Help deciphering the monitor panel for battery readings

ronfisherman wrote:
...Not sure how accurate your gauge is. But a 12 volt battery reading 12.06 is considered 50% discharged. Needing to be recharged. You may find this page helpful. 12 volt side of life.

This is the important part of the article -

Old-Biscuit wrote:
Those 'state of charge' indicators are as good as tank level gauges.

Really want to know what your batteries are.....measure them with a voltmeter and a hydrometer

Correct. Use a real voltmeter on the batteries to verify the panel readings before believing what it is telling you. I was surprised to find out mine is actually accurate.

The date sticker is the last date the batteries where charged at the factory, not the date of mfg.
It still gives a reasonable idea of their age.

My indicator only works after charging has stopped for several hours. What it shows is entirely based on the voltage present at the battery so when charging it shows full, and continues to show full for quite a while after charging stops because it takes a while for the surface charge to settle into the battery. When power is being drawn from the batteries, the voltage drops and the indicator will read too low. Still, I find the battery indicator quite useful in contrast to the tank level indicators which are not.

If you have two batteries, they will normally be connected together, in series if they are 6V and in parallel if 12V. Likely there will be a date of manufacture on the top or side of the battery. If carefully used, they can last up to 7 years but discharging below half shortens the life and 2 or 3 years is common. The first sign of old age is the battery being unable to power things as long as it used to.

It also shows my Chassis battery at Half but the voltage on that battery is 12.1 on my meter.

Not sure how accurate your gauge is. But a 12 volt battery reading 12.06 is considered 50% discharged. Needing to be recharged.
You may find this page helpful. 12 volt side of life.

Old Biscuit is right; that's the only way to know for sure.

Those 'state of charge' indicators are as good as tank level gauges.

Really want to know what your batteries are.....measure them with a voltmeter and a hydrometer

My guess is that the panel itself may require 12 vdc power to operate correctly, with aux battery switch/relay on. Fleetwood may be able to provide info about this. An local RV repair tech may be able to answer this.

What do you mean by powered off? The Aux switch acts like jumper cables to your chassis battery (engine battery).