Photos of TM2030 or TM2020 install

[RasMouSein]

Originally Posted by plasma800

I'm just trying to grip on my current usage. After the solar install, I would hope I never have to look at it again. If done properly, that should be the case.

I'm pretty confident in saying that it as never been the case, it's like your water level tank a person kinda needs to know what going on.

[drdarrin]

Originally Posted by plasma800

I'm just trying to grip on my current usage. After the solar install, I would hope I never have to look at it again. If done properly, that should be the case.

That’s just it. Your current usage will change day to day. Some days you’ll watch more [emoji342], other days less. You might forget and leave a light on or your inverter on and not know until your batteries are dead. Your furnace uses a lot of electricity. You are aware your propane refrigerator won’t run without 12V? Bottom line, You won’t know the status of your expensive batteries unless you can readily monitor them. You’re going to a lot of expense buying and installing a very useful tool and then leaving it in your toolbox, IMHO.

[Dan McMartin]

We'll be installing our shunt in a different compartment since our batteries are not in a water tight compartment. Not sure about the Bogart unit but the Victron BMK has a small circuit board attached. I'm thinking it shouldn't get wet.

And you'll want to read the monitor. Power usage changes. Solar panel output changes (clouds, shade, etc.). The whole idea is to see the SOC and adjust as needed. Longer (or shorter) generator runs, for instance, to recharge the batteries. If you can't see the monitor, why install one at all? You're back to guessing your SOC.

We got the Victron for that very reason. We can temporarily install in the bay next to the batteries because it's got bluetooth and we can see the status on our phones. But even when it's mounted inside our coach, we can check anywhere. Do we need to fire up the gennie first thing or can we wait for the solar to kick in? We can find out from bed.

[hclarkx]

I agree with Dan on the solar. You know you will get less solar on cloudy days or with some shade from trees, but estimating that is more of a wild guess. Clouds come and go and sometimes on overcast days you will lose a lot or not much at all. If you have lead-acid, overcharging* doesn't do much damage, but undercharging sure does. If you have LFP, you don't want to over charge much or get below about 10 or 20%.

If you have large batteries relative to your daily use, and ample solar, then checking once per day may be sufficient. If not, you will be sticking your head in that compartment at least twice per day and maybe more.

* I mention overcharging because with solar you often won't get enough current to push the battery voltage up enough to switch out of bulk mode and may continue charging beyond 100% SOC. This is more of an issue with LFP because it takes a lot of current to get out of bulk mode and you might go days without seeing that from solar.

[plasma800]

I looked around real careful like, and the access to the wall where all of my panels are is FABULOUS. So, it will be easy peasy to run that cable up to my panel wall, so I'll do that.

My battery compartment shares a wall with my storage area, it should be simple to install the shunt on the wall of the storage area, and run the cable over to the battery. I have no idea what that wall is made of though.. I'm sure there are aluminum studs in there, but I have no idea how to find them.

[cruzbill]

Stud finder, or rap, rap, rap

[plasma800]

Originally Posted by cruzbill

Stud finder, or rap, rap, rap