New Battery Monitor from Balmar - Page 2

seasmith · 12-29-2018, 04:07 PM

Thanks Marret, but as mentioned in my post, i've been through the manual a couple times (digital and print) and see no way to set type for battery number 2 (starter batt).
Not even a mention.
Where you able to set it for your starter battery ?

marret · 12-29-2018, 04:19 PM

Sorry about that, thought you couldn't find the manual. I was reading it on my phone...

I never set up my BATT 2/starter battery.

Looking online, it looks like the smartgauge only monitors SOC on one bank, the main bank, and the start battery is only volts.

Per the manual:
"To revert to the Battery Voltage, press the VOLTS button. Pressing the BATT 2 button will show the voltage on Battery 2 if the Smartgauge has been wired to both house and starting batteries. The PGM/Batt 2 LED will be lit whenever voltage at the starting battery is being displayed.

To revert to the voltage or charge status of the house battery bank, press the VOLTS button or the STATUS button."

Looks like this confirms the SOC only on house battery bank. It does not appear you set the battery type for BATT 2/starter. Likely why it is not mentioned in the manual.

Are you getting volts for the starter battery?

I need to hook mine up. Originally I was leaving very shortly after and didn't have time. Just never was important enough to go back and do it.

Scalf77 · 12-30-2018, 06:57 AM

I can confirm the secondary battery is just a voltage measurement. SOC is only measured on primary.
-greg

seasmith · 12-30-2018, 11:28 AM

Well just took the Lifeline AGM off overnight Batteryminder charge, to top off, and set the SoC max for the Smartgauge™.
So can confirm that Greg's confirmation is reconfirmed (can't have too many redundancies when it comes to battery stuff). Charge now reads 100% for each both batteries, even tho starter batt received no charge.

Batt #2 does display accurate voltage, which is way better than what we had before, which was slapping a multimeter on the separator terminals.
Would be nice to see amps in and out like Greg's SG200 do, but as i recall, it was a really good deal on the Smartgauge, i'm happy.
Thank you all,

Scalf77 · 10-09-2019, 07:58 AM

I have installed four of these on rental campers for the summer, the only issue reported was a low voltage fault detected on V1-aux , it is hooked up to starting battery. It only shows up when starting and then maybe 20% of the time. I contacted Balmar with my concerns over what the duration of the low voltage is before logging. They replied that that had been fixed in a firmware update. The only downside is that you need to purchase their bluetooth dongle to do the update. When connected to the app you get lifetime updates.

-greg

SteveW · 10-09-2019, 08:16 AM

Greetings from Southern California.

Does this nice SOC feature work on LiPo batteries ??

Thanks,
Steve W

Never mind - just saw your comment in the other battery monitor thread.

Scalf77 · 10-09-2019, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveW

Greetings from Southern California.

Does this nice SOC feature work on LiPo batteries ??

Thanks,
Steve W

yes,
greg

vandiesel · 10-14-2019, 08:35 AM

Greg, I went with this based on the report here. I get an overvoltage 16v on aux1 every time I get in the van. Is there a spike on the starting batteries that causes this? I haven’t been too concerned but would love to know what causes this.

Scalf77 · 10-14-2019, 09:02 PM

You need to upgrade the firmware, that is an issue that has been fixed. Do you have the Bluetooth Dongle? That is really the only way to upgrade. If not we can meet up and I'll let you use my dongle for an update. I will be out of town for a couple of weeks, but after that we can work something out.

-greg

Scalf77 · 10-15-2019, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vandiesel

Greg, I went with this based on the report here. I get an overvoltage 16v on aux1 every time I get in the van. Is there a spike on the starting batteries that causes this? I haven’t been too concerned but would love to know what causes this.

Just reread your post, I see your issue was a over voltage error. I suspect that this is the rebound of low going spike. I would suspect that the same fix for a low voltage error would take care of the over voltage also. I would expect that they added some filtering so that short spikes are masked out. So I do expect that the firmware update would fix it.

-greg