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12v powered relay or dry contact - any suggestions (NOT Fibaro RGBW)

Troels Kjær Rasmussen shared this question ago

Answered

Hi all

Wasted another weekend trying to get a Fibaro product to work, so I hope someone has and idea or solution that will work for something that should be quite simple...

Just a short desciption of the setup...

I have a solarpanel connected to a charger accumulater, which charges a AGM battery and provides 12V current outputs. That works really well. From the 12v netop I need to power some 220v lamps and other small 220v appliances. For that purpose I have a 12v->220V inverter connected - that also works really well.

BUT the inverter itself consumes quite a lot of batterypower and so does the 220v appliances, so I want the inverter to only run a few hours per day or when activated by an event in my ZIPABOX.

For that purpose I got the FIBARO RGBW CONTROLLER, to have a 12v powered z-wave device controlling the I/O of the inverter. I have now spent the entire weekendtrying to get the crap Fibaro to work as described in the manual - no luck - it is simply too buggy, params are getting saved wrong etc. and with 120X combinations I still cant get it to output a reasonable 12v current on the OUT connectors to go to the switchbutton in the inverter.

SO I´m looking for tips from anyone who have a similar setup and or which components to get. I saw that the MIMOLITE probably does what I want it to do 9-12v input + dry contacts - but before I waste another 70 EURO it would be cool if somebody had a similar setup they know works.

Quite amazing that there are so many switches, relays etc available, but almost none that run on 12v/24v/battery DC - would have thought this was a very common application, since so many devices run 12/24v

Hope someone can help, I am even willing to pay for having something that works build.

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Best Answer

Adrian Van Der Heijden ●

Also the Fibaro Binary sensor can do 9v-30vdc.

Have you tried to connect two terminals instead of just the one. It looks like each terminal is rated to 10V only.

Besides this I think your voltage should be coming from the adapter not through the rgbw controller. How have you wired it up, look at the picture on connecting halogen lighting in the manual.

Replies (5)

Adrian Van Der Heijden ●

Any chance you can just wire it in between your battery and inverter rather than connecting to the switch terminal of the inverter.

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Troels Kjær Rasmussen ●

Tried that also, but the main problem is the Fibaro relay will not output 12v at all. Max I Got it to output was around 7v. First problem was that it wouldnt accept the hex value for 9999 which would be the correct Setting for 4xoutput 12v instead of rgbw. Then the alternative was to output 255 on one of the rgbw outputs, but the Fibaro would not accept a value higher than 127 (half of 255). All values snive this would be transformed into a minus something. Eg 255 would read our as -1.

So all in all 7v is the max voltage it wil produce which is not enough to power the switch nor shift a 12v relay powering the inverter

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Marius ●

I think the Fibaro 2x1.5 kw relays can be powered by 24 volt. If you don't have two batteries (12 + 12 in series), you might find a boost converter to step up from 12v.

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David Ryan ●

What about this?

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Adrian Van Der Heijden ● ●

Also the Fibaro Binary sensor can do 9v-30vdc.

Have you tried to connect two terminals instead of just the one. It looks like each terminal is rated to 10V only.

Besides this I think your voltage should be coming from the adapter not through the rgbw controller. How have you wired it up, look at the picture on connecting halogen lighting in the manual.

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Troels Kjær Rasmussen ●

Hi all

Got it fixed now - doublewired the terminals and got a sperate 12v 70A dry relay. The RGBW controller now controls the external relay and all current to the inverters switch runs through the dry contact of the relay (see attached IMG).

This setup now works and seperated the concers in a closed low amp circuit for the rgbw controller and high powered 12v 40A circuit serving the inverter. Will install in the shed today and hopefully have lights for a couple of hours (it´s snowing :) ) in the garden tonight.

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Dg 27 ●

well done sir for getting it working

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frederickgragg ●

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