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Sine RFC-1/B Programming Question

Looking for someone who has put an RFC-1/B on a UPS and still had it set up so that it would turn the transmitter back on and dial out. Putting a wall-wart power supply on a status input will provide the triggering signal but how did you program it so that it only activated the transmitter once and initiated one dial out command? Trigger 9 "Exceeds the upper limit--unconditionally" looks promising but I don't know if it triggers once when it crosses the threshold or of it continuously triggers as long as the threshold is still exceeded. The manual says little more than to use triggers 8-10 cautiously as they can cause continuous alarms.
 
Let me explain this in another way...I can leave the Sine off of the UPS and I'll know when the power returns. Or...I can put it on the UPS and know when the power fails. The owner wants both--which seems like a reasonable request. I have until the end of the month to make this happen...if anyone has a proven way to do this, please advise!
 
If you have a room temperature circuit, power it away from the UPS. A 0 degree alarm will tell you the power's off.
 
BobOnTheJob said:
I can leave the Sine off of the UPS and I'll know when the power returns. Or...I can put it on the UPS and know when the power fails.
Plug a DC wall wart into an outlet that is not on the UPS and drive one channel with it. You will need a wall wart with less than a 5 volt output, or, more likely, a voltage divider on say, a 9 or 12 volt wart, to set the Sine input to less than 5 volts. Calibrate that channel to read the line voltage, and program it to send alarms when that input crosses, in either direction, a threshold of, say, 90% of normal line voltage. That will be your mains off and mains on alarm. Use the power-up action sequence (location 1008) to call you if an extended outage runs the UPS down, because you will have to reset the clock/calendar if that happens.
 
TomZ said:
If you have a room temperature circuit, power it away from the UPS. A 0 degree alarm will tell you the power's off.
Already using that trick on the room temperature circuit...when the door opens, the temp drops to zero degrees and triggers an alarm :). But I do have a transmitter temperature channel that can be multi-purposed.
 
Dale H. Cook said:
BobOnTheJob said:
I can leave the Sine off of the UPS and I'll know when the power returns. Or...I can put it on the UPS and know when the power fails.
Plug a DC wall wart into an outlet that is not on the UPS and drive one channel with it. You will need a wall wart with less than a 5 volt output, or, more likely, a voltage divider on say, a 9 or 12 volt wart, to set the Sine input to less than 5 volts. Calibrate that channel to read the line voltage, and program it to send alarms when that input crosses, in either direction, a threshold of, say, 90% of normal line voltage. That will be your mains off and mains on alarm. Use the power-up action sequence (location 1008) to call you if an extended outage runs the UPS down, because you will have to reset the clock/calendar if that happens.
That will tell me that the power is off (when it crosses the threshold from "within limits" to "below lower limit") but I don't think it will trigger an alarm when it goes from "below lower limit" to "within limits"...and that's what I'm needing. A call out to indicate that the station is back on the air so they'll know when the outage began and when it ended so as to know what spots need to be made up. Now I can set a separate alarm so that the normal voltage is above the upper limit and when it crosses that upper limit (unconditional trigger as the regular reading would never be within limits), it would call out. But I don't know if it will continue to output non-stop alarms once it crosses the upper limit or if it will alarm once and stop until the reading drops below the upper limit again. If it alarms once and stops, problem solved. But until I definitely know that this will be the case, I can't proceed.
 
BobOnTheJob said:
That will tell me that the power is off (when it crosses the threshold from "within limits" to "below lower limit") but I don't think it will trigger an alarm when it goes from "below lower limit" to "within limits"
It will if you program the trigger rule for rule 5 and set both limits to the same value.
 
Dale H. Cook said:
BobOnTheJob said:
That will tell me that the power is off (when it crosses the threshold from "within limits" to "below lower limit") but I don't think it will trigger an alarm when it goes from "below lower limit" to "within limits"
It will if you program the trigger rule for rule 5 and set both limits to the same value.
That may be the answer I'm looking for Dale. Using that method, I can set the transmitter temperature alarm at 10 degrees. When the walwart that powers it dies, it will alarm. When the walwart gets power again, it crosses the 10 degree threshold and alarms again. Are you sure it will only alarm once each way? if so, I think that is my answer.
 
BobOnTheJob said:
Are you sure it will only alarm once each way?
Thr RFC-1/1B does not stack alarms. If multiple alarms occur at the same time it sends calls out for only one first alarm. When I get an alarm call I always check other channels to see what other alarm conditions may exist.
 
Dale H. Cook said:
BobOnTheJob said:
Are you sure it will only alarm once each way?
Thr RFC-1/1B does not stack alarms. If multiple alarms occur at the same time it sends calls out for only one first alarm. When I get an alarm call I always check other channels to see what other alarm conditions may exist.
Ignoring all other channels and focusing only on this one, when the threshold is crossed, it will alarm exactly one time and will not alarm again until the threshold is crossed in the other direction? I need to be sure that it will not scan the channel every 80 seconds and issue a new alarm based on the fact that it will indeed be "above upper limit" each time.
 
BobOnTheJob said:
... when the threshold is crossed, it will alarm exactly one time and will not alarm again until the threshold is crossed in the other direction?
That is correct - it does not stack alarms so only one alarm is stored, and it will not store a new alarm until someone logs in to acknowledge the existing alarm.
 
Allow me to add this follow up question Dale...once someone acknowledges that the channel is "above upper limit", I need to know that it will not alarm again after that person hangs up...technically it will still be above the upper limit. I need to know that once it has crossed that limit, that it will only count as 1 alarm trigger and not continue to trigger repeated alarms. Thanks so much for weighing in on this...I do appreciate your expertise.
 
BobOnTheJob said:
I need to know that once it has crossed that limit, that it will only count as 1 alarm trigger and not continue to trigger repeated alarms.
It will not if you program it as I suggested for trigger rule 5 for that channel. There are ten trigger rules, some of which can cause repeated alarms. Refer to the trigger rules in the RFC-1/B software manual for details of how each rule operates. Rules 9 & 10, for eample, will continue to resend an alarm if a condition remains out of tolerance. Rule 5 does not - it sends only one alarm per limit crossing.

This is all really quite simple for one who has worked with Sine R/Cs for nearly two decades as I have and who is thoroughly conversant with the information in the manuals.
 
Dale H. Cook said:
BobOnTheJob said:
I need to know that once it has crossed that limit, that it will only count as 1 alarm trigger and not continue to trigger repeated alarms.
It will not if you program it as I suggested for trigger rule 5 for that channel. There are ten trigger rules, some of which can cause repeated alarms. Refer to the trigger rules in the RFC-1/B software manual for details of how each rule operates. Rules 9 & 10, for eample, will continue to resend an alarm if a condition remains out of tolerance. Rule 5 does not - it sends only one alarm per limit crossing.

This is all really quite simple for one who has worked with Sine R/Cs for nearly two decades as I have and who is thoroughly conversant with the information in the manuals.
That's what I needed to hear Dale...thank you. I've installed numerous Sines since the early 90's but this is the first time an owner has pushed for being on a UPS yet having it call out/restart when the power returns. I love the RFC-1/B...and now I'm even more fond of it!
 
BobOnTheJob said:
... this is the first time an owner has pushed for being on a UPS yet having it call out/restart when the power returns.
That is a standard feature of my Sine installations. I consider it very necessary to be able to report to management at what time a station was taken off the air by a power outage and when it went back on the air. I consider it also very necessary to know when a power outage has occurred so that I can call the electric company to report the outage.
 
I like to use old cell phone charges for my wall-warts. They are generally 3-5 volts and I have a bunch of them lying around from old phone I no longer have.

Like everybody else has said, just connect the wall-wart to an open channel on the sine and plug it into the "surge protected only" side of your UPS. Then plug the Sine itself into the battery side of the UPS.
 
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