How accurate is my Smartgauge?

[mrsmelly]

2 hours ago, Naughty Cal said:

When we are out for two or three weeks without shore power it still doesn't occur to us that we need to be watching the meters like a hawk.

When we liveaboard we still won't be monitoring them like some on here. It just isn't worth it. From what is written on here it doesn't actually give any better battery life expectancy anyway, so is a pointless waste of time.

My usual twopenneth worth. I buy relatively cheap batteries. I buy sealed jobbies. I NEVER visit them whilst they are onboard the only reason I know they are there is that the lights work. I am full time liveaboard for many years I am also off grid. I have a nasa bm2 and only ever use the voltage readout and amps in/out I never ever look at the a/h counter the reason I have one of these is its large display and dead easy to fit so easier than seperate gauges but in reality a volt reading and amp reading jobby is all thats needed. I charge my batteries daily from my engines, I charge till the amp bit shows its dropped to somewhere between 3 and 5 depending on time and mood. I have a small amount of solar in the summer. When the batteries dont last capacity wise till the next day I bin em and buy new ones. At present these are still doing well. If I needed to change them this week then they would have cost me the princely sum of £2.56 per week and as I say still going strong so the square root of nowt, peanuts, diddly squat etc. I have said countless time life is way too short to pee about with batteries or ever even consider topping them up etc etc. Fit, charge, repeat and bin.

[Naughty Cal]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Two or three weeks off grid once in a while and the rest of the time on shore power, yet you knacker them in four years? 

Your batteries should be lasting ten years. You NEED a Smartgauge lol!

Show me a set of batteries that will last for ten years using the electric kettle, electric blanket and other similar items through the inverter and then being taken for a four or five hours session of crash bang boom at sea and I will buy them.

They may be on shore power during the week but they lead a hard life the rest of the time.

Remind me how your smart gauges have helped you and your batteries again .......

[Richard10002]

8 hours ago, Robbo said:

But how do you know when the batteries are at 50% (or whatever % you like to charge from), amp counters are totally inaccurate at this.

I have a NASA BM2 and a Smartguage. The best, (or the worst), of both worlds

[cuthound]

On 07/04/2017 at 19:03, Naughty Cal said:

Show me a set of batteries that will last for ten years using the electric kettle, electric blanket and other similar items through the inverter and then being taken for a four or five hours session of crash bang boom at sea and I will buy them.

http://lifelinebatteries.com/products/marine-batteries/

I have these on my boat, now 10 years old and at 65% of original capacity, but plenty enough for me.  First 7 years of light leisure use by previous owner <100 hours use per year. 

Last 3 years I have used the boat for an average of 300 hours per year, again leisure use.

Lifeline are expensive,  but properly looked after will last 10 plus years of leisure use, including being bounced around on rough season. 

Edited April 9, 2017 by cuthound
To unmangle the effects of autocorrect.

[tomsk]

I am convinced that an unhealthy obsession with batteries can cause people to go slightly potty. Mike seems to be going down this route and I would strongly urge him to contact whoever sold him his SG's and ask that they simply re-calibrate them rather than bang on about how useless they are on here. Just sayin'.

[WotEver]

3 hours ago, tomsk said:

... I would strongly urge him to contact whoever sold him his SG's and ask that they simply re-calibrate them rather than bang on about how useless they are on here. Just sayin'.

I've been saying this to him for months. 

To no avail. 

[Alan de Enfield]

29 minutes ago, WotEver said:

I've been saying this to him for months. 

To no avail. 

Some folks have very little 'life' and if he didn't have his SGs to complain about, he may have nothing to contribute to the forum, and, 'life as he knows it' would be extinct.

[chubby]

6 hours ago, tomsk said:

I am convinced that an unhealthy obsession with batteries can cause people to go slightly potty. Mike seems to be going down this route and I would strongly urge him to contact whoever sold him his SG's and ask that they simply re-calibrate them rather than bang on about how useless they are on here. Just sayin'.

I have 4 110ah batteries . I look after them , water them and monitor thier well being . Thier names are John , Paul , George & Ringo . 

Now , just where is this an unhealthy obsession i ask ?!

[rusty69]

11 minutes ago, chubby said:

I have 4 110ah batteries . I look after them , water them and monitor thier well being . Thier names are John , Paul , George & Ringo . 

Now , just where is this an unhealthy obsession i ask ?!

I would have thought you'd be better off naming them after Jeff Lyn,Roy Wood and Bev Bevan.....  the Electro-lyte-orchestra. 

Edited April 9, 2017 by rusty69

[MtB]

On 09/04/2017 at 18:39, Alan de Enfield said:

Some folks have very little 'life' and if he didn't have his SGs to complain about, he may have nothing to contribute to the forum, and, 'life as he knows it' would be extinct.

 

Your degree from uni was is missing the point, I'll bet.

[rusty69]

5 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Your degree from uni was is missing the point, I'll bet.

Your English CSE  is also poor.

Edited April 9, 2017 by rusty69

[MtB]

On 09/04/2017 at 21:59, rusty69 said:

Your English CSE  is also poor.

No, my speeling is poor.

I dint get a CSE is English.

[Cloudinspector]

We have a SG and a Victron BMV 600 monitoring the batteries. The % reading on the BMV seems inaccurate so I use the SG % as a guide and then recharge until the BMV is showing a charge reading of below 10 amps or the charger has switched to float.

we liveaboard and over time I've come to know how the batteries behave on a daily basis.

[Tom and Bex]

There does seem to be a run of badly calibrated smartgauges at the moment. The new one I've just installed is reading 0.5v high. That's compared to my digital multimeter and the tracer solar controller. Need to borrow a calibrated meter to check, but find it highly unlikely they would both be that far out and the smartgauge accurate!

Maybe that's why Cactus Navigation sell the smartgauge cheaper than anyone else - they get all the rejects to sell!

If anyone knows how to calibrate the smartgauge let me know - might be easier than getting an accurate one to start with. 

Tom 

[rusty69]

8 hours ago, Cloudinspector said:

We have a SG and a Victron BMV 600 monitoring the batteries. The % reading on the BMV seems inaccurate so I use the SG % as a guide and then recharge until the BMV is showing a charge reading of below 10 amps or the charger has switched to float.

we liveaboard and over time I've come to know how the batteries behave on a daily basis.

The state of charge indicated on the BMV is never likely to be very accurate unless it has been setup correctly and its settings correctly  maintained. 

[Sea Dog]

1 minute ago, rusty69 said:

The state of charge indicated on the BMV is never likely to be very accurate unless it has been setup correctly and its settings correctly  maintained. 

Percentage wise I'd certainly agree, not least because we don't even really know what our battery capacity is. Counting how many Amp Hours we've used since last charge is a product of time and current measurements so, given a reasonably calibrated meter, that figure shouldn't be too far off, should it?

That's how I use my Victron BM anyway - when discharging I refer to battery voltage and Ah used; when charging I refer to voltage and tail current.

[rusty69]

1 minute ago, Sea Dog said:

Percentage wise I'd certainly agree, not least because we don't even really know what our battery capacity is. Counting how many Amp Hours we've used since last charge is a product of time and current measurements so, given a reasonably calibrated meter, that figure shouldn't be too far off, should it?

That's how I use my Victron BM anyway - when discharging I refer to battery voltage and Ah used; when charging I refer to voltage and tail current.

Yes, I was commenting on the % state of charge. 

 

I agree the amp hour measurement should be much more meaningful. 

[nicknorman]

8 hours ago, Tom and Bex said:

There does seem to be a run of badly calibrated smartgauges at the moment. The new one I've just installed is reading 0.5v high. That's compared to my digital multimeter and the tracer solar controller. Need to borrow a calibrated meter to check, but find it highly unlikely they would both be that far out and the smartgauge accurate!

Maybe that's why Cactus Navigation sell the smartgauge cheaper than anyone else - they get all the rejects to sell!

If anyone knows how to calibrate the smartgauge let me know - might be easier than getting an accurate one to start with. 

Tom 

0.5v high is ridiculous. You should send it back. If not, they are getting away with it and there will be no incentive to improve.

[WotEver]

5 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

0.5v high is ridiculous. You should send it back. If not, they are getting away with it and there will be no incentive to improve.

I have made this point elsewhere and I'm awaiting a reply. 

[MtB]

On 10/04/2017 at 09:54, WotEver said:

I have made this point elsewhere and I'm awaiting a reply. 

 

You have, and you are missing the point of this thread. The point is to alert people here to the fact that the Smartgauge isn't the perfect solution that many, many old threads would have us believe.

Sending mine back for a refund doesn't get me a properly calibrated Smartgauge either. I'll reclibrate them both myself once I feel I fully understand what has happened between my dodgy smartgauges and my possibly dodgy batteries.

Remember, when I first posted about my new battery problems, the advice here was "complain to the Yuasa". Now it's looking like its a Smartgauge problem, along with a gap in my own understanding of battery characteristics, or a combination of all three.

I'm getting a technical education here by writing about it. Nothing like writing stuff down and explaining it to others to clarify one's own understanding.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Mike the Boilerman

[rusty69]

3 minutes ago, WotEver said:

I have made this point elsewhere and I'm awaiting a reply. 

It's far easier to start a thread "how accurate is my Smartgauge?" than to actually do something about it.  

[WotEver]

Just now, rusty69 said:

It's far easier to start a thread "how accurate is my Smartgauge?" than to actually do something about it.  

I have pointed out to Merlin that if they're going to be supplied as poorly calibrated as they appear to be then they should come with calibration instructions so that the end user can fix them himself. 

[nicknorman]

5 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

You have, and you are missing the point of this thread. The point is to alert people here to the fact that the Smartgauge isn't the perfect solution that many, many old threads would have us believe.

Sending mine back for a refund doesn't get me a properly calibrated Smartgauge either. I'll reclibrate them both myself once I feel I fully understand what has happened between my dodgy smartgauges and my possibly dodgy batteries.

Remember, when I first posted about my new battery problems, the advice here was "complain to the Yuasa". Now it's looking like its a Smartgauge problem, along with a gap in my own understanding of battery characteristics, or a combination of all three.

I'm getting a technical education here by writing about it. Nothing like writing stuff down and explaining it to others to clarify one's own understanding.

If everyone who got an out of calibration Smartgauge sent it back, not for a refund, but for one correctly calibrated, repeat as required, they'd soon get the message. Cactus would complain to Merlin who would complain to whoever was doing the assembly and calibration. And then we would be back to the earlier days of the Smartgauge where it worked properly!

[MtB]

On 10/04/2017 at 10:08, nicknorman said:

If everyone who got an out of calibration Smartgauge sent it back, not for a refund, but for one correctly calibrated, repeat as required, they'd soon get the message. Cactus would complain to Merlin who would complain to whoever was doing the assembly and calibration. And then we would be back to the earlier days of the Smartgauge where it worked properly!

 

Agreed, but finding a box, packing material, taking it to a post office, posting it back, communicating with Cactus possibly several times over is a monumental ballache and it just isn't going to happen. Recalibrating it is FAR easier but if I just did that and said nothing, how would that help anyone either?

 

 

Besides, WotEver says he is keeping Merlin up to speed on the situation.

[MtB]

On 10/04/2017 at 10:00, rusty69 said:

It's far easier to start a thread "how accurate is my Smartgauge?" than to actually do something about it.  

 

Missing the point.