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...
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I use the Trimetric as a voltmeter, ammeter, and AH counter that I can reset. (That reset is very important.) I especially like to compare voltage with AH count as a cross-check of "reasonableness" wrt each other.
Using the voltmeter in between the furnace being on (lights and fans off) is close enough to "resting" to get an estimate of SOC using the usual guides like Trojan's 50% is 12.1v. Ignore advice that this is not "correct"--it is "close enough" while camping.
If you have solar, take this "morning voltage" before the solar "wake-up" time. After that the solar charging increases the voltage.
Unfortunately the Trimetric is very expensive and it appears you can get the same info from gizmos on eBay costing a fraction of what the Tri costs.
It is true you can get by without a monitor, but once you have one, you would not like to go back :)
BTW the monitor that goes with a solar controller is a waste of money since you can't make any use of its info. It only shows the AH the solar did, not the AH your battery bank saw. (Solar can run loads besides charge the batteries, so the solar AH count is not the same as the "real" AH count.)
Using the voltmeter in between the furnace being on (lights and fans off) is close enough to "resting" to get an estimate of SOC using the usual guides like Trojan's 50% is 12.1v. Ignore advice that this is not "correct"--it is "close enough" while camping.
If you have solar, take this "morning voltage" before the solar "wake-up" time. After that the solar charging increases the voltage.
Unfortunately the Trimetric is very expensive and it appears you can get the same info from gizmos on eBay costing a fraction of what the Tri costs.
It is true you can get by without a monitor, but once you have one, you would not like to go back :)
BTW the monitor that goes with a solar controller is a waste of money since you can't make any use of its info. It only shows the AH the solar did, not the AH your battery bank saw. (Solar can run loads besides charge the batteries, so the solar AH count is not the same as the "real" AH count.)
