![]() And by that, I mean the battery voltage that it senses at a given moment.įor example, if your water pump kicks in, the battery voltage will temporarily drop. This typically shows battery levels in 25% increments and goes off the battery voltage only. Side note: If you think that the battery level indicator on your RV’s information panel (the one that also shows holding tank levels) is any good, think again. The only good information was the voltage of the batteries when the solar panels weren’t producing, but this is only one piece of the puzzle. The information it showed me was pretty much useless. This means it runs on a set program and isn’t ‘smart’ enough to make adjustments during the day based on battery voltage, change in the amount of sun the solar panels are getting, etc. My solar charge controller is a ‘stupid’ PWM controller (As opposed to a ‘smart’ MPPT controller). I had zero idea of how charged the batteries were. ![]() That is, what voltage the controller was sending to the batteries. However, this only told me what mode the solar charge controller was in. I would then observe the battery voltage, as displayed by the solar charge controller, throughout the day as the solar panels charged the batteries. But I didn’t know how much actual power (amp-hours) had been ‘removed’ from the batteries. If they were closer to the 12.4-volt range, then they had a pretty good night. If my batteries were showing around 12 volts I’d know they took a good hit that night. The best way to observe the correct charge level is to observe the ‘resting’ voltage (ideally with zero load and after a few hours of no use, but this isn’t practical in RV life). With lead-acid batteries, you are not supposed to drop them below a 50% charge level for maximum life. This ‘resting’ state voltage would give me an idea of how depleted my lead-acid batteries were overnight. If you look at this screen when the solar panels are generating power, you are seeing what voltage the solar charge controller is sending to the batteries, not what voltage the batteries are at in a ‘resting’ state. I would try to do this before the sun was hitting my solar panels for a true reading of the actual battery voltage. My Electrical Life Pre-Battery Monitorīefore I had my battery monitor, my daily routine would go something like this: I would wake up in the morning and cycle my solar charge controller’s display through to the screen showing the battery voltage. Now, with VictronConnect, I can see how much power is being placed into my batteries from my solar system, how many amp-hours of power I’ve used, and when my batteries have been topped off. I’m even a bit weird about how much I enjoy seeing what’s going on with my batteries. This has turned out to be one of my most-used apps. With the optional Bluetooth Smart dongle (you can purchase the BMV-712 Battery Monitor to get built-in Bluetooth) I can monitor the battery condition via an app on my iPhone. It wasn’t until I installed a Victron BMV-700 Battery Monitor did I finally have an ‘ah-ha’ moment regarding what was going on with my batteries. No clue of the actual flow of electricity in/out of my batteries. I was able to see battery voltage, and that was it. Other than the solar controller’s basic display, there was no way of knowing what was really going on with my batteries. The main headline image in this blog shows that too, plus rigid panel rooftop solar.īack in the early days, I had a couple hundred watts of solar power charging my batteries.
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