What battery state of charge meter do you use

[Roadtripp]

They are gel cell. I think I’ll go round up the wiz bang test equipment and see if I can daycare these kidlet’s along at least to the juvenile offender stage.

[sternwake]

I just saw that Balmar, maker of the respected 'smartgauge' battery monitor, has a new pricey product out which not only accurately gives state of charge of the batteries, but state of health as well.

Amazon lists it at some 340$

http://www.balmar.net/sg200-battery-monitor/

I guess this is what most people new to 12v battery living expect, rather than having to learn how the trends and tendencies of voltage held under load relate as well as amps accepted while charging , and how much life is left in the battery bank.

Its presence does nto change the fact that it still takes a good amount of time holding batteries at absorption voltage for long enough to reach full charge though, and few products can do so automatically, easily, and inexpensively.

Pretty sure this product depends on the user to be able to achieve a true full charge so that it can learn the batteries.

I find it interesting some people on automotive foruums think their 25$ schumacher charger, that when hooked up to a battery, and then displays a % based solely on voltage, can act as a battery monitor or state of health meter when an actual product which can do this accurately, requires nearly 350$ and several cycles before it can hope to give an accurate assessment of state of charge and health.

Hey Gary, you still want to believe your 20$ renogy charge controller state of charge % is to be believed?

[Blacktank]

Hey Gary, you still want to believe your 20$ renogy charge controller  state of charge % is to be believed?

no,no,no, i do hope it is doing something that resembles absorption and float but the digital readout is a waste because i completely ignore it 

hydrometer will tell you whats what per cell but is a kinda pain so am using a combination of voltage reading and amp draw reading off my charger to determine how much juice i have used as far as full charged,it is what it is at this point,lack of sun has made the decisions for me

[Roadtripp]

Thanks for the ideas and suggestions folks . Maybe my batteries could use some espresso to wake them up but I do think they are less sluggish now after some charge cycles. So synching a meter increases accuracy even on new batteries that go up in capacity a little.
Digging through my junk I found a used Xantrex Link Pro meter. Anyone tried one of these? Now to look up how it’s wired and see if it works.
Can I use a 2 amp DC breakers if the manual calls for a 2 amp fuses? I forgot to mention that’s what I tried with the first meter that quit. The breakers didn’t trip.

[sternwake]

I've become more and more suspicious of circuit breakers. Seems like they take too long to blow in some instances and then in other instances can blow well below their rating if they are held at some large percentage of their rating for a while.

I have an inexpensive 140 amp one on my alternator feed and it blew after 5 minutes aat ~90 amps and then a few seconds of 110 amps, and I am very surprised it did not blow out my alternator diodes. The 30 amp circuit breaker on m Solar controller gets warm and measurably drops voltage across it.

I've no Experience with the xantrex link pro meter.