How do I know what my Inverter is doing.

[gamerscircle]

I know, that is a little open ended. I have seen inverters that have small lcd screens that display volts and load information. Today, I did just a bare bone setup with my a solar panel, my battery, my solar controller and inverter and it all worked! This was just to make sure that it all worked and that I don't have to send anything back for replacements. I have a Victron Energy BlueSolar MPPT 100V 50 amp solar controller, a Renogy 3000W Pure Sine Wave Inverter, a Weize 12V 100Ah LiFePO4 Lithium Battery. Using the Victron Energy VE.Direct Smart Dongle , I was able to see the solar information and some battery information, but I wasn't able to monitor what my inverter was doing when I had a couple of things plugged into it. Any recommendations on what I can use to display how many watts/amps it is suppling?

thanks in advance.

 

[Mattb4]

Lot of choices if you just search Amazon for AC volt and load meters.

 

[gamerscircle]

Okay, thank you - I see that Renogy has some monitors, I suppose it depends how fancy you want?

Shop IOT Monitoring Products For Sale and Battery Monitor | Renogy

A range of IOT monitoring products that enable accurate consitent solar system control.

www.renogy.com

 

[Samsonite801]

Okay, thank you - I see that Renogy has some monitors, I suppose it depends how fancy you want?

I can't speak for Renogy or other monitors, but if you have some Victron already, I know I really like my BMV-712 battery monitor, it is said that Victron makes one of the best UI management apps, VictronConnect (which had been one reason I went with Victron)...

Plus the supported ability to network sync certain Victron SCCs to run in parallel (if you add the BMV and SCCs into a network group in VictronConnect)...

It works via the native built-in bluetooth on my SmartSolar SCCs, and I think also will work with the BlueSolar SCCs too if you use VE.Direct cables or buy the external bluetooth adapters...

Example:

Synchronizing multiple MPPT 150/70 charge controllers - Victron Energy

Synchronizing multiple BlueSolar charge controllers MPPT 150/70 is now possible! Synchronizing chargers, also known as paralleling, has several advantages: Don't waste solar power: all chargers will always be in the same state, no risk that one of them switches to float to early Simple...

www.victronenergy.com

 

[gamerscircle]

Oh! thanks! Nice!

 

[mikefitz]

Get the Victron smart shunt or Victron BMV 712. Either of these uniwill monitor the battery status

 

[Mattb4]

If you want to monitor the AC output of the inverter you would not select a DC shunt.

 

[chess-equality]

Most people are using Kill-A-Watt.

I'm using a PDU (commonly used in computer datacenters) power strip with meter; as far as I know they can be rated 16A - 32A AC.

Such as:

https://www.amazon.com/link-Distribution-Protection-Monitoring-Orange-Outlets/dp/B0899L7TL5

 

[32 volt boater]

These are cool.

MICTUNING DC 6.5-100V 0-100A LCD Digital Display Ammeter Voltmeter Multimeter Volt Watt Power Energy Meter Blue with 100A 75mV Shunt​

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JOUZELG?psc=1

Look in the suggestions all kinds of styles sizes.

 

[32 volt boater]

Most people are using Kill-A-Watt.

I'm using a PDU (commonly used in computer datacenters) power strip with meter; as far as I know they can be rated 16A - 32A AC.

Such as:

https://www.amazon.com/link-Distribution-Protection-Monitoring-Orange-Outlets/dp/B0899L7TL5

Expensive but cool.

 

[chess-equality]

Expensive but cool.

Ones with fewer outlets are cheaper, but yes relatively expensive. Others also come with a breaker.

 

[gamerscircle]

Okay - it is good to know that I can go outside of the name brand, since I am new, trying to find the correct thing to search for it usually a task. thank you all!