Thread: Battery Monitor
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Old 10-16-2010, 07:41 AM   #17
Delfin
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Join Date: Jan 2010
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RE: Battery Monitor

Larry, It's just a relay that only draws power for an instant, and then is held in either the open or closed position by a rachet, without having to be held in that state with current.* On a charging system, smart latching relays are used to combine battery banks so that a single charging source can be used to maintain two banks.* The sensor in the relay detects when the primary bank has reached around 90 - 95% saturation, then it latches and combines the primary with a secondary bank.* You generally aren't supposed to combine batteries of two types, as on Delfin where AGM are used for the house bank and wet cell for the starting.* However, the system seems to work just fine without harming the 8D wet cell starting batteries.* The Link 20 makes it easy to see what the charge or discharge rate is of either bank, so I can see when the relay is combining the banks, at what voltage, and what the relative current flow is.* Blue Sea makes the relay I use.

Hope that helps.
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