What a battery monitor may not tell you

[avanti]

Moderator's Note:
At OP's request, I have split this thread into two parts. This one contains only messages relevant to the original topic. The rest can be found here:
http://www.classbforum.com/forums/f2...-you-9581.html

[RossWilliams]

To summarize, what the battery monitor might not tell you is your batteries' state of charge.

[booster]

Originally Posted by RossWilliams

To summarize, what the battery monitor might not tell you is your batteries' state of charge.

You just can't let it rest, can you? Have to get in the last, unsupported, totally biased, word. Sad....

[Davydd]

My battery monitor gives me the SOC down to the % in whole numbers. How accurate, I don't know but it seems reliable.

[Bud]

Originally Posted by Davydd

My battery monitor gives me the SOC down to the % in whole numbers. How accurate, I don't know but it seems reliable.

And Hey all, my latest battery voltage meter gives, provides me to the nearest one thousand! Does it get any better??? Oh, yes, a battery monitor.

Bud

[RossWilliams]

I think the point of the guy from the boat industry was that they aren't always reliable, its not obvious when they aren't and the damage to your batteries can be substantial when they are wrong. Their reliability depends on a wide range of factors that makes it difficult to successfully assure yourself you are getting accurate information. Its also easy to misinterpret the information they provide if you don't fully understand how it works.

Those were his points as I understand them. I would add, as is often the case when something becomes a marketing feature, they are sometimes being oversold on how well they work to people who don't fully understand them.

I ran into one guy who was simply using the amp count and subtracting it from his batteries AH rating. To be honest, for him it probably didn't matter. He was using the rv only in fairly benign weather where the AH rating at least close to reality. He had a solar panel to recharge. And he was only using power for lights and a cpap. I doubt he was coming close to damaging his batteries. But if he was pulling his batteries down close to what he thought was 20% he could easily get in trouble.

[booster]

"In summary", let me point out that the article referred to is addressed earlier in this thread with full explanations of what many of feel is incorrect in that article.

The big thing the guy said, which never is getting repeated in the repeated, repeated, repeated, claims monitors are inaccurate, is that he said that monitors can be inaccurate in because he thought that they were too complicated to get set up properly and when not set right they would not be accurate.

The author then listed how he would set the monitor and listed settings that would GUARANTEE the monitor would be inaccurate, because, IMO, they were very much incorrect.

We have a poster that is intent on making claims that monitors don't work, but he does not have one and AFAIK has never used, installed, setup, tested, or had one in the past either. He "monitors" $2500 worth of batteries with idiot lights.


One of the biggest, and most important, things a monitor will do is show you if your charging system is doing a good job, or in many (most?) cases if it is not doing a good job, or charging your batteries. For that alone, I think the cost of a monitor is worth it, unless you have a very low cost battery setup and can consider them disposable.


The very first post in this thread and the thread itself, were created to show the test I had run to determine what effect poor charging would have on monitor accuracy, so users would be aware that if can't get your batteries charged reliably it is very hard to be able to know how much power you have even with a monitor. It was also intended to generate a conversation of how to use the monitor to understand the charging issues and allow for and/or correct them. These charging issues are real and folks should be aware of them, but they are the cause of inaccuracies in monitors, not the monitors themselves.



I would suggest anyone who is considering a monitor read this and other discussions on this forum thoroughly, and don't fall for the continual "monitors are inaccurate" unsupported statements that are being made without getting the whole story.

I understand this is repeated information, also, but seems to be needed because the unbacked claims of inaccuracy are again being put in this discussion (to get the last word in?), even as the thread was just cleaned up by splitting off the last wandering diversions.

[avanti]

Recent posts in this thread have been almost pure rehash. I am closing the thread. If somebody has something new and useful, you may request the mods for an exception. (Use the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of every page).