14volts

[dreadnought]

hi all, i have 4 leisure and a starter battery on my nb,i also have 300watts of solar,i recently fitted a smart gauge to monitor state of charge. i have noticed that there seems to be 14volts going into the battery bank constantly  from the solar panels even when the gauge shows 100% charged,is this ok,or will it fry my batteries,many thanks in advance...

[Tracy D'arth]

Its current that charges batteries, not volts. The gauge will show the voltage but the batteries will take what they need in current and no more. 

[Tony Brooks]

I am sure it will be fine, If this was earlier in the day I would say give it a few hours and it will probably say 14.4V. Depending upon type the batteries are likely to be happy at up to 14.5 or 14.6 volts. I sounds perfectly normal to me and remember if the solar controller decides to do an equalization charge phase the Smartguage is likely to show and error. That too is fairly normal.

[MtB]

4 hours ago, dreadnought said:

hi all, i have 4 leisure and a starter battery on my nb,i also have 300watts of solar,i recently fitted a smart gauge to monitor state of charge. i have noticed that there seems to be 14volts going into the battery bank constantly  from the solar panels even when the gauge shows 100% charged,is this ok,or will it fry my batteries,many thanks in advance...

 

What gauge is that then? Make and model, please? 

 

I'd have thought 14.0V *could* indicate the batts are a long way off fully charged and they are sucking enough current to depress the charge voltage to 14.0. On the other hand, the solar controller could have decided to go into float at 14.0V, although that seems too high. 

 

 

[Tony Brooks]

If it is a Smartgauge I think the OP has either not read all the manual or not understood it is not totally accurate while charging is taking place.

[MtB]

1 hour ago, Tony Brooks said:

If it is a Smartgauge I think the OP has either not read all the manual or not understood it is not totally accurate while charging is taking place.

 

I think the gauge the OP is seeing might turn out to be the display on his solar controller.

 

There is a state of charge display on my Tracer. There is virtually zero correlation with what the Smartgauge says the SoC is.