Battery monitor: useful tool or toy?
Hello all. As we prepare for FT (mostly boondocking) I am working through the 12v upgrades. Got the 600 AH of Lifelines in place. Two banks of 6v pairs; 4 batts in all. Upgraded the converter to 80, p...
Forum Discussion
Ductape wrote:
Question I have is an AH monitor e.g. Trimetric seriously useful, or is a voltage check just as accurate (more accurate?) an indicator of SOC?
Hi Ductape,
Since you plan to boondock and have AGMs (can't check SG), IMO a battery monitor is a must-have item! Simply knowing voltage is not sufficient.
If it were me, I'd tackle the solar and battery monitor installations at the same time.
Keep in mind that the TriMetric only displays voltage to one decimal place. If you are content with knowing the SOC% with only 0.1V accuracy on voltage then it will serve your purposes just fine. I love having my TriMetric, but I also installed a small panel-mount volt meter so I can have better resolution for the voltage.
You will also get significant benefit (in terms of charge time and performance/service-life) by upgrading to an inverter/charger with programmable charge parameters and temperature compensation.
Cheers,
-Mark
