I looked at a lot of commercially available electric power monitors, and none of them really suited me. Either they didn’t support dual voltages, or they had too small measurement shunts that couldn’t handle the 200A loads I have as worst case.
Or they were of the “over computerized” type who insists on providing some kind of useless (as in “never accurate”) tank meter for the battery.
So I put together my own monitor that gives me enough info to roughly know the system state, given that I also know the parameters a “tank meter” doesn’t. Like the weather, for example. So in the image below, given that it is a cloudy morning at about 9h00, the charge rate of 6.7A is quite nice…
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4 responses to “Custom Power Monitor”
I’ve been thinking about the camera and ipod that i want to bring on the journey. will i be able to charge? will i be able to empty cameras sd card to external hd, or need i bring mountains of sd cards and equal amounts of pre-charged batteries to do my camera thing while sailing south.
There is 230V available for charging. Not permanently turned on. I tend to turn it on when a bunch of things need it, since the generator consumes a bit of power also when idle.
Hi Jesper, I became aware of this project just a couple of weeks ago. Congratualtions, this is a unique yacht! Just a question; where did you get those LCD panels? /Henrik (Sweden)
Thanks Henrik. Those are from EA, available in Sweden via ELFA.