Victron BMV-602 Battery Monitor

[Blitz]

I'm looking for any advice or hints someone might have in installing the Victron 602 battery monitor. I purchased one a few months back and am only getting around to installing one.
Questions:

- Can the shunt be mounted anywhere (in or outside of the engine area) or is the only preference is to be closest to the batteries being monitored.

- I think I'm correct to assume that the neg battery cables to the shunt are to be the same size (Thickness in saying AWG 4 or 2 or 1/0 or whatever you got) as the current battery cables to be able to carry the amperage of the highest draw (usually the starter)?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[Deadhead]

Victron Battery Monitor

I installed the 2 bank Victron monitor in my last boat (Beneteau 343). I put the shunt in the same compartment as the house battery. (In the pic it is on the wooden bulkhead forward of the yellow Xantrex charger.) Note that the top of the battery box is off in the pic - the battery was a 325 amp-hr lead-acid battery by Rolls. I secured the box with webbing that was passed through a couple of plastic pieces lagged to the floor below the battery.

I had a 1/0 cable made to run from the shunt to the battery switch. There is also a 16/18 gauge wire that runs from the positive battery terminal to the shunt - this is only about 6 feet long and has an in-line fuse of an amp or less. I think the length of this wire is the limiting factor in where you locate the shunt (distance wise from the battery).

Be careful when securing the shunt to the boat. I over-torqued it & cracked the plastic mount. As you can see from the pic I gooped on some 4200 as a band-aid.

The gauge goes in easily though . . .

(My current to-do list includes installing the same monitor in the new boat. I found that Jamestown Distributors had the best price on the unit & purchased it last month.)

Good Luck.
DH

 

[Ron20324]

DH, Since the #2 section only reads a battery's voltage, do you see any real benefit from that over the single-battery model (402? or whatever)?

 

[Blitz]

DH, Since the #2 section only reads a battery's voltage, do you see any real benefit from that over the single-battery model (402? or whatever)?

Sort of a nice to know thing for a secondary bank even if it is just voltage - which in my case the secondary bank is a dedicated start battery. The single battery monitor is model BMV-600.

 

[Al - s/v Persephone]

I purchased a BMV600 as a lower cost substitute for a Xantrex LinkLITE with my 3rd battery. (I have a Link 20 for the other 2).

It is an impressive-looking unit, and was easy to install. Unfortunately, it turned out to be deader than a door nail.

After looking for the warranty section in the user manual and only finding "as-is, with no warranty" language, it didn't seem worth it to try to send it back to the UK.

So I ripped it out and replaced it with the excellent LinkLITE I should have installed in the first pace.

Fair winds,
AL - s/v Persephone

 

[Deadhead]

I felt it was worth the extra few $$ to have info for both batteries at hand.