I was looking at my power consumption using the Victron battery monitor app on my phone. I have the computer, router and radio running. that is all. As i am looking at the numbers I go to turn on a LED light and my amp/wattage consumption drops from about 4 amps to 3.3 amps with a similar drop in wattage. WTF? I have tried it several times and the same result...less consumption with the light on??? It is Sunday morning and i am not hallucinating or under the influence! LoL! anybody have an explanation for this?
Strange thing....
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Short_Shot
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Dollar says you have the shunt hooked up backwards.
When discharging it should show a negative value.
Though I could be wrong. Even hooked up backwards I'd think the number would still go "up".
Short_Shot
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In fact after thinking it through that wouldn't seem to be the answer and I'm not sure why it would do that without some experimentation on your system.
chrisski
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If the shunt is not hooked up backwards, than it sounds like the SCC is pushing 4 amps more than is being used to charge the battery and that .7 amps that disappears is the amps for the lights.
If you remove the SCC and any other battery charging device from the system by tripping breakers, and the same thing happens, then that is not right.
I can be pushing 14 amps charging the battery through the Victron SCC software, but the battery monitor could be showing 2 amps because the other 12 amps us used by a load.
If you remove the SCC and any other battery charging device from the system by tripping breakers, and the same thing happens, then that is not right.
I can be pushing 14 amps charging the battery through the Victron SCC software, but the battery monitor could be showing 2 amps because the other 12 amps us used by a load.
Short_Shot
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That makes way more sense than what I was thinking.
Don't try to help before even getting out of bed kids.
I believe this is the answer. I added more consumption and it then went into negative values. I think the SCC was pumping amps (positive amps) into batteries and when i turned on lights it was in a less positive state. Short_shot is also right as taking amps from batteries should have given me a negative value...my bad.
Thanks
Thanks
chrisski
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To get true power readings, I always do that at night. I collect these numbers like 9 amps for the propane blower motor and 155 amps for the microwave, and 1 amp for a cell phone charger. Trying to get those numbers with the SCC on is very difficult.
Really the larger positive number you see when the batteries are charging is good. For me, usually does not matter, but on a cloudy day where I expect the propane blower motor on all night, I will cut back on power usage where I can to get as much charging as I can when the sun is up. I like to see at least 85% SOC at the end of the first cloudy day, but 75% would be good. Little things like shutting the inverter off at 1 amp, or making sure the radio is not on at .5 amps adds up over 24 hours.
Really the larger positive number you see when the batteries are charging is good. For me, usually does not matter, but on a cloudy day where I expect the propane blower motor on all night, I will cut back on power usage where I can to get as much charging as I can when the sun is up. I like to see at least 85% SOC at the end of the first cloudy day, but 75% would be good. Little things like shutting the inverter off at 1 amp, or making sure the radio is not on at .5 amps adds up over 24 hours.
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