Solar panel negative charge?

[twinboat]

The shunt don't care what side of the battery it connects to.

The meter, gauge or display will.

My display powers from a positive wire from the battery. It picks up negative from one of the shunt wires.

If I switch them I will get smoke instead of display.

If you read your instruction book this is explained.

If you don't have a monitor, download an installation instruction book and read it, before offering an opinion.

[Delafontaine]

ref. post #14 <<the shunt which normally in the order of 1 ohm>>.

the shunt is normally 1 mohm (1 milli-ohm) and your battery monitor registers 100 mV across the shunt with a current flow of 100 A.

a good picture on a former post (see #4):
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...unt-20428.html

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by Sempersafloat

Hi, It matters not which leg (pos or neg) your shunt is in. The battery monitoe is measuring the small voltage drop across the shunt which is normally in the order of 1 ohm.

An old-fashioned analog ammeter with a built-in shunt can be wired wherever you want.

With an electronic current monitor it definitely matters where you put the shunt -- it might be in the positive lead, or (more generally) in the negative lead, but it depends on the design of the ammeter circuit. A very few will work in eiher configuration, but most will only work if the shunt is wired appropriately.

And, a typical house bank shunt is 50mV/500A, which means the shunt resistance is 0.0001 Ohms.