BooBox Flex Power Supplies

The Flex can be powered by 12 or 24VDC via a standard 2.1mm power or the molex connector. The Flex does not ship with a power supply, you must purchase your own supply based on the supply voltage and current of your outputs. It is highly recommended to use 24VDC solenoids, this will enable you to use larger solenoids without exceeding the maximum current capacity of the outputs. To size a supply, add up the wattage of all your valves, then add 5 watts for the Flex. So for example, if you are using five 6 watt 24VDC valves, that's 6 x 5 = 30 + 5 for the Flex. So you'd want a 24VDC supply with minimum of 35 watt capacity. You can cheat a bit here, if you know for sure that a maximum of only two of those valves will be turned on at any given time you can just calculate for that. If that were the case you'd only need a minimum 17 watt supply in this example.

Solid-State Outputs Each output can handle 500mA of current regardless of the supply voltage, this calculates to 6 watts at 12 volts, or 12 watts at 24 volts. This is why we recommend 24 volt supplies, you will be able to use much larger solenoids without exceeding the 500mA limit. In addition to the 500mA per output limit, there is also an internal fuse that will temporarily open if the sum of currents on all active outputs exceeds 1.1A for too long. The fuse will automatically reset once the excessive draw has been removed. This may sound like a limitation, but not really. Most solenoids draw about 5 watts on average, at 24 volts that's 210mA per solenoid. So four valves could be left on continuously without fear of overloading. There is an LED next to each output connector to indicate it's current on/off status.