Installing a Renogy Battery Monitor RBM500 into a Caravan || Easy DIY!!
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- Опубліковано 8 лип 2024
- Today we installed a Renogy Battery Monitor into our Jayco Caravan. Its a simple DIY mod that anyone with some basic skills can do themselves.
Im not affilated with Renogy and purchased this with my own money, so my opinions are my own.
Link - au.renogy.com/500a-battery-mo...
#renogy #battery #jayco - Авто та транспорт
![The Ultimate Cost Effective Lithium battery monitor & 500a Shunt [ Renogy & iTech ]](/img/n.gif)
Finally! Thanks for actuyally showing how to hookup the negative wires. Had to watch 5 videos before I found it.
No problem at all. Glad it helped
Good review and thank you for covering all of the monitor's features like how to turn the light off. That will save a few miliamps. I just ordered this monitor for my system thanks to your review.
Thanks mate! Appreciate the kind words. Cheers for watching 👍🏻
If you press & hold down the
Very informative and exhaustive video thank to which i mahaged to install my Renogy monitor in my campervan, and i'm a nurse not really used to play with electrics 😆
Glad it helped. Thanks for watching 👌🏻
Another great vid Get Camping. Keep them coming. Only trouble is I keep wanting to add more and more stuff to my van 😂
Thanks Jodi! Wait to you see next years vids 😉
thanks very much in all youtube movie in italy we have not find a simple and clear installation like yours thanks have nice time by
You are welcome! Glad it helped :)
King! 👑 Thank you
Very welcome
Thanks, this helped a lot. 💯
Glad it helped
Very informative
Glad it was helpful!
I noticed you have 2 wires on the negative side of the battery, you probably wont get good readings over time like this, you might end up having to reset the state of charge more often. ALL negative wires should be going through the shunt. The only wire coming from the negative battery should go directly into the shunt.
(Edit, I read more comments and it appears that this is just from a second battery, so good work!)
Thanks for the tip! Ive actually replaced it (it was always going to be a temporary thing) Im now running lithium setup and the new monitor takes its readings directly from the BMS :)
Yea the 2 batteries are crisscrossed with 4awg wire. Everything else went through the shunt. Thanks for watching. :-)
If I have a Progressive dynamic converter installed in my DIY camper. This is where I have all my positive and negative DC wires going to. Should I run a wire from the negative side of the bus bar all the way to the shunt or another new negative bus bar, to accept all the hook ups. Then have one wire to the shunt.
I figure this might make it easier if I am thinking correctly?
I don't think it matters how you run the wiring as far as the shunt is concerned, but the shunt is there to measure all the "juice" that goes IN and OUT of the batteries. Just make sure anything that uses any power whatsoever, is not between the batteries and the shunt.@@danemmerich6775
You should probably use a distribution block with all those neg wires
Yeh for sure. It was messy that’s for sure. I’m planning on doing a lithium battery upgrade soon so it will all be tidied up.
Came here to say too many wires on that battery terminal. Great video though.
did the small red wire fit your postive lead? did you have to over size all your wire connections because the eyeloops where to small for the massive shunt?
The red wire plugs into the shunt then connects to the battery. From memory I had to change the eyelet on the wire to fit the positive terminal. I did have to change the eyelets over on the neg as well. Really I should have used a busbar or fuse block, but knowing I was upgrading to the lithium I didnt install it the best. Cheers Adam
If you live off solar it's a necessity. Honestly don't have to buy it but you will be real happy you did. Love renogy
Great tip!
With your Jayco did you already have a battery monitor. As in the Jayco Jhub. I have the Jhub in my Jayco. It's terrible. Love your videos. Especially the Van park reviews at the end. Really honest reviews.
Thanks Manny! Glad you like the vids! No ours is a 2009 model so no JHub back then. We have some already planned for 2022 which is going to be great 👍🏻
Mate you have Victron solar charge controller, you should have got the Victron smart shunt for $100 more.
It Blue Tooths to your phone and you can setup VE smartnetwork between it and your charge controller.
To stop those frayed edges, lay out masking tape and mark your cut out, then cut, comes up perfect.
Thanks for the tips. Yeh I should have got it but didn’t do enough research before! Doh!
New subbie. Great video 👍
Thanks for subscribing 😃
@@GetCampingOz yeah, I really like how there's a battery showing the SOC. Very nice 👍
Are people aware that this Renogy is the 500A model. There are 350A and 100A models (in other brands) which are more accurate for lower current systems. If you only ever draw 100A max continuous, or 150A intermittently, don't install a 500A. At specs of 1% accuracy, that gives +/- 5 amps. If you buy a 100A model, at 1%, you'll get 1A accuracy. Just saying.
Thanks for the info! I wasn’t aware
I wonder. As we are very often only drawing/adding a few amps esp in Winter usage, the monitor would be useless at eg 3 amp+/-5. Even at a 100 amp capacity, we would still have a 33% error margin in this case.
To be useful, the 1% error margin would have to apply to net current eg 10 amp+/- 0.1 Amp. Anyhow, as I have one I will soon calibrate its accuracy using known loads once installed.
Yeah…tried with a 30 W load shows 28.5 so that’s a 5% error at that current level (2.15Amp+/-0.11amp) assuming the test appliance actually draws its rated wattage. So error is not +/- 5 amp at all currents anyway, but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong, maybe the error on a 100 amp monitor would only be 1% in which case in my experiment it would show 29.7 watt.
For a 100 amp current, an error of 5% or 5 amp would be unlikely. It’s probably a lot less than the 5% error at 2 amp.
@@davidgriffiths7696
FYI David, I have a similar but different brand of shunt and reader (100A version) on my live-aboard boat. I also have a 250A BMS within a 200ah x 12v system which has Bluetooth monitoring to an app. Yes, sounds all very hi tech and accurate.
*BUT* ... after innumerable calibrations, and tests, and current logging over months, and system tweakings, I have never been able to get the two current readers and SOC to match. They measure and display variably, sometimes to 10% variance.
Through some forum reading, I discovered that the discrepancies are due PARTLY to the accuraccy % of each shunt (100A, 250A, 500A) sensor BUT ALSO due to the sensitivity threshhold -- that is how much of a small a current they register. Meaning, very low current, background draws and inputs ARE NOT ACCOUNTED FOR. Eg, Always-on USB ports, depth sounders, LED lights, solar regulators around dusk or cloudy inputs of
@@thedolphin5428 Live aboard boat living the dream. I have a mid sized off grid domestic system I put together myself with 900 Ahr storage li and pv acid. The chargers etc are indeed much better than what was available 25 years ago. I suppose knowing battery status within about 5% is good enough, zeroing off when full is not difficult to take off accumulated error. It’s not surprising that error margins increase nearer the lower limit of instrument sensitivity . (On an aside, I have just changed the charging protocol on the lead acid battery bank, no more floating. I became suspicious of float charging after I noticed steadily rising float current over the weeks, an equalisation charge fixed it, but leisure batteries can afford to drop back a bit when fully charged, and read somewhere float charging shortens their life.)
Cheers
OK, thanks
You're welcome!
Thank you for the Great information. You are the only person so far that showed connecting the P- all together and then connecting through B- to the battery negative. Thanks for that. For some reason I was a bit confused. So basically all negatives should be connected to basically a negative bus bar and then to the Battery negative, correct??
Glad it helped. Yes all the negatives should be connected to a bus bar. The way I connected it wasn’t a great example.
Just a heads up when cutting thin timber like you have try using a metal (hacksaw type) blade on the jigsaw to prevent the timber going to shit around the edges, you just have to cut abit slower. You could also use a multi-tool to do a finer cut and wont need the drill to drill holes around the corners.
Does it say what max amperage is the shunt? can you connect an inverter to it aswell so you can measure power output when using an inverter?
Keep the awesome videos coming.
That’s a good tip! I was too impatient 😃
Max amp for the shunt is 500amp so it would definitely handle an inverter. As for the wiring, if you ran the inverters neg cable on the P- side it would measure how much current it’s pulling when it being used. I would like to redo my battery system with lithium and have an inverter - might be a few vids coming up on this next year 😉
This is a good tip 👍🏼
But better yet to get the perfect cut use a Stanley knife blade, a nice new one and Cut your pencil Mark first with the standard blade, and then when you cut it out with the jigsaw using the metal blade as Aussie said Cut just on the inside of that stand up blade Cut they’ll be zero damage
why a 2nd ground connection? don't all the ground wires go to the shunt? Do you have a 2nd battery is series so you have another large cable that doesn't go to the shunt?
Hi Matt, apologies for the really late reply! So sorry. Yeh the second ground went to the second battery. Ive actually pulled out this monitor and put in the Renogy lithium setup. Cheers Adam
This looks great, does the battery level remaining take into account the fact that you can only discharge lead acid batteries to about 50% safely?
Probably not since that's complete nonsense. Had my 120ah agm's for 10 years, monitor shows 120ah coming out and back in happy as Larry.
I had the same situation when cutting the hole for my battery monitor. Where did you get the surround to put around the battery monitor?
Hey Alex, it’s just a PowerPoint surround. I pinched it from the power point underneath the seat. If you don’t have a spare, head to the hardware and see if you can find something that suits. It really tidied it up 👍🏻
Great video.
I’ve just bought one of these for our Jayco Expanda.
We have a 120Ah Lithium battery and I’ve watched a couple of videos some installations have entered different values for Capacity.
Question:
Is CAP = to total battery Ah or Usable Ah?
This is where I’m a bit confused.
Cheers mate. I’ve set the battery CAP as what’s listed on the side - so mine are 105ah x 2 =210ah. Obviously if I took all that it would be completely discharged. I’ve then set the alarm to trigger once it uses 100ah. You could set it up differently but mine seems to be working well. I’ll actually be swapping out the AGMS shortly to Lithium so a new vid will be up on that - it also uses a different monitor that reads from the BMS rather than a shunt.
This comment is to the Renogy guys, why isn’t this integration in these expensive Solar Charge controllers? We have a temp wire running from the controller to the battery already! Combine the two I’ll pay more.
Thanks for watching 👍🏻
The next time you have to cut paneling like that use masking tape on the lines where you're going to be cutting and cut through the masking tape the masking tape stops it from shredding so bad.
Great tips for next time. Cheers
Was that your grounding cable (to the chassis) on the negative terminal, or a parallel connection? Where do you suggest connecting the grounding cable in regards to the shunt? I was thinking of grounding the distribution bus (which of course comes after the shunt) but should it go directly to the battery negative?
Hey mate. I can’t remember! I’ve removed that entire system and put a lithium setup in. There was no chassis ground at all. If I was to do it again I would only have a single connection to the shunt and have either all the earths going to the neg side of a fuse block or have a negative bud bar. Hope that helps
@@GetCampingOz Yeah thanks, I’ve gone ahead and done just that; a big grounding cable to the chassis connected to a bus bar, all coming after the shunt.
Does the negative solar cable still go direct to the battery or do you put that on the output "P" side of the shunt ?
All the negative cables go through the shunt. Ideally I should have used a bus bar.
All the earths should be linked on a Bus Bar a the wire for the monitor to the battery. #simple
You had one cable left on the negative side before you added your short cable to the shunt. What was that wire? Thanks for the video
I’m not sure. It could have been the negative connection to the second battery. To be honest it want really setup to how I would have like. I should have used a bus bar for all the wires.
@@GetCampingOz Thanks for the reply. You probably have a parallel connection or maybe serial/parallel connection as I have. As for as the buss bar, for sure with the amount of connections that you have it would have been better! I tried mounting my shunt directly to the battery post without the plastic housing and it would have worked without an extra terminal in place. I sure wish the battery makers and shunt makers would give just a bit more threaded stud height for heavier gauge connecters. I think I will make a buss bar out of a piece of copper pipe to suit my needs
Does the Renogy monitor display information that matches the battery info displayed in the Victron app from your solar charger?
There is some minor variations to amp and voltage but for the most part it’s pretty much the same.
@@GetCampingOz Thanks for the response! The reason I ask is that my my victron app will say my 100 watt panel is pulling 85 watts while the Renogy monitor will say +115 watts...
You would benefit greatly from a Negative bus bar.
Absolutely. I will be upgrading the batteries soon so will definitely put one in. Thanks for watching :)
Is it possible to hook two of these monitors up in parallel? I’d like to have one at the front of the camper and one at the rear of the camper.
Possibly - that would best be answered by Renogy directly
Thanks for the tutorial, would this monitor work on a lithium battery?
Yeh sure would. If your running a Renogy lithium battery they do have a specific battery monitor that runs of the BMS. Thanks for watching
Did you mount the shunt on the battery????
Yeh, not ideal but I'm upgrading the batteries soon, so will rewire it all and use a bus bar. Thanks for watching :)
Great video, mate!
I was just wondering where you got that fascia plate from? And what is it exactly because If I install this unit, I might even get one myself
Cheers 👍
where did you find the vanity frame? it looks nice
It’s just a Power point surround from an existing one in the van.
if I need to use 2 batteries will this connect to both vs monitoring only one?
Yeh provided the batteries are connected together, then this will read the current of both. Thanks for watching 👍🏻
Hi, great video. I just ordered this battery monitor, and was going a full renogy charger setup, but looking at victron now, would this monitor work the same with victron charger mppt combo?
I was going to buy a Victron 40amp MPPT controller but have been told by a lot of people there over priced and no voltage display so looking at something different
Yeh the monitor is independant to anything else you have setup. Thanks for watching
I have one of these which worked great until last week when it started blinking all the time even though I wasn't charging the battery. Then lastnight the screen went completely blank and won't turn back on.
Thats no good. Did you submit a warranty claim?
Were did u get that white cover from plz been looking for months for one cheers
It’s just one of the power point surrounds from a point inside the cupboard
When you’re programming the monitor if you do the arrows down there’s two more settings what are they for
Hi Barry, Sorry Im unsure - I cant check because Ive removed the monitor and installed a lithium setup. Sorry I couldnt be of help. Cheers Adam
Are these monitors no good for lithium?
@@xftexute I don’t no sorry
Any issues now that you've had it a while? Mine shows discharge accurately but once I start charging it sees the 14v and shoots from say 50% straight to 100% but battery continues taking 40amps for hours. Clearly doesn't function as it's meant to. Renogy support is useless. Regretting not going victron 😔
Yeh I have found something similar. After using it for a few months I have noticed it shows 100% after only a short time of solar input. I’m guessing it bases it’s % of the voltage and not the used amps. I’m actually replacing my entire battery system soon with lithium- the battery monitor uses the BMS to monitor in/out voltage and current. Should have something out in the next month. Thanks for watching 👍🏻
Victron are overpriced
This is EXACTLY what I found when charging
* with the engine's battery/alternator (i.e. as soon as the engine starts and the battery isolator disengages),
* with converter (from shore power)
I set "Full V" to 12.8 Volts, and since the charge voltage of 13.4 Volts, this line from 8-page booklet kicked in
> "When the voltage is higher than the set value, the capacity will be automatically set to 100%".
In other words, this monitor is using a CURRENT-measuring circuit (the shunt) to do a VOLTAGE-only calculation. It is NOT integrating Amps*Hours to do what I want it to do.
That makes this monitor useless if I ever want to connect to shore power or use the engine. ;-)
Has anyone else used the Renology monitor with deeply discharged batteries (i.e. that have a high voltage as the first phase of charging). If so, how did you get around this seemingly contradictory problem?
@@MichaelRWolf I do not have one of these units, but have experience in similar. As you will be aware, this unit normally works out the current state of charge (as Ah remaining and percentage %) by taking the full battery capacity entered and subtracting any -ve current and adding +ve current (as measured through the shunt). This sometimes might get out of wack after some time and can be reset manually (using the buttons), or automatically (using the Zero V and Full V values). This automatic method essentially resets the percentage to 0% (empty) and 100% (full) when the entered values are reached. So, if one sets 13.5 volts for the Full V setting, and the unit measures more than 13.5 volts (which it takes via the red wire), it resets the percentage to 100%. If one does not wish to have these automatic resets occur, relying only on the amps in + amps out accumulative calculation, I imagine one is best to set Zero V and Full V to values such as 10v and 16v respectively. Hope that helps.
If I have 660 AH in a set of group 27 batteries what monitor size do I get? I see ones with 100, 350, 400, 600 amps....
All depends what your running off the batteries. I’d work out your max load and then go the closest size. Thanks for watching
@@GetCampingOz So lets say I have 660 AH bank. The shut is sized to the load not the bank? i.e. if I bedget say 100 to 125 AH per day of use, but at any given time I may be using 20 to 30 amps then I size to that? So 100 Amp should do it? or is it best to just get a higher model to be safe?
Now since it doesn’t completely turn off then would it put a parasitic draw on my car battery?
Yeah it would but it would be only very minor - I'm not sure what the draw is but it should be noticeable if you are using your vehicle frequently. If you arent, it maybe worth while putting a switch inline so you can completely turn the screen off. Thanks for watching
I'm on the fence with this monitor. I installed mine about half a year ago and I initially really liked it. Unfortunately it started flaking out on me about a month ago. It would sporadically sound it's alarm and tell me I had 0% battery capacity in my bank. I think I've tracked it down to a faulty pin on the wire that connects the shunt to the monitor. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a replacement wire. To be honest though, I'm not sure I even want to spend money on a replacement wire if this one only lasted 6 months. It's a shame because I really do like the display. Much more than other monitors on the market. Others like the Victron only show partial information where as this one shows everything.
That’s no good to hear. I actually didn’t have mine installed very long as I ended up switching my batteries over to lithium. We’re you able to claim warranty at all?
@@GetCampingOz unfortunately, I’m the type of guy that pull stuff out of the box and installs it usually without looking at the directions and afterwords tosses what’s left. I gotta stop doing that. 🤦♂️
Yeah I've installed 2 in different vehicles and they've both done the same. They also read full from half as soon as you start charging. Renogy aren't interested in helping
@@xftexute I ended up replacing it with a Victron unit. Really happy with it. So happy I actually ordered a second Victon unit for my starter battery.
I need a surround myself as I had the same problem, but can't find a suitable one anywhere ????
Mine was just a power point surround that I pinched off a point from an internal cupboard
Whats the other cable off the neg of the battery?
That worried me at first too.....But he mentioned that he has 2 batteries....That wire must be connected to the negative terminal of the 2nd battery for a parallel connection, thus doubling his amp hours.
Hey mate, As Craig pointed out that the connection to the other battery. Im not very happy with the setup and its extremely messy, but I will be upgrading to lithium soon, so it will get a complete tidy up then. Thanks for watching
Can I use this if I am just running a battery and an inverter?
Sure can!
Just question were is that other earth wire running to plz
I think it was a mistake, there should be nothing between the shunt and the battery.
What is the other negative wire connected to?
That second negative wire goes to the second battery 🔋 😀
@@GetCampingOz so if you are running two batteries in parallel you still connect the first battery to the second and n not via the shunt?
Hea's a good shunt 🇦🇺
You need a bus bar. It's not advised to have more than three wires hooked to a terminal and you have a bunch.
Yeh exactly right mate. I didn’t show this properly. I’ve actually removed this and changed to a lithium setup. Thanks for watching
Was just curious if you are using only 2.5 2.8 amps how come you only have 83min of battery life left you should have 2 days
Not sure mate? I couldnt tell you why it was but it works fine now
83 hours, not minutes.
Is there any reason why mines is flashing showing it’s charging when there is literally no charge at all? The voltage says 14. something and the amperage is constantly all over the place. My MPPT isn’t even charging. The led light for the solar panel and alternator isn’t coming on when the engine is running, but this screen has been flashing with the arrows pointing up for hours on into the night and it’s now after 1am. If the solar did work, it definitely wouldn’t be working at 1am with it thunder and lightning. It’s not connected inversely which is what online is saying. I also have switches on the solar panel cables, the main house battery and connecting to the vehicle battery and they’re all in the off position allowing no power what so ever to come through from anywhere, but this monitor is flashing saying it’s charging. Went to the Renogy UA-cam page and the guy said you hook the inverter and charger positive cable up to the P- on the shunt which already told me they don’t know 💩and is going to get someone hurt, killed, or burn their vehicle up.
Not sure mate, Best to contact Renogy and speak to their tech team who will be able to assist. Thanks for watching
Will the shunt go before or after my CTEK? Cheers
The shunt will sit between the battery and the CTEK. This is so it can measure everything going back in. Hope that helps
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Thanks mate!
Occilating tool would of been beter
I agree. Unfortunately I didn’t have one.
Mine lasted 6 months before it failed. After-sales service has been abysmal.
Thats not good to hear. I havent had any issues with mine at all.
This monitor is completely useless ... You can discharge your batteries by 100 ah then as soon as it registers the high voltage of 12.8 it resets the display to full capacity , what's the point , I bought this monitor and am totally underwhelmed by it ...
Also , if you have a FLA or AGM battery bank of 200 ah total then you need to set the 'Capacity' at 100 ah , as that is your 'useable capacity' .
The only thing this monitor does is tell the user what amps/watts is going in and out .
Yeh I have noticed that it monitors the capacity by voltage and not amperage. I’ve since removed it and installed a lithium setup. It’s the ducks 🦆 nuts 🥜
@@GetCampingOz worked it out , don't set the high and low voltage , leave them both at 0.00 and it works as it should ...
Why Renogy can't just say this in the instructions is beyond me , took me 3 days to work that out 🤣
@@tgill3436 that’s good news! Glad you have it Sorted. It’s bit average from Renogy. I will say their smart battery monitor for their lithium works really good 👍🏻
@@GetCampingOz so you not using this monitor any more?
Totally agree with everything you say, as its seems fine when its discharging but as soon as it sees and charging voltage from solar or alternator it displays %100
No hai sbagliato, devi mettere v 14,6 max e 10,5 minimo altrimenti è sempre al 100% con v12,8 🤦🏻♂️
Thanks for the info