High performance DIY Battery maintainer.

Job done.

Screenshot_20250405-104147_BM6.jpg
 
The above is one of the app displays BM6 battery monitor, off aliexpress, or 3 times more on Amazon, BT range is astonishing, around 30m and has blue LEDs at night.
 
trevskoda said:
Battery voltage should be 14.4 top dropping to 13.7 float with a charger, or down to 12.7 if solar at night.
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And in a nutshell that's why voltage drop of a battery maintainer is so important.
If your AGM battery is being nicely floated at 13.7 volts and your starter battery is being 'maintained' by a battery maintainer with a voltage drop of 0.6 volts then sadly your starter battery is only being floated at 13.1 volts. Cable and fuse losses will make it even worse and probably less than 13 volts. Better than nothing but pretty poor.
 
wildebus said:
Always need to add blue in your van, Kev (y) ...

This will be inside a van in the next fortnight ....
View attachment 141524
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Out of curisosity David. How much is that lot, and how much would you be charging your customer to fit it? if that is not too rude a question.

I'm not against Victron, it's just so far out of my reach pricewise, and the controller I have was given a tick by yourself when I bought it or before maybe I forget mate, slept since then :) :)

I'm quite happy with my system now, I'm a low user I'll never need Lithium etc, I just did a check on mine as it's been resting not on hook up overnight and of course no solar.

Screenshot_20250406-051737_BM6.jpg


Not used to it yet but this is the very short historic display.

Screenshot_20250406-053728_BM6.jpg


The deep dive was when we did a change to the setup. I'm leaving it without EHU for now unless I get an alert from the app as it would not tell me if the work done is constantly effective, but I now have four ways to keep both batteries in top condition.
 
As ALWAYS it's horses for courses. Personally I've got nothing blue in my van and apart from the Nordelettronica charger which came with the van and I've had to repair twice everything has been reliable for years. The blue stuff looks great and I'm sure the way the stuff integrates and communicates together makes it great for whiling away time on your phone app, but again I personally can't justify the additional cost. Most electronic stuff is pretty reliable these days and even if the item isn't assembled in China there's a decent chance that a considerable amount of the internal components will be made in China so it's virtually impossible nowadays to avoid Chinese stuff.
The GENUINE guarantee period, (5yrs?) which you're not going to get from budget stuff is Victron's biggest selling point but for me PERSONALLY (that word again) the additional cost isn't justified by the additional price, IF I were an installer who's reputation was dependent on the stuff I'd supplied and fitted then Im sure I'd have a completely different view, I'd be fitting blue stuff everywhere 🤗.
 
The price of Victron kit now does not have that much of an uplift over a lot of midrange kit in fact. So if a part fails after say 2 years and needs replacing, if that part is a non-Victron part, it has cost you twice as much. if it is a Victron part, you will have saved money in comparision :) . And bear in mind the 5-year warranty extends to even the more minor parts as well. For example, I supplied a Victron Cyrix Battery Combiner/VSR. Failed just over a year after installed. Pretty rare thing to happen but I just requested a new one to be sent to the customer.
As far as China vs non-China manufacturing, it is not that simple. Many European countries outsource their manufacturing to India and the Far East for cost reasons, but they are still in control of the manufacturing process and QA/QC. If someone goes onto Victrons professional website (https://professional.victronenergy.com/accounts/login/) they can see the full change logs for both hardware and software, with changes made and reasons for them. For many popular rival products that claim to be European or American, that level of information is not available as they leave their Far East manufacturers to their own devices when building the product and if that factory find a cheaper component they will just slap it in.

Victron kit is not infallible by any means though. My Cerbo GX has a known fault where the Bluetooth doesn't work when the unit gets to a certan temp. Victron should really (IMO) allow that to be swapped under warranty but I resolved the issue by plugging in a £5 BT Dongle so not that concerned. (They fixed it on a later update - and I could check if I wanted on professional.victronenergy.com to see just when that was).
But if that is the only problem had on a product that has been powered up virtually non-stop for over 5 years, that is not bad going. Similar to the Multiplus Charger-Inverter that has been powered up for coming on for 5 years without virtually a pause and is doing the same job now as when fitted.
 
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An aside:
I remember back in the 90's I was working on a technical help/sales desk for one of the biggest PC Computer Manufacturers. I still recall one morning when I got two phone calls in a row and this kind of relates to maybe how people chose kit?
Call #1: Guy asking about a computer model we made and saying he was looking forward to being able to afford it soon.
Call #2: (immediately after). Guy calls to complain about a computer model we made and regretting buying it, saying he should have stuck to buying IBM instead of our cheap crap.
Just shows you can never predict what anyone either thinks of any products and what they will spend.
 
Personally ....

whatever works for different folks ....

I've chosen the cheaper options in the past and ended up being disappointed at times .
When we had the transit ....it was put together on a budget ...

3 x mid range 100ah FLA leisure Batteries
200w of solar
£20 PWM charge controller
Durite VSR
Etc etc etc

And it all worked fab for us without an issue at all

Swapped to the motorhome

And 3 x 100ah agm batteries
400w of solar
Victron MPPT
Victron B2b

Etc etc etc

Still works fab now

So maybe I've over spent for possibly no reason ...

BUT I am (and always have been ) impressed with the quality and support of Victron gear .
 
Never had a problem with votronic mppt 200w solar 2 90ah lead acids and a jumper switch/relay to link engine batt to less bats, cost about £450 the lot.
 
merl said:
Hiya, yes absolutely it actually doesn't matter which comes first, the diode or the bulbs but didn't see the point in mentioning it in the description for fear of making the post even more long winded. Well spotted by the way 👍
Both fuses should be at the source in case you hadn't noticed that slip up too BTW.
Merl
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Update: I've had this installed for the best part of 3 months now and it is working perfectly.
My van has limited roof space so just 120W solar, with the option to plug in a folding 100W to help with winter layup without EHU. This circuit is ideal for my setup. Thanks for sharing.
 
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