Battery monitor gauge upgrade
Looking for suggestions to monitor 2 trojan T-105 6 volts I presently use in my 30ft. Class C.
Forum Discussion
I have a voltmeter and a (bidirectional) digital panel ammeter that shows the charge or discharge current for the battery. Many of the inexpensive panel ammeters available cannot measure bidirectionally, and it required a bit of extra fiddling (installing a little isolated DC-DC converter so the ammeter's supply isn't referenced to ground) to be able to get the bidirectional readings, but it's most useful to be able to see both charge current and discharge current.
Mounting the voltmeter close to the battery bank is not essential for an accurate reading. Connecting the sense wires as close as practical to the battery bank is important, but they can be run quite a distance without materially affecting the accuracy as the amount of current they carry (and hence the voltage drop due to wire resistance) is miniscule. This is doubly true if you have the sense wires separated from the power supply wires.
The same applies to the sense wires from a current shunt, as well; they can be any halfway reasonable length without appreciably impacting the accuracy of the reading, for the same reasons.
Oasisbob wrote:
I would go with a quality digital volt meter mounted close as possible to the power bank.
Mounting the voltmeter close to the battery bank is not essential for an accurate reading. Connecting the sense wires as close as practical to the battery bank is important, but they can be run quite a distance without materially affecting the accuracy as the amount of current they carry (and hence the voltage drop due to wire resistance) is miniscule. This is doubly true if you have the sense wires separated from the power supply wires.
The same applies to the sense wires from a current shunt, as well; they can be any halfway reasonable length without appreciably impacting the accuracy of the reading, for the same reasons.
