Reviewing Solar and batteries for retirement
Hello, I have a fiver that hasn't had it proper share of use and we are now getting ready to fix that issue. We tend to dry camp but will utilize campgrounds if available. We had solar (120 X 2) and i...
Forum Discussion
Crabbypatty wrote:
I have had Trojans t125 on my other TT for 10 ....... In our new to us I added 428 watts solar and bought the TriMetric 2030. The Tri Metric measures all kinds off things but I keep it set on Battery %. Simple read. .........
You will get into trouble that way. The %SOC is based on correct entry of battery AH capacity, which changes quite a bit with temperature, plus the AH counter.
The problem is that the AH counter gets out of whack and needs a reset. You can only reset it when the batteries are truly full as seen by hydrometer for Wets or by ammeter (no amps in)with AGMs.
So unless you keep those things current, your battery % figure will be wrong. A member here had that happen because he believed his monitor's % SOC and never cross-checked that with resting voltage per AH count, which you can do with the Trimetric.
The AH counter gets out of whack by not having the exact charge efficiency on a recharge, which us hard to get right, so you use the default for that. EG, you might find your batts are only truly full by hydrometer when the AH counter has gone up to Plus 15AH. Meanwhile, the Bogart instructions have had you at "Full" long before that. ( I really disagree with how they have that organized--I don't use that at all with my Trimetric)
Also, beware of the Tri with solar--read the part about disabling the automatic reset of AH. Otherwise it will reset the AH count every evening when it gets dark and solar charging stops. That can't help the %SOC figure either.
Just mentioning all this in case you really are not cross-checking the %SOC.
