Balmar SG-200 Battery Monitor

[lateral]

Originally Posted by Bycrick

When the ACR is closed, the two battery positives are connected together in parallel. So some of the current flows through the house battery and is sensed by the shunt, and some other current flows through the starter battery and is NOT sensed. But the measured current of the house battery is correct.

Thanks! Off course as no circuit thru house bank.

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by Brucekav

......70A stock alternator on a Volvo MD22L with a TWC HPR regulator that seems to be on its way out, and generally doesn’t seem to manage more than 13.5v unless the battery is almost fully charged. I've also had the tacho flickering and reading too high which I gather may be an indicator that the alternator brushes are on the way out which I still need to investigate. A basic mains charger that also seems to manage a max of about 13.5v output.


I’ve been wondering if my low output charger and alternator could be the problem, does the monitor need high output 3 stage charging to work properly? I can’t see why it would, it should be able to work regardless of the charge source.



Any insight gratefully received as I’m confused and unimpressed by what I’ve seen to date.

Based on the performance of both the alternator and the mains charger you really are not getting past float voltage. Batteries do not charge at float voltage, well maybe in a few weeks or so.

If I were you I would forget the SG200 and fix the known problems before you have to replace the battery bank.

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by lateral

I with Bycrick

I am back in the mental dilemma I had before.
Once the ACR has paralleled the positives and the negatives are common
anyway "x" amount of current can flow via the shunt that is attributable to the
start battery as the systems are essentially paralleled?
depending on relative internal resistance of house/start banks.
So the shunt IS measuring a component of start battery current.

The shunt can only measure the battery (or bank) it is connected to. Yes, with an ACR the batteries are paralleled when it closes. But keep in mind it takes more than a positive cable to connect 2 batteries. For any current to flow between the start battery and the house bank or vice versa there has to be an equal movement of current in the opposite direction which for the house bank is measured by the shunt.

If the SG200 is receiving its data from the shunt an ACR can not be an issue.

I just looked at the SG200 manual installation diagram again. The shunt is wired exactly the same as the shunt of a Victron BMV-702, 2 of which I have installed this past week. They have absolutely no issue with an ACR confusing the data, not have I ever come across this issue with any other battery monitor that measures through a shunt, the majority of installations having an ACR.

I believe that any confusing numbers the SG200 arrives at are determined by the display unit, not the shunt.

[Buchner]

Originally Posted by witzgall

All,

Original (First firmware release) devices can only be upgraded when there is one original device on the network at at time. This affects devices with the following firmware.
DISPLAY v.2.00
BANK v.B.04

To upgrade, do this, after ensuring you have the latest app from the Apple or Google play store.

1. Disconnect the SmartLink cable from the display at the SmartShunt.
2. Plug the Bluetooth Gateway directly into the port you removed the cable from in step #1.
3. Ensure that the BT gateway is the ONLY device plugged into the SmartShunt.
5. Use the App to upgrade the Gateway, if it has an upgrade available.
6. Upgrade the SmartShunt software.
7. Plug the Display back into the SmartShunt, and the gateway back into the display (Typical configuration)
8.. Upgrade the Display.

You MAY need to pull the fuse between upgrading each device during this process.

If you have more than one SmartShunt or more than one display, use the rule "Only one original device on the network at a time when upgrading." and you will be able to upgrade all devices.

This is a one-time issue, as long as you give each device of the same type a unique name, you will be able to upgrade them in place going forward.

As always, if you have any issues with this, our tech support is ready to help.

Chris

Tried to do software upgrades as suggested to no avail running app on my iPhone 10x running iOS 13.6. As a last ditch effort, I tried with app running on my iPad running iOS 12.4.5 and worked perfectly.
So besides all the “ issues “ I read about questionable readings, you may have an app compatibility issue with latest versions of iOS.

[berwick]

Hi, I have a SG200 monitor that I purchased in the spring which has never worked correctly. It is doing something different which may help somebody to trouble shoot it. I am running 2.93 firmware and the last few weeks each morning I get a "low SOC detected fault", it says SOC of 1% even though it shows my battery voltage as 12.7 volts (I measured with a Fluke meter and is accurate). Within an hour of the sun shining and the solar panels putting a few amps into the battery the SOC jumps up to 100%. The SOH is anywhere from 0 to 100% depending how it feels that day. It is a 450 AH led acid with default settings. Help please, thank you
Richard

[JensLB]

Originally Posted by berwick

Hi, I have a SG200 monitor that I purchased in the spring which has never worked correctly. It is doing something different which may help somebody to trouble shoot it. I am running 2.93 firmware and the last few weeks each morning I get a "low SOC detected fault", it says SOC of 1% even though it shows my battery voltage as 12.7 volts (I measured with a Fluke meter and is accurate). Within an hour of the sun shining and the solar panels putting a few amps into the battery the SOC jumps up to 100%. The SOH is anywhere from 0 to 100% depending how it feels that day. It is a 450 AH led acid with default settings. Help please, thank you
Richard

My SG200 did the same last week. My first reaction was that a battery had died. Checked voltage 12,7V and SOH 92%...

[witzgall]

Each phone/tablet stores some information in cache to speed up the connections to devices. This is at the OS level, not something an app can control or influence. IF the cache data structure gets out of sync with the app it is trying to connect to or communicate with, things stop working.

We have been able to correct this issue you described either by turning off Bluetooth on the phone and then back on. Sometimes it takes a power cycle. I suspect that this is the issue that kept your the app on your phone from working properly.

Chris

Originally Posted by Buchner

Tried to do software upgrades as suggested to no avail running app on my iPhone 10x running iOS 13.6. As a last ditch effort, I tried with app running on my iPad running iOS 12.4.5 and worked perfectly.
So besides all the “ issues “ I read about questionable readings, you may have an app compatibility issue with latest versions of iOS.

[witzgall]

Again, I encourage any user that is seeing wonky SoC drops like above to open a support case with us, if you have not already done so. I will send you a list of questions, and ask for some photos. It seems to be related to sharepower charger use, and may be exacerbated by the use of an ACR, but that is just conjecture on my part right now. We are running some extensive testing in the lab right now.



I have already been working with a few users, and we are working on the issue right now.

I do want to clarify something stated in an earlier post by a user. Our display is just that, a display. All processing and data creation is done in the SmartShunt.

Also, in talking with both customers and installers, we are finding a few issues with installations that can cause issues. In the last week we have seen these issues that can mess things up nicely:

1. Start battery negative cables run directly to the negative post of the house battery.
2. Stacks of eight connectors on the load side of the shunt. No bus bar, just all on the SmartShunt bolt.
3. Link 10 shunt inbetween the SmartShunt and the battery.
4. Poor battery crimps. If they are bad, they raise resistance, which can throw off readings.

Chris

[berwick]

I put in a trouble ticket today, see what comes out of it


Richard

[Brucekav]

Chris,

Further to my message above on 3rd Sept and your message above encouraging people to log a support case, I logged a support case a couple of weeks ago and got no response and I recent tried again to log another support case with more detail I've got from subsequest testing, but despite trying 2 different brousers I keep getting the message "Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method."

What do you suggest?

Bruce

[JensLB]

Time for an update.

Since my last post I’ve done some changes. All batteries exchanged in September because one of them started to run hot.

I must say that the SG200 acts nothing like before. SOH readings has been solid and SOC readings has also been much more in line of my expectations. Even the odd skipping to 100%+ SOC is true to the threshold numbers.

So further on I hope it will be more of a long time testing how it will work for me.

Don’t know if starting out with near end of lifetime batteries was the cause of my problems. I hope I will get solid readings from the degradation, rather than the skipping around experience when I come to the end of these batteries life.

Cheers
Jens

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by JensLB

Time for an update.

Since my last post I’ve done some changes. All batteries exchanged in September because one of them started to run hot.

I must say that the SG200 acts nothing like before. SOH readings has been solid and SOC readings has also been much more in line of my expectations. Even the odd skipping to 100%+ SOC is true to the threshold numbers.

So further on I hope it will be more of a long time testing how it will work for me.

Don’t know if starting out with near end of lifetime batteries was the cause of my problems. I hope I will get solid readings from the degradation, rather than the skipping around experience when I come to the end of these batteries life.

Cheers
Jens

I just completely miss the advantage of buying an instrument to see if it agrees with my hunches of my battery state. When it doesn't, what do you do, ignore it?

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by Paul L

I just completely miss the advantage of buying an instrument to see if it agrees with my hunches of my battery state. When it doesn't, what do you do, ignore it?

Depends on the meaning of it doesn't it?


Sorry, couldn't help myself.
More seriously, why did you bother to buy and install the gauge then?

[Bycrick]

That’s probably the great question of our epoch. Why should one believe any instrument, device, "news" story or opinion unless it is independently verifiable?

I bought the old SmartGauge because I was curious if it worked. It seems to be within a reasonable range of what I "guess" the batteries are by watching the Victron 712. I let the Victron tell me how many AHs I used, but have turned off the SOC and related numbers, because I don’t trust the computation. If either one was within +/- 10% of reality, I’d be happy.

[rgleason]

Thanks for your informative post. Much appreciated. Hope your troubles are over now.