The battery values, charging current and SOC lights on the battery don't seem to correspond

Can a meter be fitted which will:

Display the battery voltage
Display the current to and from the battery
Display the PV panel voltage
Display the PV panel current

There are some meters on Ali-Express that seem to fit the bill, but the specs are so vague I don't know whether it will work or not

Edited January 13, 20233 yr by chrisc
left something out

Hey @chrisc, not a bad idea and I like the thinking. However, if you want to do that make sure the meter is bi-directional. I learned the hard way, not all meters can measure voltage and current in both directions. I made a box to put between inverters and batteries to measure this stuff during testing and the meter I put in causes endless issues because it's one directional. The other thing is that you need to make sure that you have DC power to power up the meter so battery will be the best place to put it but PV is super unstable so you cannot do the same for PV.

You do get some great Raspberry Pi projects that do the same thing and some, but you need to be comfortable with setting up and using a Raspberry Pi. Otherwise, is your inverter not able to export or display these values? Usually inverter software will show you all the values you want and they usually have an app or PC program that you can use to read them...

Victron make an Energy Monitor 

https://www.victronenergy.com/battery-monitors/bmv-712-smart 

Will Prowse did a nice comparison of the Victron one and a Chinese $30 unit.

 

On 2023/01/13 at 3:40 PM, Psy said:

Hey @chrisc, not a bad idea and I like the thinking. However, if you want to do that make sure the meter is bi-directional. I learned the hard way, not all meters can measure voltage and current in both directions. I made a box to put between inverters and batteries to measure this stuff during testing and the meter I put in causes endless issues because it's one directional. The other thing is that you need to make sure that you have DC power to power up the meter so battery will be the best place to put it but PV is super unstable so you cannot do the same for PV.

Usually inverter software will show you all the values you want and they usually have an app or PC program that you can use to read them...

Thanks!

My inverter (RCT 5Kw) is 5 years old and does not seem to have any software

A work-around may be to get 2 meters.  One for in and one for out