It's only numbers .... (1 Viewer)

[stcyr]

I flashed the cash a few weeks ago and sent off for one of those battery monitor thingies.

99p it was, AND £2.50 p&p and it arrived from China within days.

It's been sitting on the table for a while now so yesterday I decided to wire it up temporarily to see if it worked. Cool blue screen with clear black figures.

So far it's been very entertaining and time-wasting - bearing in mind we've been living in the MH for a year now and everything's worked A1 I'm beginning to think we should've remained in blissful ignorance of the many fluctuations. Been trying all sorts of combinations, on mains, off mains, with/without solar-panel, with/without Truma fans, halogen lights, led lights and so on. Well it's proved that the chargers work but I'm not sure if any of the various readings may indicate cause for concern...

1) left everything off overnight, reading was 12.40ish (+/- 5) this a.m. - went up to around 13.20/30 after dawn.
2) on ehu with Truma on & laptop - 14.70/14.90
3) now, 2 x 20 led lights, no Truma fans - fluctuates 15.01/15.05
4) just disconnected ehu - settling around 13.42/13.45 (the 2 led lights on)
5) just reconnected ehu - climbing now from 13.45 ... 14.60 ... 14.80 ...
seems to be settling about 14.85 ... ah,gone up to 15.12 ... 15.05 now.

Does any of this tell any of you electrickery people anything, good,bad or indifferent? Especially regtarding the actual condition of the battery (100a Varta of unknown age) ???

Thanks muchly :thumb:

 

[dave newell]

It depends how accurate this monitor is. On the face of it your on board charger could easily be overcharging if it really is hitting 15 plus volts, a sure way to wreck your batteries, at the very least its going to make them gas the electrolyte off. I'd take some readings direct from the batteries with a good quality multimeter and compare these to what your monitor is saying. If your charger really is getting up to 15 volts plus then I'd say you need to consider replacing it with a multi stage "intelligent" charger.

D.

 

[eddie]

It depends how accurate this monitor is.
D.

Dave it was 99p

Eddie

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[SIFTA SAM]

I flashed the cash a few weeks ago and sent off for one of those battery monitor thingies.

99p it was, AND £2.50 p&p and it arrived from China within days.

It's been sitting on the table for a while now so yesterday I decided to wire it up temporarily to see if it worked. Cool blue screen with clear black figures.

So far it's been very entertaining and time-wasting - bearing in mind we've been living in the MH for a year now and everything's worked A1 I'm beginning to think we should've remained in blissful ignorance of the many fluctuations. Been trying all sorts of combinations, on mains, off mains, with/without solar-panel, with/without Truma fans, halogen lights, led lights and so on. Well it's proved that the chargers work but I'm not sure if any of the various readings may indicate cause for concern...

1) left everything off overnight, reading was 12.40ish (+/- 5) this a.m. - went up to around 13.20/30 after dawn.
2) on ehu with Truma on & laptop - 14.70/14.90
3) now, 2 x 20 led lights, no Truma fans - fluctuates 15.01/15.05
4) just disconnected ehu - settling around 13.42/13.45 (the 2 led lights on)
5) just reconnected ehu - climbing now from 13.45 ... 14.60 ... 14.80 ...
seems to be settling about 14.85 ... ah,gone up to 15.12 ... 15.05 now.

Does any of this tell any of you electrickery people anything, good,bad or indifferent? Especially regtarding the actual condition of the battery (100a Varta of unknown age) ???

Thanks muchly :thumb:

Can you monitor bloodpressure and cholesterol levels at the same time???

 

[Wildman]

All the while the solar is working or the engine running or on EHU you will read the charge rate not the battery state so apart from showing the charger working or overworking as yours seems to be then it tells you nowt about the state of your battery it does however use power all the time. better to fit a push to make switch in the live wire so that it only draws power when you want a reading. they are usefull for comparative readings but not accurate ones due to skin effect etc from various charge sources.
an ammeter is a more useful tool to compare charge/discharge rates, but really just another tool that can eat up power.

 

[stcyr]

Thanks all! Yes I know these gadgets aren't the most accurate one can get, I probably wouldn't have bothered with it if it hadn't been 99p! ,,,
I've just put ehu on and see it's now settled around 13.50/13.75.
It sometimes peaks a bit over 15 but not for long usually.
Battery doesn't appear to gas at all.
If we switch on one of the halogen lights that we haven't yet replaced with leds, when the Truma fans are on, the fans slow down (light: 2 bulbs, prob.10w each). Also, before we replaced the saloon lights with leds, when the bathroom light was switched on - the 2 bulb one mentioned - the saloon lights would dim... The battery as I said before is of unknown age so I was thinking it may be time for replacement. The intention is to fit 2 x 110w as we had in the previous MH. (Using the bathroom lights does not affect the led lights, at least not noticeably)

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