Victron Battery Monitor

carpense

We recently purchased a gently used 2021 Tab 400. After installing 2 new Lion Safari 12v Lithium batteries, we set out to install and mount a Victron Battery Monitor.

- Installing new lithium batteries: EASY
Thanks to Mandy Lea and Kendrick!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bat14fmJteE

- Installing battery monitor: EASY
Thanks to Julie and Ben Grefe
https://youtu.be/Bq_eDTSzRsE

- Mounting and routing wire for the battery monitor: well, we’re still married. 😉 

Sara and Bob
Upstate New York

DenisP

Nice job. You will appreciate the monitor. 

ColleenD2

We have a Victron monitor but I’m not exactly sure about it. This is what it is reading right now. Can someone help me? I hate to create a new post for this. Why is that number so high? it goes as high as 14.1. Shouldn’t it top out at 12.8? In the settings for battery on the Victron app it says charge voltage says 13.2. Our battery capacity says 200ah.

We are currently plugged in at a campground and we have a 2019 T@B 320 with solar built in. Is it going that high because of the solar? We are in full sun. We are getting ready for 17 days without power so I want to make sure I know what I am doing.

13.66 V

.86 a

12 W

0 AH

Starter battery .03 V

ColleenD2

And sorry that photo is sideways, I didn’t upload it that way, it’s normal on my phone and I can’t find my way back to the discussion I was already in about this a few weeks ago where I learned a ton. I don’t even see messages while I’m on my phone.

VictoriaP

@ColleenD2 You’re plugged in, that’s why it’s showing 13.66v. 12.8 or so would be a fully charged, unplugged, rested battery. 

Just went out and checked mine, which is also plugged in, currently over 13 as well. Totally normal. If I unplugged it now and turned off the battery switch (no solar on mine), it’d settle out at 12.75 within a day.

ColleenD2

Thank you thank you thank you. 

Sharon_is_SAM

@ColleenD2 - if I were you, I would turn off “Battery Starts Synchronized”.  Assuming your BMV is set up correctly, short of a dead battery, it will always have power directly from the battery.  In the event the BMV somehow became disconnected from the battery, upon reconnecting it, the BMV would read 100% SOC regardless of the true battery health.  It would require you to charge it to a known 100% SOC voltage and resynchronize.

Here is what the manual says,

7.1.10. Battery starts synchronised

The battery state of charge will become 100% after the battery monitor is powered up. When ON, the battery monitor will consider itself synchronised when powered-up, resulting in a state of charge of 100%. If set to OFF, the battery monitor will consider it unsynchronised when powered-up, resulting in a state of charge that is unknown until the first actual synchronisation.

Default setting	Range
ON	ON/OFF

Please be aware that situations can occur where special consideration is needed when setting this feature to ON. One of these situations occurs in systems where the battery is often disconnected from the battery monitor, for example on a boat. If you leave the boat and disconnect the DC system via the main DC breaker and at that moment the batteries were, for example, 75% charged. On return to the boat the DC system is reconnected and the battery monitor will now indicate 100%. This will give a false impression that the batteries are full, while in reality they are partially discharged.

There are two ways of solving this, one is to not disconnect the battery monitor when the batteries are partially discharged or alternatively turn the “Battery starts synchronised” feature off. Now when the battery monitor is reconnected the state of charge will display “---” and will not show 100% until the batteries have been fully charged. Please note that leaving a lead acid battery in a partially discharged state for a length of time will cause battery damage.

Sharon_is_SAM

What battery and Ahr do you have?

Sculptor

Beautiful installation of the Victron battery monitor display on the control panel, it is exactly what I will do in our 2021 Tab 400. I do not want to hide the display under the bed, as in the Grefe video you referenced, or I would just buy the Victron Smart Shunt and save $80. I believe it is important to keep an eye on one’s battery state of charge and I would find it cumbersome to keep checking it on the app.

Could you please describe where you ran the display wiring from the battery compartment to the control panel? Is there a wire chase above or below the cabinets? Thanks, I’d like to stay married also.

carpense

Awe, thanks, Sculptor. We appreciate your kind words. We ran the cable along the floor from the wooden battery box to the cabinetry under the sink. There was no conduit, but we followed other cables that ran along the same path. From recollection, we may have had to drill 1 or more holes along the passageway. Again, not a big deal. The challenging part was feeding the cable between the under-the-sink cabinetry to the area where the other monitors were mounted on the wall. It was vert tight and there are tons of cables to get hung up on. It took a trip to the hardware store (purchased a steel fish tape) a ton of patience to finally get it through. I think we may have also loosened up some of the other monitor covers in the process to help make some "wiggle room." When we were all done, we tightened everything up. It's just a memory now. 

Darling husband hates when things go wrong. And when you do something only once, there's a lot to figure out and a lot that can go wrong. He also hates to buy tools that he may never use again. To save our marriage I snuck out and bought the steel fish tape. You 'gotta do what you 'gotta do.   :-)

carpense

https://www.amazon.com/Klein-Tools-56335-25-Foot-Markings/dp/B089DT2NKR/ref=sr_1_5?crid=O20HY5NOPMXB&keywords=fish+tape&qid=1679413499&s=hi&sprefix=fish+tape,tools,106&sr=1-5

Sculptor

Thanks for the feedback, I've been running wires with a fish tape, clothes hangers, bits of string with weights on them etc. for many decades rewiring this old 1891 home, so it sounds like I have the right tools. Cheers