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In this video we will show how to find the best replacement battery for a home or business
security alarm system.
We will demonstrate how to determine the specification of the sealed lead acid battery used in a
typical home or business alarm system.
Then we will show you how to take this information and use Atbatt.com's battery specification
search tool to select the best replacement option for your needs.
Open up the alarm control panel and take a look at the existing battery. It may look
similar to this one. Look closely at the battery. You should easily find printed information
regarding the chemistry of the battery along with voltage and amperage specific to your
battery. In this case our battery is a "Nonspillable Rechargeable Sealed Lead Acid Battery". It
is also a 12V / 4.5AH battery. You don't need to pay attention to the brand at this point.
Most 12V /4.5AH batteries will be the same size, however it is a good idea to take a
ruler and measure the physical dimensions (length,width and height) of your battery
for reference later.
You may also take note of the type of terminal connector your battery has. Most Sealed Lead
Acid Batteries for small security system applications use blade connectors for terminals. These
blades come in two sizes F1 and F2. The size of the blade will determine how much current
the battery will support. Generally speaking, less than 5Ah typically uses an F1 terminal,
5AH to 10AH is a gray area where you may see both F1 and F2 types used. For 10AH to 18AH
it is usually just F2 terminals which allow greater current to pass through them. Make
sure you order a battery with the correct terminal size. Otherwise you may need to return
the battery or buy separate terminal clips to convert F1 terminals into F2 terminals.
F1 Terminal width: 3/16" (0.187", 4.8mm) F2 Terminal width: 1/4" (0.25", 6.35mm)
If you don't have a battery to refer to, don't worry. You can find this information from
the manufacturers documentation plus it is usually on the diagram found somewhere on
the control panel. In our case the diagram is located inside the door of the panel. Here
you will find valuable information regarding minimum and maximum voltage/amperage requirements
The diagram should show you the minimum battery requirements for the device. In our example
the minimum requirement is a 12V, 4AH battery. Our diagram also indicates that you need a
12V, 17.2AH Battery to achieve 24 hours of battery runtime if the power is out.
In our case we are only concerned with burglary situations where the thief may cut the power
to the building or alarm and we want to achieve at least 4 hours of backup power to the alarm.
Since we know 17.2AH = 24 hours of backup power for this particular alarm, we can divide
24 by 17.2 to determine how many AH is required to achieve 1 hour of backup power. (24/17.2
= 1.39). We now know that for our particular device 1.39AH = approximately 1 hour of backup
time. We can quickly calculate the amperage needed based on how many hours of backup is
desired by multiplying 1.39 * backuphours desired. In our case we want 4 hours of bakup
power (1.39AH * 4hrs = Approx. 5.5AH). Therefore we will be looking to replace this battery
with a 12V / 5.5AH min. battery
Now that we have the specification requirements, let's hop over to Atbatt.com's website and
find ourselves a replacement battery.
Go to www.atbatt.com
Under "Batteries by Device" click on "Sealed Lead Acid". This takes us to the Sealed Lead
Acid Battery Configurator page. Here we can shop by brand and model number. In our case
we don't want to limit our options therefore we will search by more technical requirements
(chemistry, voltage and capacity). In order to do this we will click "Search by Specification".
This takes us to the specification search tool where we increase our search options.
Now we can search by Application, battery type, brand, voltage and capacity. I'm going
to select "Alarm System" under application, I will leave type and brand blank, I will
select 12 Volt and set a minimum capacity (Ah) to 4 with a maximum capacity of (10).
This will give us a broader range of options and if the price is within budget we may end
up purchasing a larger capacity battery. The results can now be sorted by brand, part number,
capacity, dimensions, price and so on.
For the purpose of this video I will sort by price to find the most affordable 12 Volt
5.5 Ah battery. Now we have some great options. Verify the dimensions and terminal type. I
want an F1 terminal. I see the Amstron and Power Sonic batteries are equal options for
the same price. I will select Amstron since I'm more familiar with this brand and notice
the part number includes "F1", this helps us verify it is in fact an F1 terminal. Click
the part number to view the product page and we are ready to make a purchase.
Another quick side note is if we go back and sort by part number we will see some that
read 2xAP-1250F1,4xAP-1250F1, 8xAP-1250F1, etc. What this means is you can buy a 2 pack,
4 pack, or 8 pack of this battery and get a little discount for buying in bulk.
Now we've ordered our Amstron AP-1250F1 sealed lead acid battery. We will go back and replace
the old battery with this new one making sure the positive and negative cables are installed
correctly. Be sure to contact your local Hazardous Waste Recycling Center to dispose of the old
battery.
This concludes our video on replacing your 12 volt backup battery for a home or business
security alarm. This video was brought to you by www.Atbatt.com.