Here you will find extra hints and tips that are not included with the kit, and I'll keep adding to this as I find time, or come upon specific problems.

****Further down the page you will find a repeat of my own personal suggestions that are included with the kits I sell, on how to hook up and program these monitors, a quick set-up and start guide if you like.

 Understanding more about using this Battery Monitor to YOUR best advantage.

Even though these monitors are very easy to read and understand for most folks, I have found that a few people sometimes don't utilise the full potential of these Battery Monitors, and that would be a shame because these monitors are such a great tool, and help make camping much easer and LESS stressful.

Sometimes folks give up trying to fully understand the monitor readings, mistakenly thinking that they are way more complex than they really are!

So let's start with some basics.

For starters, you have only one monitor or dial to look at, and without touching anything you always have visible in the lower half of the dial a bar graph, showing from E (Empty) on the left to F (Full) on the right, this will always be visible to you, so you can at any-time see what you have available to you in your battery bank.
I will explain a little later an extra cool feature about this bar graph.



You have 3 buttons available to you across the bottom of the monitor.
If you press the button on the left that says V, then in the upper half of the dial it will show the battery voltage.

If you press the button on the right that says %, then in the upper half of the dial it will show the battery percentage of charge, with 100% meaning really really full!
And 0% meaning really really empty!

Pretty simple so far isn't it?

Now for the middle button, now please don't freak out, cause this button can be pressed twice to give two different results, a bit scary hey?

It will give two different readings, please let me explain these different reading because I think this is where most of the confusion comes from, and it really is very simple once you know and understand the difference.

One of the readings will give a figure with two (or more) digits followed by an 'A' like maybe “5.3A”, this means that there is a total of 5.3 amps flowing into the battery (the battery is being charged, this could be either from a solar system, or battery charger, or maybe the vehicles alternator.

However this reading is more likely to have a '-' (minus sign) in front of it, like this “-5.3A”, and this means that this time that there is 5.3 amps being consumed, and flowing out of the battery.
So in summary if the digits have the '-' (minus sign) in front of them then amps are being removed from the battery, and if not then amps are being put into the battery.

Now for the next reading, the next push on this middle button will again bring up two (or more) digits followed by an 'Ah' this time, and most of the time these digits will be preceded by the '-' (minus sign), like maybe “-15.5Ah”, now what this means is that there has been 15.5 amp-hours removed from the battery so far, and while-ever you are drawing power from the batteries this will continue to count down.
But when you recharge the battery, it will start to count back up again.
You do remember how many Amp-Hours your battery bank has don't you?

So to summarise all four selectable top half of the dial readings.....

V= Battery Volts.

A= Amps going in or out.

Ah= Amp-Hours removed from the battery bank.

%=  percentage of battery bank charge.

I don't think anyone should be too frightened of those 4 readings :-)

However I'll make it even simpler, when monitoring my batteries, all I am really concerned about is the amps going in or out of the battery, so I leave it on this setting to display this all the time, and I also watch the lower bar graph that shows me how much I have in my batteries, the fuel gauge or SOC (State Of Charge).
Now any time I can just glance at the battery monitor and know exactly what I have in my batteries, and what I'm drawing from them or charging back into them in real time right now.

Two more points that I would like to make, the first is about the bar graph.
It has a very useful feature in that it's bottom or floor level can be adjusted, in other words through the monitor settings we can put the Empty level anywhere we like, and in the default case it is set at 50%.
So maybe think of it like this, you have a tank full of water, but you do not want to take the tank down lower than half way (50%), so you draw a line at the half way point and say this is now my new empty line, and I will consider the tank full when it's over flowing or about to, and empty when it's really only half empty.

So now hopefully you get my drift with the bar graph, and as ideally you should not be taking your deep cycle batteries below 50% if you want them to last for a long long time, then the bar graph set with a floor at 50% is ideal, it does show that when the battery is Full it is full, and when it is Empty it is as empty as you really want to go.

Now the second point I want to make is about the “A” reading, the amps in and amps out.
This battery monitor is just that, a battery monitor, in that it is monitoring exactly what is happening AT the battery.
My point is..... if you are running say a TV that consumes 5A, and at the same time you have a solar system that is also putting 5A into the battery, what do you think the battery monitor “A” reading is going to say, now think about it?
It is 'seeing'  exactly what is happening AT the battery, and should read “0.0A”, but you worked that out didn't you.

Of course that flows on to the likes of if you were consuming 25A, and the solar was putting in 10A, the monitor reading would be “-15.0A”, I'm sure you have now nailed this one too, but it has caused some confusion in the past :-)

A little more information on how this super smart Battery Monitor works with calculating amps in and out.

We need to understand that each battery, battery type, and battery size has different resistance values (i.e. how hard it is to push current around inside the battery), and that there are losses when we draw from a battery, and that the harder we draw from a battery, the ever increasing exponentially the losses are, and then the same goes for re-charging, many more losses.

This to-ing and fro-ing is endless, and it's a nightmare to try and keep track of all these losses, and just measuring amps in and amps out is really way off the mark, not even close to what's really happening, so a kind Mr Peukert (Peukert's Law, the 'F07' setting) came to the rescue many many years ago, and came up with a formula that still works well to this day on all lead acid batteries.  

In my experience Peukert's is a valuable part of any good battery monitor, the monitor will then do it's best work automatically calculating continuously all charge and discharge occurrences, and when set correctly for each battery type and size, it will help in giving the closest to the true SOC that any battery monitor can give.

Keeping in mind that no two batteries are exactly the same, or have been worn down the same, but at least NOW because of Mr Peukert we have a much closer and more realistic SOC to work from.

Occasionally folks ask me why their monitor does not always show completely fully charged after charging the battery,  and part of the answer may well be, that the monitor may only auto reset to 0Ah once it has meet a few of it's own criteria set points, and has determined that the battery really is fully charged, and this normally does not happen until it has been fully charged, and then you start using power from the battery.


This battery monitor can monitor any number of batteries that are connected together as one battery (parallel or serries, 12V or 24V)

Mounting your monitor requires a 52 - 54mm hole, that's 2 inches for us old buggers.

For installation, please read the manual and all instructions first, then use this page as a guide.

***Please note*** It can be very confusing in the instructions where the manufacturer is referring to “Main battery” and “Auxiliary battery”.
For our needs please accept that where quoted in the instructions & diagrams, the “Main battery” means your auxiliary or house battery, and the mentioned “Auxiliary battery” is your cranking/starting battery.
You can optionally monitor the voltage only, on the cranking/starting battery if practical.

Please note, the battery link comes pre-bent, often it will need a slight adjustment to fit your individual requirements exactly, it can be adjusted to suit with a vice and shifter, or pliers etc, please try to only adjust just the once, as continued bending & re-adjusting can fatigue the aluminium and make a weak point.

Always tighten nuts and bolts firmly, and if you can secure cables and/or the shunt with zip-ties etc to stop them from moving, this will help avoid nuts and bolts working themselves loose.

*** Note while easer and neater, it will not always be practical to mount the shunt on top of the battery using the unique Fridge & Solar innovation & supplied battery link. So if you need to mount the shunt further away from the battery, then you will need to connect the neg battery post to the shunt using a short length of heavy, lugged cable.

 eLITE  

ENERDRIVE Battery Monitor
First time once only monitor programming.

Val's suggested Function “F” settings.
.
Please read and follow the instillation manual, for fitting help please turn over this page,
then you can use this page as a helping guide with the settings etc.

Push the centre 'setup' key for 3 sec to access the setup menu, then use the < & > keys change the value, and back to the setup key to go to the next setting, and so on.

F01 Battery capacity. Here you put your battery, or combined battery banks capacity, in Amp hours (Ah). The default is 200Ah, and yours is = ???? << a MUST set critical parameter.

F02 Charger's float voltage (Auto-sync parameter). The default is 13.2V, change this to the float voltage of your battery charger, or solar controller at whatever is the lowest of the two, if unsure leave it at the default.

F03 Charger's float current (Auto-sync parameter). Default: 2.0% <<Best left here.

F04 Low voltage alarm & State-of-charge percentage scale. Default: 50% <<Best left here.

F05 Low battery alarm On (Volts). 11.5V <<Best left here.

F06 Low battery alarm Off (% SOC). Default: 80% <<Best left here.

F07 Peukert's exponent. Change to 1.15 < < with AGM batteries, otherwise leave @ 1.25

F08 Shunt Amp Rating. .Default: 500A <<Best left here.

F09 Backlight mode. "AU" << my preference, but up to you.

F10 Alarm contact polarity. Default: NO <<Best left here.

F11 Auto-sync sensitivity. Default: 5 <<Best left here.

F12 Firmware version. (read only).

Below the 'F' settings in the manual are the 'Reset Functions', uncluding a sometimes useful setting, but please use this only if necessary, and after reading the 'Reset Functions' instructions...

r.c Reset zero-offset current. Use this reset item to remove small current readings on the display when no current is flowing in- or out of the battery. When performing this reset action, please be 100% sure that all DC consumers/chargers are disconnected or turned off.

This unit will do automatic synchronisations based on meeting it's own Auto-Sync criteria, this usually happens after the batteries have been fully charged, and you start using some power.

Although these battery monitors are very good, this monitoring thing is still not an exact science, so they can get slightly out of sync occasionally, this is not a problem, and will correct it's self the next time the batteries are fully charged and you start using your system.

If you want to, you can also manually synchronise the battery monitor with your batteries, but please only when you are sure your batteries are really fully charged.

This can be accomplished by pressing both < and > keys simultaneously for three seconds. After these three seconds, the flashing FULL message appears on the the display just like when it is automatically synchronised.

Val Rigoli - Fridge & Solar

Copyright © FRIDGE & SOLAR since 2002.

Copyright © Val Rigoli FRIDGE & SOLAR