Another Solar Install
I finally have my solar installed, I want to thank all who gave me feed back and advise Calling Solar Gurus. I knew I was going with the factory installed solar wiring in my 2008 Lance 1181 so I decid...
Forum Discussion
There's no need for a fancy monitor in most cases. If you know when the battery gets full and know that you're not drawing down too much to harm the battery, you're all set.
Any decent controller will go into a low 14 volt absorption mode when charging and a low 13 V float when the battery is full, so it's easy to know from just watching the voltage whether the battery is getting fully charged or not. If you're not drawing down below the low 12's under light load, things are fine - no-load resting voltage is about 12.2 @50% state of charge.
Drawing down too much? You need more battery. Not fully charging? You need more solar. It's not rocket science, nor does it need instrumentation which will tell you current state of charge within a hair's breadth.
Anything more is anal retentive bragging rights.
Any decent controller will go into a low 14 volt absorption mode when charging and a low 13 V float when the battery is full, so it's easy to know from just watching the voltage whether the battery is getting fully charged or not. If you're not drawing down below the low 12's under light load, things are fine - no-load resting voltage is about 12.2 @50% state of charge.
Drawing down too much? You need more battery. Not fully charging? You need more solar. It's not rocket science, nor does it need instrumentation which will tell you current state of charge within a hair's breadth.
Anything more is anal retentive bragging rights.
