Renogy Battery Monitor vs Trimetric UPDATE- Camping Test

[BFL13]

Updates-12 May 22, 19 May

Somebody mentioned one of these recently, can't remember who, sorry.

Anyway I ordered one thinking it would work much like my Trimetric 2025 (the R's manual seems to show it will) so I can use it in the TC instead of swapping the Trimetric out of the Class C every time. The R is a lot cheaper than the Tri was if they even still make those.

I see the reviews in their link, but any ideas from folks here on how this R gizmo might do compared with the trusty Tri I have had for years?

https://ca.renogy.com/500a-battery-monitor-with-shunt/

[BFL13]

I still have not figured out the right way to reset the AH counter once I get the batts to known Full. I would like to push whatever buttons and then drop the charger to Float voltage and walk away. The video says hit the Up button?

At the moment, I have the battery picture on the left showing 200AH as Full (but 199 as soon as I drop to Float for some reason).

Not sure how I got that to show 200 after some random button pushing. Anyway after a few up and downs it does hit 200 going up, but I would like to know how to make it do that every time I want it to--namely right after I get the batts to Full.

Thanks for any help.

[LittleBill]

you can turn off the led backlight.

not sure why wattage or time left is useless to you, but to each their own.

[BFL13]

Got the Renogy 500a monitor installed in the Truck Camper and it does what I wanted it to. 🙂

Especially it shows the amps tapering at my setting of constant 14.7 Vabs to where amps taper below 1 amp for my 200AH bank where it is Full according to specs (1/2 an amp per batt). So I know when it is Ok now to drop to spec Float voltage. Got to have a read of both voltage and amps for that episode, and it does it as well as the Trimetric. (I have an adjustable voltage-manually--converter as the charger)

It does show AH going up and down like I want, but not in the same way as the Tri, so I have to get used to that for calculating SOC the way I do it. I don't do it the "proper way" with the Tri either so it is all good for my purposes.

I ignore the right side of the Renogy display which has all useless info for my requirements. (Percent full, Time left, and Watts something or other) I might just put tape over all that, no big deal.

It is very annoying when showing charging by pulsing the lighting bright and dim. So I have it in a closet where I only see it when I want to 🙂

The manual is useless on the settings menu for pushing all the buttons.

However Renogy has a short video that is better on how to work the buttons. Google, "Renogy monitor video".

That Renogy video is still not all the way clear (to me anyway), but there are many more videos that come up too on that Google search, which I have not looked at yet. I hope those will help if I need more button pushing lessons for "my application" (as computer button pushers like to talk like 🙂 ) after I use it for a while.

Bottom line is I got what I wanted for a decent price, so all is good. It seems there is more that it can do than I need it for, but you would have to learn more from those videos I guess.

[jaycocreek]

The Victron smart sense will monitor the voltage and temp without a controller attached,just the smart phone app,for $39..Kinda cool and inexpensive for Victron compared to others that do the same thing..

Pretty long range also for Bluetooth..way better than the Victron shunt or controller..

[3_tons]

Problem solved on the ‘first go-around’ for only about $130 US on Amazon!!

https://www.victronenergy.com/battery-monitors/smart-battery-shunt


FWIW, As my wise ‘ol Father in law (RIP) had once stated, “If you’re gonna by (a widget), you might as well buy one from somebody who knows how to build one”…

Over the years, this sage advice has served me well indeed!

3 tons

[StirCrazy]

pianotuna wrote:
Spend thousands of dollars on a battery bank--and then get cheap about a monitor for it? Seems odd to me.

who spent thousands and this was one of my first upgrades as there was no monitor in the camper whats so ever. so it was in from when I first got it with the car battery, then worked well for my 2 GC batteries and now it is working accuratly for the LFP cells. all I use it for is a quick reference to capacity at any given moment, and to see curent going to and from the battery, matches my fluke meter to the t. it doesnt controle anything so how about you come down of that mighty horse for a bit.

it is a well made version of the one you recomended and Myself, as well as about 10 or more others, that have installed them on this board can tell you they work great

[3_tons]

I’m in with PT!! Rather than attempting a ‘work-around’ to resolve a meter’s deficiencies, why not just go with a Victron ‘smart shunt’ (readings via bluetooth only - thus, cheaper than their BMV-12 model…). You’ll surely appreciate it’s accuracy, and IF you later decide to go LFP, there’ll be no need to purchase yet another meter 🙂

3 tons

[BFL13]

How do you hit the disconnect to zero the AH? The manual is not complete on the Menu.

Why not set 16 as voltage so it will not reset at 14.7 or whatever your charger Vabs is at?

Might cover the % with black tape 🙂

[pianotuna]

Spend thousands of dollars on a battery bank--and then get cheap about a monitor for it? Seems odd to me.

[StirCrazy]

BFL13 wrote:
Somebody mentioned one of these recently, can't remember who, sorry.

Anyway I ordered one thinking it would work much like my Trimetric 2025 (the R's manual seems to show it will) so I can use it in the TC instead of swapping the Trimetric out of the Class C every time. The R is a lot cheaper than the Tri was if they even still make those.

I see the reviews in their link, but any ideas from folks here on how this R gizmo might do compared with the trusty Tri I have had for years?

https://ca.renogy.com/500a-battery-monitor-with-shunt/

I ended up going with this one

I am using it in the camper and it worked good with the GC batteries and now with the LFP bank. I didnt need to pay the Victron sir charge, and I didn't need bluetooth.. this is just a solid little monitor that has been working good for almost two seasons for me so far. oh and its cheep :B

[BFL13]

Thanks LittleBill, gives me hope 🙂

[LittleBill]

Microlite Mike wrote:

BFL13 wrote:
The R manual suggests you can "zero" (as I call it) the AH counter by either draining the batt to zero or doing it when the batt is full. How stupid is that???? 🙂

This is another example of "advantage Victron".

A "Zero Current" calibration is as easy as disconnecting the negative cable from frame or negative bus then using zero current cal feature on App or meter itself.

Between adjusting Peukert Factor battery capacity in setup I've found my Victron to be extremely accurate when comparing the Ah use shown on meter (or app) after a set time with a known load.

for having a 500 amp shunt on it, its pretty darn accurate, like less then 1 amp accurate. and it zero's out when i hit the disconnect

at the end of the day, all care about is ah in and out, and the meter does it.

today ironically was my first real day using it (been on power the last 3 trips) and it did a nice job.

i re adjusted high v to 14.4 and its close enough on the % for me.

also has run time's at the current amperage, which is also useful.

for the cost vs the victron, it was worth it to me. yes i know i can tailor the victron, but i am not trying to squeeze the last 3% out of my battery, so for now it seems to work fine.

[BFL13]

Trimetric explains why he does not bother with Peukert, so Peukert is not the be all and end all. IMO the real problem is how variable Capacity is with temperature mostly and battery age.

I would not trust the % SOC reading on any monitor ever. All I want is to be able to zero the AH counter when the batts are full (as determined by SG with FLA or by amps falling to 0.5/100AH with AGMs) and let the AH go down and up till the next chance to zero the counter when batts are truly full again.

Looks like the Renogy won't let me do that as the Tri does, but maybe I can work around whatever it does. To be determined--as they say 😞

[Microlite_Mike]

BFL13 wrote:
The R manual suggests you can "zero" (as I call it) the AH counter by either draining the batt to zero or doing it when the batt is full. How stupid is that???? 🙂

This is another example of "advantage Victron".

A "Zero Current" calibration is as easy as disconnecting the negative cable from frame or negative bus then using zero current cal feature on App or meter itself.

Between adjusting Peukert Factor battery capacity in setup I've found my Victron to be extremely accurate when comparing the Ah use shown on meter (or app) after a set time with a known load.

[BFL13]

The R manual suggests you can "zero" (as I call it) the AH counter by either draining the batt to zero or doing it when the batt is full. How stupid is that???? 🙂 I suppose LFP guys could get away with draining their batts completely, but the rest of us have more brains than that.

Generally, all monitors will "drift" and need their AH counters reset (sometimes called "synching") when you know the batt is truly full. IMO it doesn't matter exactly why it gets out of whack such as for Peukert or inaccurate heat loss on recharge allowance, it is all the same what you have to do.

Good idea to compare voltage version of SOC with AH count version of SOC as described earlier to catch such "drift".