© 2016 Sensata Technologies
12
Operation
3.2
Monitoring the Battery Bank using the ME-BMK
You can monitor your battery bank using the BMK menu items from a
Magnum remote/router. The remote/router has two adjustable BMK
menu options: charge ef
fi
ciency and amp-hour (AH) size; and also
provides numerous read-only BMK meters to monitor your batteries
(e.g., DC volts, DC amps, AH I/O, rAH Out, tAH Out, etc.).
*
What is Charge Effi ciency?
When a certain amount of energy is
removed or discharged from the battery, this removed energy will
need to be returned to keep the batteries at a 100% state of charge.
As batteries are being charged, they lose energy—either in the form
of heat, or while gassing. This loss of energy while charging means
the battery will not be fully charged if you only return the current
that was removed. To compensate for the battery’s inef
fi
ciencies
while charging, a
Charge Effi ciency
setting is provided. The
Charge
Effi ciency
setting compensates the AH in/out reading by ensuring
the AH returned to the battery are greater than the AH removed.
CAUTION:
The factory default
Charge Effi ciency
setting is
Auto
, which allows charging ef
fi
ciency to be automatically
calculated. Typically, this setting determines the best charge
efficiency. If you do not know your battery’s charging
ef
fi
ciency, leave it at the factory default setting. If the setting
is manually set but incorrect, the state-of-charge information
will become more inaccurate with every charge.
* – The ME-ARC remote and ME-RTR router provide additional BMK meter
menus and BMK features not available with the ME-RC. Refer to your
remote/router owner’s manual for more information.
Figure 3-1, Ending Battery Voltage Verses Time
Time [minutes]
Ba
tte
ry
Vo
lt
ag
e
0.1
10
100
1000
1
10000
12.5
13
13.5
14
14.5
15
15.5
16
17
16.5
