Battery monitors are becoming increasingly important instruments as more and more electronic equipment is fitted to vehicles and machinery. Establishing battery state can be essential to ensure that batteries are charged properly and kept in good condition.
Merlin Equipment’s new Expert-501 battery monitor displays battery voltage, current (+/-), amp-hours consumed, percentage remaining and the time left until the batteries will be flat. The unit can be used to determine when batteries need to be charged, for example, before it is too late and the batteries are too low to start an engine-driven generator. The unit can also monitor charging to see if the rate is high enough to cope with the load on the battery.
Also available is historical information such as the number of cycles, average depth of discharge, deepest discharge and average charging time. Battery efficiency can be established by checking for sulphation and cells that are going down.
As well as the LCD display there is an alarm output for an audible warning, a warning lamp, or for automatic generator starting. Triggering is according to voltage and battery percentage, rather than just by voltage which fluctuates.
Installation involves putting the supplied 500A shunt in the main battery negative lead and connecting two positive wires, one negative and two shunt sense wires. Also available is a PC Link kit that allows connection of the Expert-501 to an onboard computer via a standard Com Port cable.
