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Renogy battery monitor problem

Nawor81

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Sep 20, 2020
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Just installed my battery shunt and in a rush to leave for camping I didn't set it up to read my lithium properly. While on the trip it permanently showed 15a being pulled out of the battery, even if nothing was connected. Strangely when having the backlight of the monitor screen on it would pull 36a.

Figuring I'd stuffed something, came home to try and fix it. Moving the voltage sensor wire away from possibly interference was the first port of call but before I could get to it the monitor ran 'flat' (13.76v still in the battery).

Now I can't get the monitor screen to turn on again. I've tried disconnecting the feed wire, the shunt, the voltage sense wire but all to no avail. I'm currently running the battery flat to do the monitor settings correctly but it might be pointless if the screen doesn't work
 

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What are you asking/saying/doing???
"stuffed something" = what
"Moving wire from interference" = what
"monitor ran flat"= what
 
What are you asking/saying/doing???
"stuffed something" = what
"Moving wire from interference" = what
"monitor ran flat"= what
I’m sure the OP can clarify better than me, but I believe “stuffed something“ is Aussie colloquial for “broken it”. Moving the wire from interference presumably refers to @Nawor81 wrongly believing that the problems they were seeing was because the voltage sense cable was picking up some rf interference, so they moved it but it didn’t help.

”Monitor ran flat” suggests the screen on the Renogy battery monitor went off and the device no longer worked.

@Nawor81 what battery did you have the monitor connected to and are you sure the voltage and Polarity was correct and no cables were short circuited or open circuit (not connected when they should have been)?


edit: was it hooked up as shown in the manual, including the thin wire from shunt to batteyr positive?

62F49B51-C539-4585-8577-FFA946AC6BE3.jpeg
 
Last edited:
I’m sure the OP can clarify better than me, but I believe “stuffed something“ is Aussie colloquial for “broken it”. Moving the wire from interference presumably refers to @Nawor81 wrongly believing that the problems they were seeing was because the voltage sense cable was picking up some rf interference, so they moved it but it didn’t help.

”Monitor ran flat” suggests the screen on the Renogy battery monitor went off and the device no longer worked.

@Nawor81 what battery did you have the monitor connected to and are you sure the voltage and Polarity was correct and no cables were short circuited or open circuit (not connected when they should have been)?


edit: was it hooked up as shown in the manual, including the thin wire from shunt to batteyr positive?

View attachment 32701
Sorry, yeah just speaking Aussie, nice translating ?... Yes I hooked it all up correctly but I didn't follow directions to start the connection from when the battery is at low voltage cutoff. I am using used Winston cells, 12v 400ah.

The 'ran flat' part of my statement is just that. As per the image the monitor was down to reading the battery at 10%. About an hour later I came back it to find the screen off & since then I haven't been able to get it to turn back on.

So now it's taking ages to drain the battery so I can potentially correctly set the lithium settings on the monitor but I can't get the screen to turn back on. As these are similar to most monitors or there, does anyone know how to turn the screen back on?
 
Sorry, yeah just speaking Aussie, nice translating ?... Yes I hooked it all up correctly but I didn't follow directions to start the connection from when the battery is at low voltage cutoff. I am using used Winston cells, 12v 400ah.

The 'ran flat' part of my statement is just that. As per the image the monitor was down to reading the battery at 10%. About an hour later I came back it to find the screen off & since then I haven't been able to get it to turn back on.

So now it's taking ages to drain the battery so I can potentially correctly set the lithium settings on the monitor but I can't get the screen to turn back on. As these are similar to most monitors or there, does anyone know how to turn the screen back on?
I guess they say to connect it when the battery is empty as the monitor needs to learn the battery capacity by observing a full charge. These lithium batteries are so hard to measure just from looking at their voltage alone, as the voltage changes so little as the battery fills up. So I guess it’s about getting the battery monitor “in sync” with what the battery is doing as the monitor needs to maintain its “mental image” of where the battery is at. It might be completely normal behaviour if it’s shut off because it thinks the battery is flat. Chances are it’ll come to life again when you charge the battery, but unless you do that with an empty battery you’ll have the same trouble again.

I can’t see how connecting the monitor to an already full battery would cause it damage though, not if the wiring is deffo correct. You could try an email to Renogy customer support. Unlike many companies, they do provide good English language support. I’m not sure what the right contact for someone based in Aus might be, as I normally email the very helpful Jocelyn in UK supportuk@renogy.com.

Or alternatively, hopefully someone who has one of these Renogy monitors will see this thread and help out.
 
I have the Renogy monitor. I would not try to "drain" the batteries to set the monitor, rather I would use the "FULL" setting after batteries are fully charged. This has seemed to work for me. I did not want to subject the batteries to such a drain. The manual seems to indicate that you can use either "empty" for "full" as the synchronization point.

I have had a somewhat different problem with my Renogy monitor. You may wish to read that long thread. (maybe use search. I am not sure how to reference another thread)

We spent three week in Adelaide then made a road trip from Adelaide to Sydney back in 2000. Great visit to Australia.
 
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