One Trimetric - Two Banks?

Pretty sure the second lead is voltage only and the primary goes through the shunt. Just contact Randy At Best converter and he will set you straight on battery monitoring. Trimetric

Call Ralph (Bogart Eng) 831-338-0616.he makes the tri-meteric meters

My E-Meter gave specific instructions to hook up one wire at a time to the meter, and to put in one fused +12 before the other fused +12. Because it was 1997 when I last read the instructions . . . .

Just thinking that if this is still the case, then you would be risking the Tri-Metric if you disconnect it improperly.

Fred.

You can monitor one at a time for AH etc. If you are swapping banks back and forth with the giant switch, then if you can arrange the wiring that the Tri swaps too (very tricky) you can reset the AH as soon as you swap to the now full bank to operate from and do the recharge on the now disconnected bank.

Otherwise you are stuck with the Tri on the bank where the shunt is. I am unsure if the Tri pos needs to be on the same bank as the shunt to power the Tri itself.

The switch on the shunt to battery neg posts would have to be a high amp switch to take the high amp loads (and charging if you ever recharged when connected)

You can have one full monitor including all functions of one bank and only a DC VOLTAGE monitor of a separate Battery Bank.

Of course if you have both banks connected in parallel provide DC power as one Battery bank then all functions would used in the one Trimetric TM2025RV meter including all of the history functions.

As soon as you break these two banks into separate banks then all of the data obtained while the two banks was being used as one battery source will not be valid...

When you start discussing the reason for two separate battery banks then all of the experts start asking why are you doing this. The standby battery bank should be connected to battery bank providing power to your load for the best results.

I guess that makes sense...


Roy Ken

If you have the two banks wired in parallel it does not matter if the Trimetric is measuring their combined charge state. For my camper I want to deal with it as though it was one very large battery.

If still not clear why not contact Trimetric direcly?

It might be possible. You would need separate shunts. But the problem is they act like a gas gauge, where it meters the electricity that has left the gauge, and when connected to another battery bank, it will start at reading "Full" and then count down the amp hours leaving the battery bank. As it recharges, it will start to go from say -50 Ah to around 0 AH after adding about 60 - 65 AH (it does not give full credit for each amp hour added, just the amp hours removed. Then added amp hours are at the discount rate to take into account in-efficiencies in the battery chemicals). If you keep charging you might see a +35 AH reading by the end of the day, indicating that the battery bank is now full, and a additional 35 AH was added after the removed amperage was replaced. This will happen for two reasons, such as being connected recently, or if the battery voltage is so high that water is boiling out of the battery today.

Anyway it is not like your car gas gauge, where you can hook it up mid-day and read how much is in there. It needs to be connected to the battery all day long to monitor the amps as they leave.

I have a "E-Meter" - a 1997 version of the Tri Metric. It works great.

I think they might sell a version that can be connected to two batteries at once, but not sure on that!

HomePower.com might be able to answer these types of questions. They have a few E-Meters or Tri Metrics hooked up at HP Headquarters, way out in the back woods, monitoring their solar systems, and main battery bank. They are off grid, and really know what they are talking about.

I would refer you to another site, but he retired a year ago, and would not be able to help.

Good luck,

Fred.