RV Battery Monitoring

RV Battery Monitoring

Boondocking or "dry camping" in an RV with out a battery monitor is like driving a automobile and not using a gasoline gauge.

In the event you fill your tank up everyday and by no means drive additional than to the nook retailer, this strategy can work just fine. But when you'll do any form of serious camping with out electrical hookups or a day by day dose of generator, it is important that you simply keep an in depth eye in your batteries. This is especially essential when counting on photo voltaic, because you'll hardly ever know for sure what state of cost the sun has left you with.

Batteries will final longest for those who by no means cycle them below 50% capacity, and going over eighty% drained starts to seriously damage even the perfect "deep cycle" batteries. If you use the "lights are getting dimmer" technique to tell that your batteries are running down, they will almost actually be completely dead within a year. Not good – significantly in the event you’ve invested in expensive AGM batteries.

Voltage Metering:
The only solution to control your batteries is via a voltage meter. A fully charged 12V battery will read 12.73 V, at 50% capacity 12.10 V, and when you might have just 20% left (essential territory!) 11.66 V. The Oliver trailer includes a system standing panel that will show you your battery voltage, and by keeping watch you will get a sense for a way you might be doing.

But there's a BIG catch. To get an accurate and significant voltage reading, your batteries will need to have been sitting idle for a minimum of six hours, and preferably twenty four. Meaning no lights on, no charger linked, no solar running – essentially no use whatsoever.

If the battery isn't nicely rested, significantly whether it is presently being used (even if just to power a light), the voltage reading goes to be off – and therefore nearly useless.

Imagine in case your car’s gasoline gauge was solely accurate after you had been pulled off the highway for six hours. That's not particularly conducive to getting wherever….

Consider the voltage meter to be primarily just a "guess gauge", and never a fuel gauge.

Specific Gravity Testing:
You can also very accurately test the state of charge of properly rested flooded lead acid batteries by utilizing a hydrometer to measure the precise gravity of each individual battery cell. However doing this involves sucking up battery acid right into a glass tube. Not fun, or typically practical.

In a automobile, this could be akin to pulling off the road, letting your engine cool, and then sticking a hose into your gasoline tank to see how a lot fuel remains. You really don’t want to be doing this. Trust me.

Battery Screens:
A real battery monitor works by measuring the current flowing into and out of your battery via a really accurate shunt. As soon as the monitor detects that your battery is full, it retains track of every amp of outflow, and it gives you a percentage remaining readout or a straightforward to read empty to full bar graph.

This at last offers you a usable "gasoline gauge" view of the sate of your batteries.

Battery displays will not be low voltage disconnect cost, but they are price it. In case you are truly going to be utilizing your batteries for more than a day or two of disconnected camping, I consider a proper battery monitor to be important equipment