WHAT POWER SUPPLY DO I NEED? (ACCESS CONTROL)
As with any task you need to know what your ultimate requirements are before you can make an informed decision, in this case what Power Supply to choose?
RGL originated as a Power Supply manufacturer, and as such has a wealth of experience in this area, and the range of products to match it. Firstly though you need to decide what voltage
- 12V or 24V – an easy decision to make as this will normally be determined by what products you are using or what is currently being used. A normal bench mark is that Fire systems normally run at 24V and Access and CCTV tend to be 12V (but most devices can also run at 24V as well).
- Battery Back Up – do you want to have battery back up should the main power be interrupted? Most access control power supplies come with this as standard, .
- Box Size – this again depends on what additional control units or requirements your system will require. The small clam shell box (products containing SM-1) will take a 12V 7aH battery, and a small PCB board. The larger SM-2 hinged boxes will take 2 x 12v 7aH batteries and a much larger control unit. We then do SM-3 box and a -4 box. The SM-3 box can house 2 x 12v 17aH batteries and is a very large hinged box. The -4 box is an very deep box that can house a 12v 24aH battery, along with a number of other peripheral devices.
- Amperage selection – our recommendation, particularly when using a device that is permanently powered (such as a failsafe maglock) is to use a power supply that provides double the amperage to the devices being powered. For example a ML600-D-M maglock has 2 maglocks each requiring 480mA of current, totalling 960mA. We would therefore suggest a power supply that provides at least 2amps of current.
This is a very basic overview of power supplies, but if you need any further advice then please don’t hesitate to call RGL Electronics where we can advise you on the ideal power supply to suit your requirements, as well as a local distributor to suit your needs.
