Battery and Solar Panel Monitoring Project...
Got it all wired up! Here is a picture of the shunt mounted next to the solar controller: I had to cut out a small wooden panel to mount the meter as there was a cigarette lighter jack...
Forum Discussion
Nice work!
I am confused how you are getting Voc or Isc without disconnecting the panel, and you can only take one of those readings at a time anyway, so why do you need the second meter?
My copper pipe on the shunt is much longer so it can take more clamps at the same time, as when I use four portable chargers at once.
(Don't do that much anymore since I got the 100 amp charger.) Also I use it to clamp the solar neg wire to when going panel-direct instead of through the controller. You can also use it to clamp the controller-battery neg wire if they are wires with clamps on the ends.
You can also have the controller panel input wires be short pigtails with lumpy ends that will take those smaller size clamps you see everywhere in a little bag-one red one black, various amp ratings.
Then you can have clamps on the ends of your two incoming panel wires.
Now you can clamp those to either the controller's panel side or directly to the battery bank (pos) and the Trimetric shunt's copper pipe (neg) when you want to try for an equalize using the solar.
Actually, you don't need to use the Trimetric for that, since if you do it while in split bank mode, your Tri might be on the bank still in service, so you can't monitor the disconnected bank being equalized with the Tri, you can only take its voltage and SG. That split bank thing messes up your Tri's running tab on AH, so you need to reset that once you have both parts of the bank at full SOC.
I am confused how you are getting Voc or Isc without disconnecting the panel, and you can only take one of those readings at a time anyway, so why do you need the second meter?
My copper pipe on the shunt is much longer so it can take more clamps at the same time, as when I use four portable chargers at once.
(Don't do that much anymore since I got the 100 amp charger.) Also I use it to clamp the solar neg wire to when going panel-direct instead of through the controller. You can also use it to clamp the controller-battery neg wire if they are wires with clamps on the ends.
You can also have the controller panel input wires be short pigtails with lumpy ends that will take those smaller size clamps you see everywhere in a little bag-one red one black, various amp ratings.
Then you can have clamps on the ends of your two incoming panel wires.
Now you can clamp those to either the controller's panel side or directly to the battery bank (pos) and the Trimetric shunt's copper pipe (neg) when you want to try for an equalize using the solar.
Actually, you don't need to use the Trimetric for that, since if you do it while in split bank mode, your Tri might be on the bank still in service, so you can't monitor the disconnected bank being equalized with the Tri, you can only take its voltage and SG. That split bank thing messes up your Tri's running tab on AH, so you need to reset that once you have both parts of the bank at full SOC.
