Battery charge

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gary

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Jun 5, 2004
86
- - Sally Rose
I use a solar panel to keep the battery on our Hunter 22 topped up. So far this has worked great. My question is about some sort of meter to show me the panel is working and approx. how much charge is in the battery. Is there such an animal and if so what is it called?

thanx in advance

garyg
 

Benny

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Sep 27, 2008
1,149
Hunter 320 Tampa, FL
There is such an animal and its known as a Battery Monitor. They start around $250 and go up to $800+ depending on the features. Or you could learn how to use a digital voltmeter for around $19.95. The reason I say "learn how to use" is that you would need to compensate for some inherent defficiencies in the readings. A lead acid battery is considered 100% charged when the voltage reads 12.67V. This reading needs to be taken with the battery at rest for at least two hours, preferably much longer. A battery being charged will show a higher voltage reading than actual and a battery under load will show a lower voltage reading than actual. We seldom allow a battery to be at rest so it is hard to get a meaningful reading but you can learn to observe, compare and estimate readings and those readings can then provide useful information about the state of your charger and batteries. I'm not knocking the monitors as they do serve a valuable function when running expensive battery banks and systems which require close monitoring but for the usual boater using 2 group 27 lead acid batteries a voltmeter can be of great help. It can easily tell you if your charger is working but not so good at estimating how much capacity may left at a particular moment.
 
Mar 6, 2009
20
Hunter 216 Cass Lake, Keego Harbor, MI
Panel will take to Full Charge

I have Sunsei Panel. See link
http://www.sunsei.com/SE-500

According to the literature, this will keep a deep cycle battery topped off and will NOT overcharge. However, It all depends what you are drawing off of it. All I have is a Fish Finder running of mine which pulls only .5 watts.

Once a month, probably a good idea to give it a good charge at home on a trickle charger over night in 2amp mode to keep it in optimal condition.
 
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