Drok DC 0-300V 200A questions since manual would make Ikea happy.

[Lenny's OffGrid RV Living]

I installed the DROK DC 0-300V 200A that I purchased on Amazon a couple of days ago. The model with the Hall sensor.

The instructions are not very clear, likely due to translation from Chinese? I was able to get it working reasonably well with some help from a Fakebook group, but had to do some work on my system today and now the meter is all screwed up again. The first problem I had was when the use rate shows as a negative but the instructions say that is supposed to be that way, even when a lot more amps are going in than going out. That seems counter-intuitive to me.

Now, I can’t even get it back to where it was with the negative amp flow when I know I am pushing a lot more amps in than going out. The Drok forum doesn’t seem to allow me to upload an image.

A few hours with no reply from Drok forum got me here. I did wait until dark and was able to get the meter working with the negative input (that still seems counter-intuitive) with my charger running on shore power and that part seems to be working now but I'm still not sure about a lot of the other settings. I was able to set my AH at 100.0 and my battery voltage at 14.4 but even with the battery bank at 13.5v, the top right number was at 100ah and the battery icon was showing full, which it obviously isn't.

Another problem I am having is that it says to make settings with no loads and battery is full but I haven't had the weather here the past few days to get my battery bank to full (4x100ah LiFePO4). I have added more solar panels but still not getting near full yet and it's supposed to be overcast and rain the next couple of days. From other threads, it looks like there are some experienced Drok users here.

Here is the PDF manual from Drok - https://www.droking.com/cs/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/2001712003-instruction.pdf

 

[Lenny's OffGrid RV Living]

This image taken a little while ago with my shore power charger plugged in, shows that the Drok is showing 100% charge when the battery bank is only at 13.3V which isn't close to being fully charge since it's a LiFePO4 battery bank.

 

[gnubie]

If I've read it correctly you set the voltage to your absorption voltage, this is likely the highest voltage the battery will be at, and that prompts the meter to reset to 100% when that voltage is seen. The meter can automatically determine the battery capacity, but you have to do a full discharge and then charge up from there so it can count amp hours in. You can also manually set the amp hours. Once set bring the battery to full charge and the meter should then reset and work from there based on the amp hours in and out. If the meter does not reset at the set voltage you can manually clear the amp hour count.

If the sense coil is the right way round and on the + wire between the battery and the load it should read positive current when the battery is discharging and negative current when the battery is charging.

Before any current flows in that + (red) wire from the battery to the load you need to perform a 'clear current' operation, basically to null the meter to account for local magnetic interference.

 

[Pierre]

By rotating the Hall sensor 180 deg on the sense wire the current direction indication will change as well.

 

[Lenny's OffGrid RV Living]

If I've read it correctly you set the voltage to your absorption voltage, this is likely the highest voltage the battery will be at, and that prompts the meter to reset to 100% when that voltage is seen. The meter can automatically determine the battery capacity, but you have to do a full discharge and then charge up from there so it can count amp hours in. You can also manually set the amp hours. Once set bring the battery to full charge and the meter should then reset and work from there based on the amp hours in and out. If the meter does not reset at the set voltage you can manually clear the amp hour count.

If the sense coil is the right way round and on the + wire between the battery and the load it should read positive current when the battery is discharging and negative current when the battery is charging.

Before any current flows in that + (red) wire from the battery to the load you need to perform a 'clear current' operation, basically to null the meter to account for local magnetic interference.

Well, I haven't really been able to set anything, at least I do not feel like it is set properly, which is why I'm here. If you click the link to the PDF instructions for this monitor, you will see they are Ikea-ish or actually worse. I was able to set the AH setting to 100 since I have 4x 100ah LiFePO4 12v battery bank. I was also able to set it to 14.4 amps.

The instruction sheet talks about the negative reading being the correct way, which is counter-intuitive to me but it is working in that aspec. Since I have to use this battery bank to run my life right now, it's very difficult to get it down to full discharge or to fully charge. Is there any other way to get this set up 100% considering that? See the picture in my first comment after the OP where it's showing fully charged but only 13.3v.

 

[Lenny's OffGrid RV Living]

By rotating the Hall sensor 180 deg on the sense wire the current direction indication will change as well.

Yes, I inadvertently did the initial install with it the wrong way and while it showed it in a positive number when charging, the other numbers were going down instead of up. I fixed that to show negative numbers when charging.

 

[Lenny's OffGrid RV Living]

Slowly learning this thing, notwithstanding the Ikea-ish instructions. I added a couple of more solar panels and got my battery bank back up to 14.4v today and the meter shows it at 100% now. The instructions alluded to getting the batteries fully charged or discharged and starting from there but I could do neither since I need my batteries working in my system and haven't had enough sun to get them to 14.4v lately. That finally changed this afternoon.

 

[gnubie]

Working in the way I expected, from the other thread

 

[Lenny's OffGrid RV Living]

After more than a week of this battery monitor running, it is performing reasonably well. I'm guessing it's not 100% accurate but probably over 95% accurate. Of course, out of the several battery voltage meters I have on my battery bank (two charge controllers, inverter, 12vDC fridge/freezer, and occasional testing with my "free" Harbor Freight multimeter, they almost always have slight variances in the voltage shown but within .1 to .2 volts difference. At least I won't have a brain fart moment again thinking I'm only pulling 1 amp (on the Kill-A-Watt AC side) when I'm actually pulling 12 amps on the DC side.

 

[Lenny's OffGrid RV Living]

Update -- It has been a month and I think there is still something wrong with the settings. I kept it set at 100AH since I have 100AH batteries but I have four of them so it's a 400AH battery bank. Almost always, it would show 100AH in the top right (meaning 100%) even though the voltage was not anywhere near 14.4volts.

This morning, I changed the 100AH setting to 400AH and reset the meter completely, after disconnecting the solar panels and battery bank circuit breaker so nothing coming in or going out when the reset was done.

After an hour or so, the top right is showing 167AH and the meter icon is showing two bars with 13.4 volts.

I'll update this thread after a week or so running at 400AH.

 

[Lenny's OffGrid RV Living]

Update after a couple of days of changes to meter -- it's showing 400AH in the top right and full bars on the battery icon, but still not up to 14.4 volts. The first three pics are from the past two days, the fourth pic from today.

 

[2Big2B]

I am just in the process of trying to figure out how to calibrate my Drok battery capacity meter for the 8S 24v 100Ah pack I have just installed on my Big Bounder power wheelchair that I use for recreation. It needs a fuel gauge, hence the Drok. Trying to read the pamphlet Chinglish instructions is actually pretty hilarious. I have investigated hours of youTubes on how to set it up, and all of them have actually been worse than the Chinglish instructions.

Until I found this one. This one is definitive and a must see.

Digital DC Ammeter Voltmeter, power, capacity, discharge / charge rate analysis. Yeeco / Drok
The Yeeco / DROK digital ammeter voltmeter is analyzed. This meter is low cost and measures capacity in watt-hour and amp-hours. The meter can be used to analyze charge and discharge of a solar system connected to batteries and an inverter. Setup, use and performance of this meter is discussed.

Dan Patten
I don't mean to promote the author's youTube channel, but he then goes on to make a part 2 video to get into all the other nuts and bolts to setting up some options like relays. The problem I had with all the other YouTube videos that I watched was that they all strayed, were convoluted, fumbled and not thought out before the presentation. Dan Patten. it looks like he has other good LFE battery stuff up on his channel worth checking out.