Battery Monitors
I've nearly completed my upgrade to my Solar System(Pics coming when I'm done). Thinking(after the fact of course)that I should have considered a Battery Monitor in the upgrade, or at least preparatio...
Forum Discussion
MDKMDK wrote:
Sounds like he wants a "fuel gauge" type of monitor for his battery bank.
I'm fine with my charge controller's system status indicator, plus the One Place guesstimate of the chassis and coach battery states of charge. I guess some prefer a more precise solution, but that depends on calibrating the gauge when the bank is fully charged, which is what you're trying to determine, by installing the fuel gauge in the first place?
You tell when your batts are truly full by other means, and then reset the AH counter on the monitor.
Wets--by SG at baseline SG for full, say 1.290 or whatever
AGMs-by when tapering amps at 14.x volts fall to 0.5a/100AH of bank.
The monitor will have an ammeter to it, so you can use that to tell when you get down to the full mark for AGMs.
You do have to reset the AH counter like that fairly often because they get out of whack from recharging counts with not having quite the right allowance for charging efficiency.
Not a good idea to believe the monitor for saying the batts are full by its AH count or by how it gets to a voltage/amps combo magic system and comes up with a percentage SOC based on setting of bank AH size. That bank size is always changing for one thing.
Fact of life with monitors is to determine true full as above, reset the monitor, and use it as a rough indication where you are at until the next time you can get to true full and measure it properly. That still leaves the monitor as useful thing to have.
