Quick Question about the Trimetric ...

[van.on.the.run]

OK - so here's my update.

I emailed Bogart and they responded within 24 hours. They advised me that it would be fine to connect the shunt up to the starter battery as long as I had the 500A/50mV shunt installed (fortunately that's the one I ordered). - As a side note - when I crank the engine the Amps shoot up to the mid-50s for a couple seconds and then drop back down to a steady/stable value which the alternator is charging at.

I spent Saturday morning reading over the paperwork they sent with everything, and wiring up the monitor in a long-term, temporary install (or short-term, permanent if you prefer).

I disconnected the negative battery terminal from it's post and ran to/from the shunt mounted underneath the driver seat. The last step was putting the fuse in. Fortunately they gave me two, because I dropped the first one into the battery enclosure and it's now under the battery which I wasn't in the mood for removing! Anyway, the fuse went in and the lights turned on. It appears to be working perfectly.

I set P1 (MB 2500 Sprinter 4Cyl Diesel 95Ah AGM battery) to 14.4V (Full Charge Voltage), P2 to 2% (Full Charge Current) and P3 to 100Ah (Battery Capacity).

It's very cool to see the effects of different loads on the system (i.e. dome lights, radio, A/C, headlights, etc). In hindsight, I'm very glad I didn't leave my 12V cooler plugged in overnight.

I've attached a couple pictures to show the installation. Recall that this is not final. It's temporary until I have all my equipment and plans finalized.

The next step is the Inverter/Charger.... MMS1012 or the MS2012...??? I really want to go with the smaller one, but at 1000W it's only putting out 8 amps, so I feel like I'm slowly talking myself into the MS2012.

Thanks for everybody's input and help!

PS - the Common Ground on my diagram was the last thing I drew in, and I stopped showing groundings because it would have made the drawing more messy and not necessarily added value.

[ShuttlePilot]

All looks great from here. Just a thought for your future build is to be mindful of having enough battery bank to run the Magnum MS2012. If you decide to go that route. The 2012 (2000w) running full throttle will demand up to 260 amps of 12volt from your battery bank. The idea that I'm getting at is we often talk a lot about storage capacity of batteries but not exceeding the manufacturers maximum amps in or out is also important for battery life. These two design requirements, capacity and max current, often solve each other because you will want a large usable battery capacity. Just something to consider if your indecisive on what size inverter.

- Eric

[van.on.the.run]

Thanks ShuttlePilot - I'll admit, I hadn't thought about that angle really. I am aware and I understand that the battery has a maximum safe charge/discharge amp rate (which is very roughly approximated at 10% of the battery's 20-hr capacity), but I assumed that the inverter/charger (or it's remote control) was able to limit the current load/draw that it was putting on the batteries.

Is this not the case? Can the MS2012 not able to set a current draw limit on the batteries? I think that I'll have a battery bank sized somewhere around 12V, 250-300Ah, so I would want to limit the current to around 25-30 amps, right?