Measured FWC power use

Retired is good. :) I had to wait 7 years after I retired to get my $10 lifetime pass, but I was at a park office on my birthday when I turned 62. :D Even at $80/year it's not a bad deal.

A couple of summers ago I volunteered at Hovenweep and was surprised how many people were unaware of the senior pass, I sold a lot of them but it was sometimes touchy asking folks if they were old enough.
 
Wow, quite a good topic, lots of good stuff for sure, I stumbled upon it looking for info regarding the amount of charge coming from the alternator.

A quick question though, I run two independent solar charging systems each with their own battery. Am I safe to assume that the Trimetric meter can only used on one at a time?
 
I have never used that function, but I believe the Trimetric Monitor can look at different battery banks.

It requires wiring the battery banks in a different way to isolate them, but you may have already done that.

There is actually way more information from the Trimetric than most of us would ever use.
 
Actually, the Trimetric Monitor depends on a Shunt Resistor to accurately determine the current going in/out from the battery. If you want to use on different battery banks, that introduces a couple of problems. First, you need to be able to switch out the shunt resistor from one bank to another and 2nd, both battery banks must be identical as the parameters set in the Trimetric is specific to the battery capacity being measured.
 
Photohc,

You are correct that the shunt is required to accurately measure the amperage and voltage of your battery bank.

A second battery bank can be monitored in the system but in not quite the same amount of details.
http://www.bogartengineering.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/TM-2030Install%20Instructions1-27-2016.pdf

At the last page of the manual there is a option to attach wire B2 to a 2nd battery bank.

This would only measure voltage of that battery bank but that's about it.

Would that still be helpful in your system?
 
Ran across the Balmar SmartGauge Battery Monitoring System today.

It does not require a shunt. They make some good stuff for boats, Been looking at the Trimetric for a while now, but might have to pull the trigger on this for my Hawk at this price though.

It is on deep discount this week at Defender for $260, within range of the Trimetric unit. Normally discounted at $320. Link here. Deal probably expires by July 5th. Time to get off the fence :).

One application I can see is to use it as a battery LVD (Low Voltage Disconnect) function by inserting a relay in line with the main power switch and controlling it with one of the unit outputs. I used to design these things for telephone switching office power plants (think of 24 200-400amp 48VDC chargers in parallel) and LVD, HVD, and LV and HV alarms were mandatory features to protect the batteries or charger mishaps. ACR sells a LVD unit, but this route could be more cost effective (unless you own a Trimetric already).
 
Being an old analog guy (old being the operative word here), here's how I monitor solar charge and camper current use. The far left meter is camper load, center is battery voltage, and right is solar charge current. The meters cost $18.00 total on eBay and a couple hours of my time. I also have a 1.5KW inverter in the camper which, when it's on and under load, draws about 110 amps, it's not metered. In the truck I have an air compressor that draws over 100 amps, and high power radio amplifier that also draws well over 100 amps. I have 5 batteries in parallel (about 500 amp hours), so I'm not too worried about low camper voltage :). All the batteries and the camper are tied together with welding cable and very large Anderson Power Pole connectors.

Solar Power.jpg
 
500 AMP Hours of battery.
That is very impressive.

And I love your monitor system - old school but very effective.
 
K6ON said:
Being an old analog guy (old being the operative word here), here's how I monitor solar charge and camper current use. The far left meter is camper load, center is battery voltage, and right is solar charge current. The meters cost $18.00 total on eBay and a couple hours of my time. I also have a 1.5KW inverter in the camper which, when it's on and under load, draws about 110 amps, it's not metered. In the truck I have an air compressor that draws over 100 amps, and high power radio amplifier that also draws well over 100 amps. I have 5 batteries in parallel (about 500 amp hours), so I'm not too worried about low camper voltage :). All the batteries and the camper are tied together with welding cable and very large Anderson Power Pole connectors.

attachicon.gif
Solar Power.jpg
Click to expand...
Well done and KISS
 
This thread and running into Paul Thutt in Lake Louise has convinced me I need the trimetric and he pointed me in the right direction to have it installed when we get to Oregon. We are now in BC and it has been overcast virtually every day all day and I'm getting paranoid.

With my roof mounted 100w and my portable 120w I'm currently only able to pull in 3-3.5a this morning. Driving around helps obviously but I have no clue what I'm actually putting in. Damn this crappy weather! Looks like rain for the next week too. Maybe I should just open my wallet and get a campsite with hook ups to top the batteries off but around here those run $50-75CD a night! Ouch! I'd rather pay the $0 a night we are paying on Crown Land.


www.mulehawk.com
 
3-3.5 amps for that much solar isn't very great.
Must be lots of clouds or shade.

After 2 different campers with a Trimetric, I'd have to say it would be hard to live without it.
It's hard to realize just how helpful it is if you have never had one before.

In my personal opinion if you have solar and a compressor fridge, you need something to monitor the batteries. Trimetric is probably the best thing on the market to do it at this point.
 
The weather here in BC has been awful. Steady cloud cover/rain but I had hoped driving around going to different places would be enough to keep everything charged up, says I'm at 12.9v on my Zamp controller and tested the batteries the other day and both are fine. Maybe I'm just overly paranoid.


www.mulehawk.com
 
MuleHawk, we have a 2014 Grandby, with 100W solar on the roof, 80L compressor fridge, and I use a CPAP MACHINE during the night. We have never had an issue. We camped in Great Smoky Mountains with overcast, shade, and plenty of rain and no issues. Had to use the furnace several days. We also drove to see the sites. We have the Zamp controller and it displays the AMPS. In 2015 we purchased a portable 80W Zamp w/out controller per FWC and Zamp since the rear plug is wired to the Zamp controller. So many concerns about draw and usage. I'm not sure what the Trimetric will provide that the Zamp controller doesn't. I'm not an electric wiz. I just go camping and try not to put negative thoughts in my head. This site is so great but some of the posts are way over my head. So as an old geezer I just camp and have fun. You kids look like you are having a ball. Be safe. jd

Sent from my SM-G900V using Wander The West mobile app
 
The Zamp shows only the amps coming from the panel and not the load from other devices on the system whereas the Trimetric shows the net amps charging or discharging the batteries. That's the basic difference and why I got the trimetric so I could see what kind of load each item was putting on the system.

For example, my Zamp controller would show positive amps coming from the solar panel but the Trimetric shows a net negative when the fridge is on. That's how I figured out I needed more solar just to keep up with my fridge in the summer not to mention laptop and cell booster use, etc.
 
Charlie is right on.

This isn't a perfect example but not having a trimetric is like driving a truck without knowing how much gas you have - no fuel gauge.

You have a monitor that measures how much gas is going out at any time (volts and amps) but no idea how much is left in the tank (the % of charge of your battery or amp hours).

A system without the monitor can work great if you can estimate how much power things take and how well your batteries are being charged.

But one day you could run out of gas (power) and have no idea that it is just about to happen.

I was amazed how much information I learned from how much power my fridge takes to the problems with my battery separator to charging from the truck etc...

If this hasn't happened to you before, then you probably are doing a great job estimating your power needs and have a good setup.
 
Dr & Charlie. I've probably had a bit of luck, but we are very careful. The Trimetric sounds like something I should consider. I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to install. I have no skills in that department.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Wander The West mobile app
 
I guess my concerns are that we are on the road full time and our fridge is always on. It hasn't been turned off for a month and a half. The camper is essentially our home for the next year so having everything working properly and reliably is huge for us. Spending money on campsites(we both quit our jobs) with hook ups isn't in our budget so the solar and truck charging capabilities are what we rely on. I see upgrades like the trimetric as an investment in peace of mind.


www.mulehawk.com
 
I chose not to get a Trimetric and spent the money saved on another solar panel figuring that on a small system overkill beats information. I put 200W of flexible panels on the roof and had so much trouble with them that I bought a 100 W rigid panel and mounted on the roof such that I can take it down and use it as a portable when desired. Even that didn't work when the flexible panels were essentially useless and the trip so hot that 100W wouldn't cut it so I turned off the fridge and we iceboxed it the rest of the trip to save the batteries. I swung warranty replacements and then the recall happened so that I'm now running 200W of rigid panels and everything works great.

I don't feel I need the extra information that a Trimetric provides especially now that the system works well but I can't help but wonder if my flexible panel torture might have been shorter if I'd had one. Maybe that's where their greatest use lies: helping you determine if you have a problem and where it might be located since it measures both input and output to the batteries. Of course I now carry a clamp-on ammeter so I can get a spot check of current flowing out of the batteries or flowing in from the truck (not while driving down the road though).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Trimetrics but I think most pop-up solar users could spend the same money on an extra panel and be pretty happy.

Regardless of instrumentation, clouds and heat are a bad combination since the fridge runs more and the panels produce less.

Alan
 
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