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British Columbia Frequency Modulation Communications Association
Mt. Seymour Emergency Power System
In efforts for emergency preparedness, all of the BCFMCA's repeaters and support equipment on Mt. Seymour operate on a backed DC power plant. This allows continued operation in the event of AC failure. The backup includes both battery and generator sources, to keep the system operating through an extended outage.
There are both 12V and 48V DC powe plants in use, to power the variety of equipment that that we operate.
12V DC Plant
In late 2012, using funding provided through a BC Gaming Grant, the DC power system was renewed. This included changing out the batteries, rectifier (charger), inverter, and some distribution fuse/breaker panels.
You can see near-realtime telemetry from the 12VDC power plant here
The 12VDC battery plant comprises of a bank of four, 115AH, 12 volt, valve regulated, sealed lead acid batteries. The cells are manufactured by C&D Technologies, and are model TEL12-115FNG.
The advantage of these batteries is that four of them can be stacked side by side in the bottom of a standard 19" equipment rack. This reduces the footprint required in the room by using normally wasted space (normally equipment isn't installed down that low because it is a pain to work on, unless you absolutely have to).
Some further information on the battery plant:
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| Battery Plant |
Each of the batteries is terminated on the battery termination bus with #2AWG welding cable. Note that the cables between the batteries and the termination bus are all EQUAL LENGTH. This is important to ensure that all batteries are floated at same voltage and discharge at the same rate (milliohms make a difference!)
The battery termination bus is connected to the Alpha rectifier shelf with parallel runs of #6AWG cables. This is the maximum size that fits the lugs in the rectifier shelf.
The rectifier shelf is manufactured by Alpha Technologies. It is their 12V Cordex Modular Rectifier System. Our unit is equipped with all four 250W rectifiers, providing up to 83A of charge/supply current, and N+1 redundancy.
The Cordex rectifier shelf also has a low voltage disconnect built-in to protect the battery plant by disconnecting it if the voltage drops to 10.5V (adjustable). The built-in CXCI controller is web accessible and allows you to view the current operation of the shelf, including current draw. It supports SNMP for remote monitoring system interfacing, and also supports sending out email alerts on alarms.
By hooking this shelf in to BCWARN (our internet connection at the site), we get real-time notification when trouble crops up, such as loss of AC, rectifier module failure, fuse alarms, etc.
Some further information on the rectifier shelf:
- Cordex 250W Rectifier Shelf Datasheet
- Cordex 250W Rectifier Module Datasheet
- Cordex CXCI Controller Datasheet
- 1kW 19" Shelf Manual
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| Cordex Rectifier Shelf |
The battery plant is floated by the rectifier shelf all the time and the equipment is powered directly from the battery bank. With AC, all power for the equipment is supplied by the rectifier shelf. In the event of AC failure, the equipment keeps on operating on battery power, until the standby generator starts.
Power distribution is by means of intelligent fuse panels. The loads are supplied through ICT Power remote controlled fuse panels. We chose the ICT180-12IRC because they offer an all in one solution for remote power control and monitoring.
The ICT180-12IRC are connected to BCWARN, and it allows us to remotely monitor current consumption on each connected device, it lets us remotely power cycle any of the ports, and lets us remotely power off equipment if we need to load shed (to extend battery run time). The fuse panel also monitors each fuse and will send an email notification if there is a blown fuse.
Some further information on the ICT Intelligent Fuse Panels:
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| Alpha Breaker Panel and ICT180 | Distribution Panel Rear | ICT180-12RC |
To power the AC loads on site (ethernet switches for BCWARN and the like), we have installed a 600W inverter. The inverter lets us provide uninterrupted AC power to critial loads by converting power from the 12VDC battery plant back to AC.
With about 400A of battery plant capacity, we have many hours of run time under present load conditions, should the site generator fail to start. That could be extended based on load shedding to maintain critical components.
48V DC Plant
The move to using Motorola Quantars for VE7RPT VHF/UHF presented a challenge in that they are only offered with a 48V DC input option (or AC, but that isn't suitable for our application).
So, in 2025, we installed a 48VDC battery and rectifier plant to power the Motorola Quantars, and other devices on site that can utilize this source.
Similar to the 12VDC plant, we are using an Alpha Cordex modular rectifier shelf to convert AC to DC.
For battery backup, we have installed an ECO-WORTHY 100Ah LiFePO4 lithium server rack battery.
The installation of the 48VDC plant allowed for some load reduction on the 12VDC plant, extending its runtime.
Site Generator
In 2016, VE7HHS puchased a Northern Lights NL643 diesel generator to be installed permanently at VE7RPT for emergency backup. In 2018, he built a completely custom sound reducing enclosure for it, and we had an electrician wire it in permanently via an automatic transfer switch.
The generator is monitored and controlled with a ComAp InteliLite Telecom generator contoller.
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| Site Generator/Controller/ATS | Generator Installation |
When there is an AC failure at the site, the repeater equipment will continue to operate on battery, while the generator begins its startup procedure. Once the generator is online and able to accept the load, the transfer switch will restore AC power to the site, and continue to operate on generator, until mains AC is restored. In the event of a generator failure, the equipment will revert back to battery backup.