Is Your Battery Monitor is Accurate..?

Feb 26, 2004
23,345
Catalina 34 224 Maple Bay, BC, Canada
RC
Please clarify for my spinning head...

To disable auto synch I set VC, voltage charged to 14.6v. Is that all I need to change to disable auto synch?

Thanx much

E
E, if you read the Gotcha link I provided earlier, as well as Maine Sail's material, the answers are there. In great detail, and they explanation of WHY is included.
 
Nov 26, 2008
1,970
Endeavour 42 Cruisin
RC
Made the changes to my victron several days ago. Big difference. I was getting the sudden jump to 100% and knew it wasn't right but didn't expect such a big change.
Thank you, thank you
 
Feb 6, 1998
11,759
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
RC
Made the changes to my victron several days ago. Big difference. I was getting the sudden jump to 100% and knew it wasn't right but didn't expect such a big change.
Thank you, thank you
Glad this helped!!....;)
 
Jun 5, 2012
153
Catalina 30 mkI Victoria, British Columbia
Maine, as always- thanks for your hard work.
I have a Victron 600s on my boat, and like others have stated, I haven't worried too much about its accuracy on my bank's overall capacity. I run two Costco brand Golf Cart batts, so even to begin with I was starting with a small pool of energy. Because of this I'm really fastidious about my energy usage. I'm on a mooring, so never plug in, but I do have a small 60W PV panel. I watch the amps in and the amps out, doing my best with what I have. I manually reset the monitor to full when we've had a strong, sun filled week in the summer (this having followed a low-usage weekend prior to).

Your article has reminded me that I can - and should - be doing better! So....I promptly asked both Costco and Johnson Controls what the Peukert Constant and Charge Efficiency were for those batts. Came up blank on both. Costco had no clue and JC never responded.

Does anyone out there know those values for the Costco Brand 2-GCS Golf Cart batteries?

To calculate Peukert myself I would need 2 different discharge rate values, but the batts only give me the 20h value (208Ah).

Regardless it seems like a non-starter without the CEF?

Grasping it all by a thin, frayed thread,
Mike
 
Feb 6, 1998
11,759
Canadian Sailcraft 36T Casco Bay, ME
Maine, as always- thanks for your hard work.
I have a Victron 600s on my boat, and like others have stated, I haven't worried too much about its accuracy on my bank's overall capacity. I run two Costco brand Golf Cart batts, so even to begin with I was starting with a small pool of energy. Because of this I'm really fastidious about my energy usage. I'm on a mooring, so never plug in, but I do have a small 60W PV panel. I watch the amps in and the amps out, doing my best with what I have. I manually reset the monitor to full when we've had a strong, sun filled week in the summer (this having followed a low-usage weekend prior to).

Your article has reminded me that I can - and should - be doing better! So....I promptly asked both Costco and Johnson Controls what the Peukert Constant and Charge Efficiency were for those batts. Came up blank on both. Costco had no clue and JC never responded.

Does anyone out there know those values for the Costco Brand 2-GCS Golf Cart batteries?

To calculate Peukert myself I would need 2 different discharge rate values, but the batts only give me the 20h value (208Ah).

Regardless it seems like a non-starter without the CEF?

Grasping it all by a thin, frayed thread,
Mike
This is why I always suggest buying your batteries from companies who can provide this information.;)

Costco and JCI are HORRIBLE at this.. However, sometimes there is a back door. Interstate Batteries are JCI golf car batteries too. Their GC2-RD and 1800 are both rated at 208 Ah's and perhaps Interstate is privy to more info than you will ever get out of JCI.....
 
Jun 5, 2012
153
Catalina 30 mkI Victoria, British Columbia
Wow, that's handy for me!! Interstate has a store about 5min walk from my office.
Thanks again.
And you're right about the purchase for sure, but sometimes it's just easier to pay (ultimately) more in the long run rather than a single large expense. When I put the system together I 'wanted' two 60W panels, a Balmar, a MPPT and 4 Golf Cart batts. Just not possible. I settled for the Costco's, a single panel, the Victron and a Morning Star PWM.

My wife would have quickly told me to go move onto said boat!