Tuesday, Dec 13, 2016 at 09:11
Hi Shaker,
Are
Battery Monitors worth it?
It depends on your perception I guess.
You can buy cheap ones or expensive ones.
Are they necessary? No!
Are they piece of mind? Most definitely!
I have a camper van with a pair of 100Ah batteries installed to run my compressor upright fridge in the camper.
At about $750 the pair, I need to rely on those batteries performing
well at all times as I do a fair bit of
bush camping.
These batteries are maintained by a Ctek D250S dc-dc charger and supported by solar panels as necessary. To monitor the
battery bank, I added a Nasa BM-1 monitor which displays volts and amp hours, giving me
battery bank status at a glance, at any time I look at it. I don’t have to remember to apply a volt meter from time to time. The monitor cost about $150 a couple of years ago.
“Piece of mind”.
Just recently, I added another Ctek D250S charger to my vehicle auxiliary
battery, supporting a portable fridge in the back of the vehicle. We are planning a long trip to the
Pilbara and
Kimberley regions next year and I need to ensure good
battery health.
For about $30 extra I purchased the Ctek in a “kit” form which included a tote bag (big deal) and a nifty little device called a “
Battery Sense”.
This little device normally retails for about $69 so is not a huge outlay. It is simply connected across the
battery terminals and links to a free App running on my iPhone. Any time I choose, I can get the status of the
battery, displayed as percentage. Not only can I determine
battery health, but judge if the
battery is maintaining its charge whilst driving, or remaining capacity at
camp, prompting me to connect my portable solar panel as necessary.
“Again, piece of mind”.
The Ctek
Battery Sense is a “stand alone” device and appears to be a low price solution for
battery monitoring.
P.S.
The "hard wired" Ctek Digital
Battery Monitor appears to be identical in appearance to the Nasa BM-1 unit.
AnswerID:
606657