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write your own review of the Duracomm RLP4012BBSCLVD.
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K7ICU
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Rating: 4/5
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Feb 14, 2007 10:54
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Good but expensive... 
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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This 12V 40A switcher has every available option Duracomm offers (battery backup, smart charger and low voltage load disconnect). It's very light and only about 2U rack spaces high. The front panel meter can be switched between volts or amps and and a multi-color LED indicates smart charger status. I've had one in repeater service at about 50% load for several months now, along with a 96AH (C/8 rate) SLA backup battery, and it's working fine. Note that the backup battery is REQUIRED (by design) for the LVD to operate properly. If no battery is connected and you lose AC or throw the power switch, the LVD "chatters" several times and "pulses" power to the load on and off. This is fine if you have a battery installed, but what happens when you have this supply at a remote site with intermittent utility power and your battery goes bad? You may or may not have a problem depending on what type of devices are connected. This is supposedly also not an issue for models without the LVD. This is a pretty sturdy, commercial quality supply, but if I were to do it again I might look into a Samlex supply with redundancy and alarm outputs, and an external LVD if necessary. It also needs a switch or breaker for the load. Turning the power switch off leaves the battery connected, so you must either pull your battery fuse or add a switch to the battery or load output of the supply in order to completely power down the load.
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