Circuit for Redundant Power Supply

[BradParticipant]

Hi all, what is generally considered best practise for running the redundant power supply in a surface? we have an S7000 with with dual power supplies at FOH plugged into a seperate circuit to the stage (and mix rack) power. At the moment, both supplies are in this one circuit, and we recently had a fuse trip (obviously bringing down the surface). the problems we then had would have been mitigated by running the surface off another general purpose circuit.

Is it generally considered poor practise to run the surface of two different power circuits? In the old days we would generally want everything sound related on the single isolated circuit; is this a consideration any more when there is no audio cables running between the surface and mixrack?

Also, with the redundant power supplied, does “A” provide all the current unless it fails, causing a transfer to “B”, or do both units supply half the required load?

thanks

[ddff_lvParticipant]

I usually run each PSU from different phases/feeds. On the DC side of PSU there is not much intellect- just diode in series with each pSU voltage output.

[jfParticipant]

Best configuration

DC 1 PSU direct connect
DC 2 PSU UPS connect

[Mr-BParticipant]

Absolutely use a UPS, they are relatively inexpensive and provide a great deal of security.
I use a small 1U UPS built into the case for my S7000 supplying 1 of the PSU’s and the second is supplied direct from raw mains.
Same story for my DM64 but with a larger UPS capable of supplying not only the power for one of the PSU’s in the DM64 but also two PSU’s one each in a pair of DX32’s.
I also run one pair of media converters (one in the surface and one in the DM rack) from each UPS so in the event of mains failure communications between the rack and the surface are not lost.
In the very worse case scenario it gives you time to back up your show file and shut down the D-Live correctly.

Ian B.

[Jens-DroesslerParticipant]

Yes, UPS is a good thing. I’ve done this for years, mainly to trick Murphys Law (I never had a power failure, but I’m sure without the UPS there would have been several 😀 ).

The practise of using only one phase for sound and the others for light stems from the old days where sound equipment was prone to mains disturbances produced by lighting euipment and cheaper lighting equipment was indeed putting weitd stuff on the mains. With professional equipment that happens rarely nowadays. I never separated sound and lighting gear in the last twenty or so years, never had a problem. Sure on big events where I get multiple threephase outlets I separate sound and light to complete outlets, but that’s for other reasons. The sound on one phase lighting on the other two is mostly found with bands and entry level companies nowadays, using things like those cheap box-type four channel dimmers. Surely, a company that bought a dLive system has quality equipment, yes?

[WolfgangParticipant]

DC 1 PSU direct connect
DC 2 PSU UPS connect

that’s the way I’ve been doing it for years.

[Author]

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