Battery Monitor- good price, decent quality

[DavidEM]

I just ordered and mostly installed this $45 battery monitor- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1. It is a big step up from the $20 Drok that I tried a few years ago, and insofar as functionality and display it is as good as a $100 Renogy or a $200 Victron monitor.

Attached are some pics of the shunt (not final location), and three display settings. So far it works as advertised. My only quibble is that the display is light plastic and very light weight. I guess modern electronics is that way.

Everyone who dry camps should have one of these. It lets you see at a glance how many amphours you have left. How many posts do we see about campers who ran their batteries down and nothing works anymore.

The pic is showing 200 Ah for the pair of G31 AGMs that are full. Well, another quibble. The Changlish docs say nothing about automatically resetting the amphours to full if it reads 13.5+ volts for at least an hour. Victron's monitor does. Otherwise I think you can accumulate errors over time. We will see, maybe it also does this. Easy enough for the manufacturer to implement, just a few more lines of code.

David

[gte534j]

I was reading some comments/reviews on this device. Will it show the batteries being charged from the engine alternator? I dont think so as that grounding wire would have to go through the shunt. If so- that does not seem to helpful of a device as your battery level will never be accurate when charging the batteries via the engine alternator.

[DavidEM]

Originally Posted by gte534j

I was reading some comments/reviews on this device. Will it show the batteries being charged from the engine alternator? I dont think so as that grounding wire would have to go through the shunt. If so- that does not seem to helpful of a device as your battery level will never be accurate when charging the batteries via the engine alternator.

The single negative lead to the battery goes through the shunt. So ALL current in and out of the battery is measured whether it is from DC loads, converter charging, solar charging or chassis alternator charging.

So yes it will show current charging the batteries from the engine alternator.

David

[gte534j]

yup- that makes sense now that i have thought and looked at it more. It looks like a nice device once you calibrate it with drawing down the power on the batteries. FullRiver has a good chart showing depth of discharge and voltage. Looks like 11.6v is 10% battery life remaining according to their chart.

[ducksface]

Thanks.
So many people refuse to recognize how some technology has but one rule or circuit or plan and the $200 unit is a rip off.


I have a $20 similar unit on my other vehicles.