Without an accurate 20 hour capacity figure there is no real SOC accuracy in the Ah counter, only a close-enough or hip-shoot range. This may not be half-bad but is a a decent margin away from yielding an accurate SOC. Just be aware of this when you are assuming your Ah counter is accurate, in relation to your bank.
There are other gotcha scenarios that can rear their ugly head too. Please take the time to read the sister article to this one:. Despite all the way Ah counters can get tripped-up I suspect the big reason they usually lead to longer bank life is simply because they make owners more aware of their bank.
More awareness of your bank and charge source performance is important. More awareness can play a larger role than we may otherwise assume. Unfortunately it often feels as though I beat the drum inside a sound proof room and no one can hear it. When owners understand how an Ah counter works, they can be very useful. Most all of my customers have had longer battery life as a result of an Ah counter.
People often ask me questions about how to install a battery monitor so I took some time and tried to make it simple. They are actually easy to install but there are a couple of gotcha traps that you may find your self falling victim to.
The Victron units, featured in this article, are some of the easiest to install and also some of the least expensive. This does not necessarily make them the best or most feature rich but they certainly are a good dollar value. From left to right I have three generations of battery monitor represented. The original Link 10 was manufactured by Cruising Equipment Company and they really started a good thing. The XBM was the identical battery monitor to the Victron and was a very, very reliable device.
It also offered a computer interface option, something new to battery monitors at the time. They have proven to be solid though very expensive units. The Victron shunt is quite unique because they have added a printed circuit board to it so that wiring is much easier. DO NOT wire this backwards or it will not work properly.
This monitor is VERY easy to install. The UTP cable is 10 meters or roughly 33 feet long, allowing plenty of display mounting options. The UTP cable is the only wire that needs to be run the monitor display. The UTP cable is very similar to a phone cable, only slightly more robust.
If you click the image it will make it larger and easier to read. I tried to wire this up on the bench to replicate what one might see on-board a boat. This is explanation is just far to difficult to illustrate on a boat. I actually photographed this quite a while ago, on a boat, and decided not to use any of the photos. Obviously a house bank would be comprised of multiple batteries but the point is the same. A single battery was used for illustrative purposes only.
If your boat is not wired with a positive or negative distribution buss it can help organize the wiring tremendously. I use one for the house bank and one fuse for the alternator which I generally always wire direct to the house bank. A shunt reads the loads on the system as measured as voltage drop, in mV levels, across the shunt. This shunt is a amp 50 millivolt shunt. This means that at amps there will be a 50 mV drop across the shunt. Knowing this the monitor manufacturer can make the display correspond to any load from 0 to amps or 0 to 50 mV.
All DC loads on-board should be read by the battery monitor. Keep in mind that many marine alternators are case grounded and thus the system ground, which on most boats is the engine block, is the ground path for the alternator. While I much prefer an isolated ground for alternators many boats just do not have alternators with this feature and they use the case as the ground. Anywhere you see a green arrow is safe to connect DC negative load wires. In this photo I have a Guest battery charger connected to the system.
Take note of the location of the black alligator clip in the next picture for a good example of why it really DOES matter where your negative system wires are connected. Log in. JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Thread starter Bosun Higgs Start date 8 Jan Joined 26 Nov Messages 13, Location everywhere. Does exactly what it says on the box Phoenix of Hamble Active member.
We're delighted with ours It is however very easy to install, extraordinarily useful, and very competitively priced looking at the alternatives. VicS Well-known member. Joined 13 Jul Messages 46, Be sure to install exactly as the instructions say! Might be a good idea to read the instructions and wiring diagram downloadable from the NASA website to be sure you know what is involved.
Read the recent thread concerning the BM The Nasa BM1 only monitors the house battery. Joined 3 Mar Messages Location Essex. It works exactly as described but I would reinforce VicS' recommendation that you must follow the wiring instructions exactly.
I've little experience of it yet, of course, but I've already found one minor benefit in testing masthead lights. You can see the current drain go up or not as you switch lights on. Before somebody points it out, let me just say that I do know that I could have gone outside and looked to see if the light was on! But tricolour So far - I really like it. Georgio New member. G12 Member. A 1 amp fuse close to the starter battery will aford protection if a fault occurs. The problem of making accurate estimates results from the characteristics of the cells, the electrolyte, and the history of currents drawn from discharge and supplied to charge the battery.
Page 7: Normal Operation The effects of cell deterioration on the available capacity are significant. If the battery is charged for long periods, gassing takes place. The gases are Hydrogen and Oxygen, derived from the water in the battery acid. Loss of this water needs to be made up by topping up the cells if possible, or by avoiding lengthy overcharges in sealed cells.
Page 8: Switching The Backlight The three normal modes, and the keys which activate them, are shown in Figure 2, below. It is important to switch some load onto the battery for a few minutes so a reliable estimate can be calculated, and its value settles, before starting charging. Check the wiring is correct and securely terminated.
Check the fuse, and check that the battery is not completely flat. It is independently fused, and draws only 1. At such a low current, it would take several years to discharge a typical fully-charged marine service battery.
0コメント