In a car, this would be akin to pulling off the road, letting your engine cool, and then sticking a hose into your gas tank to see how much fuel remains.
But doing this involves sucking up battery acid into a glass tube. You can also very accurately test the state of charge of well rested flooded lead acid batteries by using a hydrometer to measure the specific gravity of each individual battery cell. That is not particularly conducive to getting anywhere….Ĭonsider the voltage meter to be essentially just a “guess gauge”, and not a gas gauge. Imagine if your car’s gas gauge was only accurate after you had been pulled off the highway for six hours. If the battery is not well rested, particularly if it is currently being used (even if just to power a light), the voltage reading is going to be off – and therefore nearly useless. That means no lights on, no charger connected, no solar running – essentially no use whatsoever. To get an accurate and meaningful voltage reading, your batteries must have been sitting idle for at least six hours, and preferably twenty four. The Oliver trailer includes a system status panel that will show you your battery voltage, and by keeping watch you can get a sense for how you are doing.īut there is a BIG catch. A fully charged 12V battery will read 12.73 V, at 50% capacity 12.10 V, and when you have just 20% left (critical territory!) 11.66 V. The simplest way to keep an eye on your batteries is via a voltage meter. Not good – particularly if you’ve invested in expensive AGM batteries. If you use the “lights are getting dimmer” method to tell that your batteries are running down, they will almost certainly be permanently dead within a year.
This is particularly important when relying on solar, because you will rarely know for sure what state of charge the sun has left you with.īatteries will last longest if you never cycle them below 50% capacity, and going over 80% drained starts to seriously damage even the best “deep cycle” batteries. But if you are going to do any sort of serious camping without electrical hookups or a daily dose of generator, it is essential that you keep a close eye on your batteries. If you fill your tank up everyday and never drive further than to the corner store, this strategy can work just fine.
#Camper battery monitor download#
The fused supply wire and the QuickLink cable are both included in the package, avoiding the need for a separate connection kit.įor more information, please download the brochure from the link below, or check this YouTube video for general installation information.Boondocking or “dry camping” in an RV without a battery monitor is like driving a car without a gas gauge. Furthermore, the battery minus cable must be interrupted in order to insert the shunt into the high current circuit. The installation time is minimal, requiring only one supply wire to the intelligent shunt base and a single plug and play ‘QuickLink’ cable between the shunt base and the control/display unit (CDU). So any lead- or lithium based battery from 12V up to 48V can be monitored. The Expert Modular battery monitor can measure DC currents up to 600Amps (500Amp continuous) and voltages up to 70Vdc. The inputs for battery bank 2 and 3 can also be configured for other purposes, like mid-point voltage measurement, keyswitch input or backlight control. The Expert Modular can monitor up to three battery banks.
The end results are transferred to the Control and Display Unit (CDU) over a digital cable connection, ensuring the highest immunity against external interference even in harsh industrial applications. All measurements and calculations are made inside the active shunt module, resulting in the highest accuracy.
#Camper battery monitor pro#
Unlike the well known TBS Expert Lite and Expert Pro battery monitors which are based on a passive shunt for current measurement, the new Expert Modular solution is equipped with an active shunt module. The Expert Modular is compatible with lead based and Lithium batteries (LiFePO4). It also offers a large amount of additional features to optimally supervise your battery system and control external equipment. This advanced battery monitor not only shows the true state of charge of your battery system.
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