Thoughts on this battery meter
Basck when I upgraded the wiring to the batteries, and installed my PD converter/charger, I added a voltmeter: I use this to monitor converter output, ie, when the PD is in boost mode, and al...
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I also use a DC VOLTMETER to read my two switched battery banks when in use. Reading the displayed DC VOLTAGE can only be used to get you in the ball park of % of charge. The only real way to determine % of charge is doing the hydrometer test.
However for me just getting close is good enough as I know when the bank drops down to 12.0VDC it is approximately 50% charge state and this is where I will stop using my batteries until I re-charge them...
This is the conversion chart most of us go by to determine state of charge. If your shown color bars corresponds to this chart then it could be used to tell you the approximate state of charge of your battery. I see 50.5 shown on the meter reading so I am guessing this is a PERCENT READING instead of DC VOLTAGE reading. I would rather see actual DC VOLTS being displayed but either reading would work for you I reckoon.
My homemade BATTERY MONITOR PANEL looks like this using two each 0-19VDC VOLTMETERs and a +/- 0-75AMPS DC current meter.
When we are camping off of the batteries this meter is our most important meter group to keep a close eye on during our one day/night run off the batteries. All is planned out to drop the displayed DC VOLTS down to 12.0VDC by 8AM each morning when we are allowed to run our 2KW Generator with the 30AMP Trailer Shore power Cable plugged into the generator 120VAC receptacle using an RV30A-15A adapter. This will recharge our battery bank back to its 90% charge state in a quick three hour generator run time.
We can do a good 12-14 cycles of the 50% to 90% charge state using our on-board smart mode converter/charger without doing damage to our battery bank. After the multiple charge state cycles we have to do a full 100% smart mode battery charge routine which takes over twelve hours of generator run time to bring the battery bank back to its full performance charge state. Since this amount of time is usually not allowed at the camp grounds this is when we will head back for the house and do the full 100% charge cycle then.
This is how we use our homemade BATTERY MONITOR when camping off our battery banks.
Roy Ken
However for me just getting close is good enough as I know when the bank drops down to 12.0VDC it is approximately 50% charge state and this is where I will stop using my batteries until I re-charge them...
This is the conversion chart most of us go by to determine state of charge. If your shown color bars corresponds to this chart then it could be used to tell you the approximate state of charge of your battery. I see 50.5 shown on the meter reading so I am guessing this is a PERCENT READING instead of DC VOLTAGE reading. I would rather see actual DC VOLTS being displayed but either reading would work for you I reckoon.
My homemade BATTERY MONITOR PANEL looks like this using two each 0-19VDC VOLTMETERs and a +/- 0-75AMPS DC current meter.
When we are camping off of the batteries this meter is our most important meter group to keep a close eye on during our one day/night run off the batteries. All is planned out to drop the displayed DC VOLTS down to 12.0VDC by 8AM each morning when we are allowed to run our 2KW Generator with the 30AMP Trailer Shore power Cable plugged into the generator 120VAC receptacle using an RV30A-15A adapter. This will recharge our battery bank back to its 90% charge state in a quick three hour generator run time.
We can do a good 12-14 cycles of the 50% to 90% charge state using our on-board smart mode converter/charger without doing damage to our battery bank. After the multiple charge state cycles we have to do a full 100% smart mode battery charge routine which takes over twelve hours of generator run time to bring the battery bank back to its full performance charge state. Since this amount of time is usually not allowed at the camp grounds this is when we will head back for the house and do the full 100% charge cycle then.
This is how we use our homemade BATTERY MONITOR when camping off our battery banks.
Roy Ken
