volts DC. The
wire size could be smaller than that for a lower voltage
system and the 78xx type regulators are very inexpensive
and come in a variety of wattage ratings for stepping
down the voltages. The technology to pull it off is not
exotic and can be done with all off the shelf parts.
Solar and wind power could integrate quite easily with
such a system.

TDD
 
B

Bill

Jan 1, 1970
0
THIS DOES'NT MAKE MUCH SENSE
IT IS DOABLE BUT WHY ?

In my case, basically for higher reliability of some electronic gizmos. Also
to have pretty much maintenance free electronic gizmos so far as battery
replacement goes.

I live in a rural area and the electricity goes out at least twice a
month...

And I've had problems with phone answering machines which need to have the
time reset each time the power goes out. Or other models the batteries wear
out quickly during a power outage. So my phone answering machine needs
constant attention!

Then I have about 7 battery operated clocks (due to power outages), 6
battery electronic thermometers for temperature monitoring because I have a
wood stove and want to keep an eye on the temperatures when I am in other
rooms of the house, then about 6 battery smoke detectors / CO detectors
everywhere (again for wood stove monitoring).

Basically I frequently need to replace a battery in something. It would be
nice to have just one central battery and not worry about it except once
every several years!
 
K

krw

Jan 1, 1970
0
My suggestion would be for a 48 volt DC system.

Think "transformer".
Plain
old telephone service uses 48 volts DC for battery and
PoE, power over Ethernet is usually 48 volts DC.

The maximum "safe" voltage. There is a reason power transmission is
in the hundreds of KV. AC.
The
wire size could be smaller than that for a lower voltage
system and the 78xx type regulators are very inexpensive
and come in a variety of wattage ratings for stepping
down the voltages.

You really want to waste power, don't you?
The technology to pull it off is not
exotic and can be done with all off the shelf parts.
Solar and wind power could integrate quite easily with
such a system.

Not everyone wants to waste ten times the power they use.
 
T

The Daring Dufas

Jan 1, 1970
0
krw said:
Think "transformer".


The maximum "safe" voltage. There is a reason power transmission is
in the hundreds of KV. AC.


You really want to waste power, don't you?


Not everyone wants to waste ten times the power they use.

Do you have the slightest clue of what the discussion
is about? It's a hypothetical discussion about a DC power
distribution system for a home. I neither seek to impose
a standard or ridicule the ideas of others. I do have about
four decades of experience with all things electrical and
electronic but sadly, I don't know everything. I wish I did.

TDD
 
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