Wiring overview

This page is technical in nature and explains the various connectors available on the Edge Controller V1.

Overview

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Power Input

The Edge Controller is designed to sit between your batteries and any other ancillary equipment connected to your CCTV tower. This is important so as the Edge Controller can many low voltage shutdown as well as being able to measure how much current is being used by the Edge Controller.

The Edge Controller has 1 port for a battery and up to 2 external charger ports. Typically only one of these ports is populated. The maximum power the built in charger ports can handle is 10A. For charge currents higher than this it is recommended to connect the charger direct to the battery using a Victron Smart Shunt. In this case power is connected to the battery input.

Each of the power input ports has an ideal diode to prevent backfeeding a charger and also to allow sensing of the charger port to see if the charger is working.

System Voltage

The Edge Controller is designed to be powered from 12V nominal. Our experience is that this is the most efficent votlage to run a CCTV tower at given most cameras also accept 12V input and you avoid having to have batteries in series.

If you want to power the Edge Controller from 24V or 48V you must run it through a DC/DC converter first to drop the voltage to 12V

The Edge Controller will handle all voltage swings typically seen on a 12V system whilst charging.

On / Off Control

The Edge Controller is designed to be switched on and off by a mobile router with a digital output. Most mobile routers such as Teltonika and Peplink offer this facility. This allows the router to remotely reboot the Edge Controller or shut it down to save power.

The Edge Controller has a 4 pin Molex Microfit 3.0 socket which matches those typically found on routers however the pin mapping is not always consistent. The 4 pin router connector also supplies power to the router.

The 4 pins on the router are 12V output (controlled), ground, open collector input (the digital output from the router), and the fourth pin is not connected.

The Edge Controller also has an external switch input designed for a latching single pole switch. This switch controls the delayed shutdown functionality of the Edge Controller.

When the switch is switched on, the Edge Controller will immediately send power to the router. The router will then boot and switch on the Raspberry Pi on the Edge Controller.

When the switches is switched off, the Edge Controller begins a 10 second shutdown delay. A signal is sent to the Raspberry Pi to tell it the switch has been toggled and the Edge Controller begins a controlled shutdown process to protect the hard drive from corruption. A message is also sent to the API to add to the event log. After 10 seconds, power is cut to the router.

The power consumption when the Edge Controller is switched off is negligible.

There is an override jumper available to force the Edge Controller on. Note that this forces the Edge Controller on regardless of the position of the on / off switch or what the router is doing.

The power to the router is fused by the 2A fuse directly underneath the router Molex connector.

Low voltage shutdown

The Edge Controller will also initiate a shutdown by itself if the input voltage falls too low. This is typically set to 10.8V. If the voltage falls to 10.8V, the Edge Controller will initiate a shutdown the same as if the power switch was toggled.

When the voltage rises above 11.8V, the Edge Controller will start up again as long as the switch is still on.

This voltage difference is to prevent 'bouncing' where the voltage of a battery rises after the load is removed. We have found this is a good setting for both lead based and lithium batteries. There is very little energy left below 10.8V.

The Edge Controller also has various software features to initiate 'load shedding' if the voltage falls to low before the cut off triggers.

Digital Inputs

The Edge Controller has 8 digital inputs that can be used for sensing.

The digital inputs are arranged in 2 groups of 4. The 4 digital inputs in the top right corner have individual 12v feeds that can be used to supply the signal. The second bank has a shared pin that can be used to supply the signal.

The 12V output on the digital inputs are connected to the accessory output rail which is switched on when the router switches it's output on.

The digital inputs are designed to sense 12V, but accept an absolute range of 3V to 24V to trigger as 'high'. You can source 12V from anywhere to feed the input, it does not have to come from the output on the connector.

Digital Outputs

The Edge Controller has 7 mosfet controlled outputs. 6 of the outputs are fused individually and the 7th shares it's fuse with the 6th.

The outputs are designed to handle a maximum of 7.5A each. The total load shared amongs all the outputs must be less than 10A. The Edge Controller can handle more than 10A (up to around 15A) but this will require discussion with Giraffe first.

Fan Control

The Edge Controller has a built in fan controller capable of controlling a 12V 4 wire fan.

The 12V output is controllable so a non PWM fan can also be connected and controlled.

The TACH input can be used to monitor the speed of the fan.

The DN and DP terminals can be used to connect an external temperature sensor using a NPN transistor (such as 2N3904).

UART / RS232 Serial

The Edge Controller has 1 built in isolated UART and 1 built in RS232 port. Additional serial devices can be connected via USB.

The isolated UART port is directly compatible with Victron's VE.Direct interface and we can supply cables with a JST PH connector on the end to plug into a VE.Direct port.

The isolated UART must be supplied voltage between 3.3 and 5V to work. It is not 12V tolerant!

The RS232 port has a 12V output which is shared with teh accessory rail. This is live whenever the router output is enabled and is not otherwise switchable.

Accessory Output

There is an accessory power output connector available. This is powered as soon as the router switches the system on. It is typically used if you have a ethernet switch that must always be switched on whenever the Edge Controller is running and where having control over the output is not desirable.

There is no way of togglign power to the accessory output other than by switching the router digital output off.

The accessory output shares it's fuse with the supplies for the digital inputs and the RS232 port.

Speaker Connection

The audio output comes from the 3.5mm jack connection on the side of the Raspberry Pi. This is a line level signal.

Please ensure that you do not connect the 'video' output to ground as it will prevent the Raspberry Pi from booting.

If you need to connect a powered amplifier, it should be connected to one of the power outputs. The Edge Controller software will automatically enable the power output when the speaker is in use.

Ethernet & USB

The Raspberry Pi has 3x USB 2 ports and 2x USB 3 ports.

Typically the SSD is connected to the USB port on the side and the Google Coral AI accelerator is connected to one of the USB 3 ports.

The RPI4 has limited USB power output so it is important to consult with Giraffe before connecting additional USB accessories.

We recommend connecting USB to Serial cables for Victron VE.Direct and similar to the USB 2 ports on the bottom.

Parallel outputs

Please see the relay board section about paralleling outputs if you need more than 5A per output.

Typical pin mapping

The below is how we typically recommend connecting accessories to the Edge Controller. However, it is entirely customisable and we can support any mapping via device definitions.