Bogart Engineering: manufacturer of the PentaMetric battery monitor which measures volts, amps and amp-hours for battery systems used in homes, RV's and boats.
Anyone using this? Opinions? I'm putting together a battery system that has four potential inputs: alternator, small genset, solar and wind. The solar and wind will be sent through an Outback MX60 MPPT. Consequently, I'm looking for metering that will show amps and volts in, amphours accumulated, amphours remaining and the draw of individual loads.
My charger inverter is a Xantrex RS2000 pure sine box and I'll control that with the Xantrex SCM module. There will be various fuses, shunts and bypass options, but the general idea is flexibility and the ability to charge, say, from wind, solar and alternator while motorsailing on a breezy day without frying anything.
My projected house battery bank will be 800-900 Ah of 6V golf carts; say, eight Trojan T-105s, although more likely six T-145s. The start battery will be charged via echo charger, as it is now.
My draws at anchor are going to be modest: mainly the NovaCool fridge. The genset (Honda EU2000) is for power tools, charging the separate windlass battery, and no wind/no sun/busted alt charging of the main banks.
Anyway, does this look like a way to monitor performance and draw from a semi-elaborate DC system?
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