Solar Controller Battery Draw Amount?
This is a confused sort of post because I am confused. I was trying to get to the minimum amps for knowing when my AGMs were truly full and to do that I tried to get all the other draws down to ne...
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BFL13 wrote:So, you're looking for when the charging current tapers down to some level so you know the batteries are full.
I was trying to get to the minimum amps for knowing when my AGMs were truly full and to do that I tried to get all the other draws down to near zip as possible. I was even looking at how the Trimetric monitor has its own draw and you should "zero" it, but I have not done that.
You're overthinking this.
Unless you've installed it in some completely non-standard manner, your Trimetric already does that as it is. You don't have to do anything. The shunt is on the negative battery cable, and the only current going through it is what's going in/out of the battery. When the battery is being charged, current to the controllers and all other DC draws isn't being measured by the Trimetric - it ONLY shows what's going in/out of the battery. The current going to other loads is coming directly from the charging source before it goes through the shunt and into the battery. They're "stealing" power which would otherwise go into the battery - the Trimetric simply doesn't see them.
When there's no charging going on, sure, it will show the current the controllers are drawing, because that current is coming from the battery.
