hey guys welcome back to the channel my name is David and today i'm going to be
reviewing the Renogy 500 amp battery monitor
before i get into it too much i just wanted to mention that i actually have developed an easy
solar system guide for any beginners or diy-ers like myself i'll link it in the description below
you can head over and check that out i've been getting a lot of questions on some of my other
videos about wire sizing fuse sizing location of components and it's all in my guide and it's only
14.99 so check that out if you have any hesitation or worried about where to purchase any products or
how much everything costs it is all inside that guide this is the battery monitor that we use
to monitor our battery system it is extremely accurate really nice to have i also use the bt2
bluetooth monitor that works well but for accuracy and to really know how many amp hours i have left
this is what i use it has been a while since i've done any reviews of the electrical components in
our van and i'm pretty excited to get back into it if you've been following us we just got back
from Portugal a little while ago and we are back in the van which we missed dearly and it
has been a lot of fun back in Canada but anyways i wanted to go over all the features of this battery
monitor it's really handy to have and it's like a necessity to have for your solar system to make
sure you're monitoring your batteries correctly you want to make sure that they're healthy and
they're always being charged up as needed the bt2 bluetooth monitor that Renergy has made is
really nice to have um just to pull out your phone see how many amps are coming in from the solar
see how many amps are coming from the alternator while you're driving basically um it's nice just
to check um you can kind of see how much battery you've been using over the past few days or
so you can predict how much you need it's really nice for that but it's really not
all that accurate so having a battery monitor that has a shunt is ideal for monitoring your batteries
it's a lot more accurate for those of you who don't know what a shunt is a shunt is basically
a component that is wired in to the negative battery cable right as it leaves the negative
terminal on your battery and it measures all the amps going in and out on that negative side
so it's very accurate it's um the most accurate way to monitor your batteries how many amps are
going in how many amps are going out you can see like how much each component uses like you
can see how much your light uses you can see how much your solar brings in and it also gives you
an accurate reading of how many amp hours you have left in your battery which is ideally most
important okay so let's go over all the features and how to install it this is my setup guys i know
it looks a little messy but i'll clear things up and i'll show you how i've wired my energy battery
monitor it is super simple so basically all you have to do is connect this shunt right here so
i've connected it right to my bus bar my negative bus bar which made things really
easy basically it's just two bolts two bolts one here one here and then there's also this small
power wire which actually powers the backlight and the computer and everything for the monitor
essentially that's the power wire so that's just a very small connection that's connected
to my positive bus bar and then right here is the other side of the data port which you can see it's
really important to connect this in the right way so that it senses properly because if you connect
it backwards then it's not going to sense the amps properly this wire is my main negative battery
wire which runs directly to my negative hookup right here and then the data cable runs right to
the battery monitor there's plenty of cable there i think there's six meters of cable if i remember
correctly anyways there's plenty of cable so you shouldn't have a problem finding a good place
for it this is basically where i have my battery monitor installed you can see i just removed it
it is just underneath the seat here which makes it tucked away and i also have my Renogy
inverter power switch right there along with a switch for our signal booster right
here which i can turn on which is also really nice so what i've done is i ran
the data cable basically bundled it up here because there's so much so much in it and
i'm just going to go ahead and show you guys what it looks like there when i have it all
it's basically just press fit there's no screws or anything on it which is actually kind of nice
so this is what it looks like when it's all nice and installed it has a nice finished look to it i
like the way it looks it's really simple easy to read okay so this is the screen itself we can go
over all the features of the monitor and how to use it on the left hand side here you have the
battery symbol it shows you how many amp hours is in your system which you can customize based
on how many amp hours your capacity is i have 200 amp hours so that's why it's showing 122 and 62
next to the amp hours is a set of arrows you'll notice and if these arrows are pointing down
there is a negative draw on your battery system so even though my solar panels are bringing in
a little bit of light right now it's a really overcast day they are not bringing it enough to
compensate how much the light is using right now and i think my fridge is also on so that's why
it is going down and you can see below that it is negative 3.23 amps so that is how much is being
drawn out of my battery right now the voltage is 13.1 volts on the left there and then 62
on the top right that's how much capacity is remaining in your battery
and then right here is 42 watts so right now i'm losing 42 watts
3.21 amps and this number right here actually tells me how long i can draw this amount of
power until my batteries run out so at the current state i can use what i'm using for 38 hours and
that's when my batteries will be dead if i don't charge them again so that's really nice to know
especially in the winter when you're using our diesel heater
i know how long i have until i can run out so i know that diesel heater will never stop working
leave us freezing out in the cold so i just went ahead and started the van and i wanted to show
you guys what it looks like when it's charging so you'll notice that the two arrows right here
are going up the screen is actually like flashing as well which signifies its charging
and then you can see on the bottom that it has 20.5 amps coming in right now and 273w
so this number right here again instead of showing how many hours it'll take to drain now it's
showing how many hours it'll take to charge the battery actually so that's really nice if you want
to know how long you're going to be driving for you can calculate how many amps are going to go
into the battery and that's how much you're going to have or how long it'll take to charge it up
it's really basic really easy to follow just like most
energy projects it's really easy to use and install and then on the back here
it says that i'm using the 500 amp hour model and then there is just the cable
outlet there just the one to customize the settings we can hold the ok button right here
and then this is where you're going to enter your capacity for your battery system mine's 200
you can also have alarms so this is my high voltage alarm this is my low voltage alarm
and then at the bottom here i also have an alarm set for if my battery reaches 25 amp hours
and you can completely customize these by pressing the up and down arrow
hitting okay so when you first install the battery monitor you're going to want to make
sure your battery is fully charged up to its max capacity and then what you're going to do i'm
not going to do it because it's going to reset mine you're going to hold the up arrow until
this resets and it doesn't take too long it only takes a couple seconds this will go to 100
capacity and then you're basically good to go another nice feature with this is there's an
internal battery so if this ever gets unplugged like i could unplug it right now and then i can go
ahead and plug it back in there and it'll remember all of my settings so that's really nice if
if power is ever lost there's an internal battery that keeps all your settings the same
so a couple small tips for you guys when you're installing that shunt it's nice to bolt one side
to either your battery terminal or a terminal on your bus bar it just makes it quite a bit easier
that way you're not cutting wires and lining them up on both sides since that gauge of wire is going
to be pretty thick it's your main negative battery cable so that's one tip there and also make sure
that shunt is orientated the right way because if it's backwards it's not going to work properly but
other than that it's really easy to connect it's basically just that main negative battery cable
the small positive cable and then your data cable which goes to your screen so that's pretty
much it if you have any questions regarding the installation don't hesitate to comment below um
that's how i installed mine i like to keep my monitor kind of out of the way um it's also easy
to access but i didn't want anyone like bumping into it if you want to check out this product
i will link it below i also just want to say thank you to everyone who's been asking questions
and engaging on the channel it's really nice to go through and talk to you guys and answer your
questions the best that i can i've had a lot of fun doing that and i really enjoy doing it so
if you've any questions regarding solar or the camper van build or anything else
feel free to comment below thank you guys so much for watching if you want to check out my solar
guide i will link it below in the description so feel free to check that out it's an awesome
guide and i've had lots of positive feedback about it thank you guys so much for watching
again be sure to subscribe to the channel like this video and i will see you in the next one