Betteries disconnected, wall monitor showing full charge.

Dirtyrhoades77 wrote:
Thanks for the replies guys. I turned off the breaker that the converter is connected to, and of course it shows zero, as the wall monitor is a 12 volt device, so it didn't work at all.

Just because it is plugged into shore power doesn't mean it should show full charge should it? That makes it entirely useless for checking battery levels.
Surely it should be showing the actual level of the batteries, whether or not I'm plugged in, shouldn't it? It's labeled "Batt Cond" after all...

The batteries are disconnected in the first place because they were way below 12 volts. The converter is not charging them, and while the batteries were disconnected to charge on a trickle charger, I noticed the wall monitor still says full. That can't the intended behavior. Something must be miswired.

You don’t have to completely shut off shore power. Just shut off the converter breaker.

But it’s not really possible to have a simple readout to determine battery condition while the converter is on. The converter raises the voltage on the battery to charge it, so that’s what you’ll read. It really doesn’t matter though, because if you are on shore power for more than a few hours your battery is going to be as charged as it’s going to get, so checking the monitor is pointless.

Thanks for the replies guys. I turned off the breaker that the converter is connected to, and of course it shows zero, as the wall monitor is a 12 volt device, so it didn't work at all.

Just because it is plugged into shore power doesn't mean it should show full charge should it? That makes it entirely useless for checking battery levels.
Surely it should be showing the actual level of the batteries, whether or not I'm plugged in, shouldn't it? It's labeled "Batt Cond" after all...

The batteries are disconnected in the first place because they were way below 12 volts. The converter is not charging them, and while the batteries were disconnected to charge on a trickle charger, I noticed the wall monitor still says full. That can't the intended behavior. Something must be miswired.

It is showing the line voltage from the convertor, unplug your shore power, it will go to 0

The monitors are simply a voltage meter.

Most likely the charger is running providing power to the 12v systems and the meter is reading that voltage.

An easy way to check is to flip the breaker that the charger is on.

Depending on the models, some chargers are OK feeding power to the 12v system without a battery in the system but it's generally not a great idea.

The converter is still producing 12 V as long as your plugged in. That's what the wall monitor is measuring. Unplug and with the batteries disconnected you'll show zero. The wall monitor doesn't measure directly at the batteries, it measures in line.