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(no email)
Date: Tue Feb 26 2008 - 16:16:41 EST
Ron,
Knowing just voltage and amperage draw is good, but not good enough.
The point of the E-meter or battery capacity monitor is to keep track of
amp-hours drawn out of, and put back into, the battery bank.
Without this, charging your batteries away from mains power cannot be done
effectively.
Most cruisers never fully charge their batteries and then complain about
having to replace them every few years.
To get the maximum life out of batteries you need to put back EVERY AMP you
draw out. This is difficult to do with only an engine driven charging
system. Solar or wind can usually fulfill this "top up" function. On
Beatrix I use the generator in the morning and then turn everything off for
several hours to let the solar cells do their job. The E-meter facilitates
this by letting me know if I have replaced all the amps I drew out the
previous day.
Regards
Jeff
Jeffrey M. Stander
s/v BEATRIX - KP44 #276 (1980)
http://www.svbeatrix.com
SKYPE ID: pacific_voyager
moderator for PetersonCutter Yahoo group
webmaster for http://www.kp44.org
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