Battery Monitor

[dbsea]

Martin (Channel Surfing) and his wife were gracious enough to come down to Seattle yesterday and help me plan out the install of my Victron smart battery monitoring shunt. With his knowledge, guidance, and expertise I was successfully able to install this today. Took about 3 hours. Thanks again Martin!!

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0hG6XBubsGED9

 

[Submariner]

Martin (Channel Surfing) and his wife were gracious enough to come down to Seattle yesterday and help me plan out the install of my Victron smart battery monitoring shunt. With his knowledge, guidance, and expertise I was successfully able to install this today. Took about 3 hours. Thanks again Martin!!

My pleasure!

I was a bit jealous. I wish my port lazarette had as much space as yours does. But I'd need a bigger boat. Ha!

 

[baz]

Dave & Martin.... Well done... good job. 🙂

 

[cliffm]

Martin (Channel Surfing) and his wife were gracious enough to come down to Seattle yesterday and help me plan out the install of my Victron smart battery monitoring shunt. With his knowledge, guidance, and expertise I was successfully able to install this today. Took about 3 hours. Thanks again Martin!!

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0hG6XBubsGED9

Yes! I'm making a list of items that I may use as "bribes" to accomplish the same assistance from Martin & LaZina!

After our May delivery, of course!

 

[dbsea]

Martin (Channel Surfing) and his wife were gracious enough to come down to Seattle yesterday and help me plan out the install of my Victron smart battery monitoring shunt. With his knowledge, guidance, and expertise I was successfully able to install this today. Took about 3 hours. Thanks again Martin!!

https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0hG6XBubsGED9

Yes! I'm making a list of items that I may use as "bribes" to accomplish the same assistance from Martin & LaZina!

After our May delivery, of course!

Martin is definitely the electical / battery guru! Happy to help with any other help you might need since i'm (fairly) local! 🙂

 

[tuglug]

Planning an install for a victron smart battery shunt with blue-tooth.

If I install the shunt between the house bank battery and bus bar will that provide the correct amperage battery usage and amp hour remaining for the coach battery bank? Would that simple install account for solar charge input while on anchor? I am not too familiar with the shunt set up, and not sure if I need to initialize the smart s/w dashboard when I anchor and the batteries are full charge, or does the dashboard software seamlessly account for bank charging when underway and at anchor and solar charging is underway?

Thanks for any input/comment.

 

[YukonRon]

Yes, label and remove ALL the ground connections from ALL the House Bank negative post(s). Connect the shunt to the house negative post. Connect the other side of the shunt (it will be labelled which end is which) to a suitably sized house negative bus bar where you will attach all the house negative connections.
Some boats have some 24/7 circuits or other accessories connected to the start battery. Move them to the house bank if you want them registered by the shunt. Personally I don't like other circuits on my start bank that can drain the battery.
Any charge sources charging the house (solar, shore, or alternator) are connected to the positive side of the bank, and to the negative bus bar; so the charge current will pass through the shunt and be registered as input. Some setups have the solar charging the start battery and feeding through a DC-DC charger to the house bank. Then the negative side of the DC-DC feed must go on the house bus bar to feed through the shunt to register as input.
The Victron shunt has instructions to set it up according to your system specifications; then to synch the monitor to 100% when the bank is full (press the + and - buttons together). You can do this at any time when you know the bank is topped up after a good charge. Once it is sync'ed, the shunt takes care of registering all current in and out whether you are under way or not.

 

[Submariner]

Planning an install for a victron smart battery shunt with blue-tooth.

If I install the shunt between the house bank battery and bus bar will that provide the correct amperage battery usage and amp hour remaining for the coach battery bank? Would that simple install account for solar charge input while on anchor? I am not too familiar with the shunt set up, and not sure if I need to initialize the smart s/w dashboard when I anchor and the batteries are full charge, or does the dashboard software seamlessly account for bank charging when underway and at anchor and solar charging is underway?

Thanks for any input/comment.

You'll most likely need to reconfigure your battery cabling for this install.
The shunt is labeled "to battery" and "to loads". If you put it in backwards then when it sees charging it'll report discharging, and vice vs. When done correctly it will report state of charge of the house battery bank which will include all charging and discharging sources. The battery monitor will re-sync itself automatically with "fully charged" when at the dock on shorepower. There is some configuration of the battery monitor required. (It needs to know how many amp-hours you have, available discharge floor (not to go below), and some other parameters.

We published this video about a year ago. Start at timestamp 7:15 for the part that talks about the install of a battery monitor.

Why do I need a battery monitor on my boat?/ Learn how to use it Victron battery monitor bmv-712
https://youtu.be/HDE4XtqQvN0