Forum Discussion
Bend
Apr 04, 2015Explorer
RooDude09 wrote:
... battery meter at 2/3 with nothing running but specific gravity was at about 1200...
Here is Handybob's description of the standard stock battery meter:
"First of all, you can’t believe the little “idiot light” panel that came in your rig. That thing is very optimistic and tells you the batteries are full at 13.4 volts, when they are actually nowhere near it (14.4 volts). It works by looking at the voltage present on the wiring, which will be much higher than the battery voltage while charging & much lower than the battery voltage when running loads. If it says your batteries are “full” while you are charging, you could be anywhere from 40% to fully charged. People that run their generator until the idiot light says “full” are only getting their batteries up to about 40 or 50%. They start their evening at the point my system would get down to after a week of rainy days. Last, if the monitor says your batteries are “fair” when you are not running anything, they are DEAD. So, how can you tell if your batteries are really getting fully charged? The most accurate way is to test the battery electrolyte with a hydrometer."
https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/the-rv-battery-charging-puzzle-2/
You did good by testing.
You'll find much better battery system monitors by searching discussions in the Tech Issues sub-forum.
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