xantrex linklite battery monitor

[davisr]

Just wondering if anyone has had any experience with the xantrex linklite. I'm interested in using it to monitor the charge on a 225 ah bank of 6v Trojan T-105 batteries.

Thanks,
Roscoe


PRODUCT INFORMATION

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]LinkLITE Battery Monitor

Battery Status At A Glance
The LinkLITE battery monitor can measure currents up to 1,000Amps. It selectively displays voltage, charge and discharge current, consumed amp hours and remaining battery capacity. It is equipped with an internal programmable alarm relay, to run a generator when needed or to turn off devices when the battery voltage exceeds programmable boundaries.

Description
Defining the amount of energy available in a battery is a complex task since battery age, discharge current and temperature all influence the actual battery capacity. High performance measuring circuits, along with complex software algorithms, are used to exactly determine the remaining battery capacity. A new shunt selection feature enables the LinkLITE to measure currents up to 1,000Amps respectively.

The LinkLITE selectively displays voltage, charge and discharge current, consumed amp hours and remaining battery capacity. Using a clear backlit LCD Display and an intuitive user interface, all parameters can be recalled with just a button press. A second battery input is also provided to monitor voltage on a second battery.

It is equipped with an internal programmable alarm relay, to run a generator when needed or to turn off devices when the battery voltage exceeds programmable boundaries.

Performance Features

• Read your battery bank like a fuel gauge
• Provides critical information about the status of your battery bank
• Displays voltage, current, consumed amp hours and remaining battery capacity
• Two battery inputs
• Auto sensing battery voltage inputs
• Large backlit LCD Display
• Quick nut mounting construction
• Programmable alarm relay
• Shunt selection capability enables flexible system integration
• Splash proof front panel
• 500 Amp shunt included
• CE and e-mark certified

[/SIZE][/FONT]

 

[Lawrence B. Lee]

Linklite user

I have one on my house battery bank which is smaller than yours. I have 190 ah on 12 volt lead acid. I like it a lot. My only complaint was the wiring harness cost $150 after the expense of the meter itself (Hodges). But I recommend that you get the harness-it really makes installation easier. The mfg. also recommends that if you only monitor one battery bank (presumably the house bank) it is more accurate. It's really nice to know what your batteries are up to.

Larry Lee
Annabel Lee E-32-200
Savannah, Ga

 

[Loren Beach]

Roscoe,
It might be interesting to relate this discussion to some earlier threads.

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=7610&referrerid=28

http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoexchange/showthread.php?t=2158&referrerid=28

Measuring capacity and usage of battery banks seems to on many owners' minds as our love of 12 volt-hungry boat stuff grows over the years...


LB

 

[Tom Metzger]

You might look at the Victron BMV-600. It's a little cheaper than the Xantrex monitors. I have heard rumors that the Xantrex monitors are made by Victron. As I remember, it comes with the shunt cable.

I don't have one, but am thinking about buying one to replace my tired Link 10.

http://www.victronenergy.com/battery-monitors/bmv-600%20and%20bmv-602/

 

[treilley]

I used to have a Xantrex Link 20. I went through 3 of them. The last one was buggy and actually drained one of my batteries over a couple of weeks.

I now have a Victron BMV-600. Works great, easy to setup, all parts included.

 

[ted_reshetiloff]

I've been using the link 10 which looks a lot like this guy. Been very happy with it but I have a pretty simple system, ie. no inverter. The link 2000's are junk IMHO though. Seen too many fail. And for gods sake do NOT get a 2000R with the built in alternator regulator. I did a delivery last summer with the owner of a Cal 39 up the coast who had one of these. It died shortly out on the trip and we very quickly lost the ability to charge batteries at all. Fortunately the boat had a 900ah bank designed to run a small air conditioner in the v-berth. Owner now carries a spare regulator. Ihave seen the 2000R fail on 3 other boats as well. Intersting to hear about the Victron.

 

[davisr]

amp-hour function on battery monitor

Thanks Larry for the good review of the Xantrex Linklite. Thanks as well for filling me in on that extra $150 needed for the wiring harness. I never would have known that.

Thanks Tom and Treilley for the reference to Victron. I took a look at the Victron website and other websites that sell the BMV-600. They appear to be well-liked - and they are cheaper.

One thing, though, is this . . . although the Victron contains a voltmeter function, it appears that the monitor is geared toward the calculation of amp-hours.

Don Casey, This Old Boat, 2nd ed. (2009), in writing about the importance of hardwired monitors, says that the voltmeter and ammeter functions are most valuable. In terms of amp-hours he writes: "what you should not put great faith in is the amp-hour function of a battery monitor . . . keeping track of amp-hours available is not as simple as offsetting amp-hours out against amp-hours in. The rate of discharge needs to be taken into account. Monitors have a microcomputer that tries to do this, but over time the inaccuracy accumulates . . . believe the voltmeter. After a few days without a resetting charge, the amp-hour reading of a battery meter is pure fiction," p. 271.

Have other people had similar experiences with the amp-hour function?

Attached is a product discription of the Victron BMV-600.

 

[Tom Metzger]

I'm confused...

How do you think Victron calculates amp-hours if they don't use volts and amps?

If you want to see amps, you punch the button to read amps. Ditto for volts. This is the same as on the Link 10 that you see people raving about.

If you read your linked blurb, it lists amp and volt output functions ahead of amp-hrs. The reason they make a big thing out of calculating amp-hrs is that you don't need a computer to read amps or volts. A $10 analog meter does both just fine.

Why do you think that Xantrex does it better than Victron?

BTW, does Casey mention how inaccurate it is to just use volts to tell state of charge?

 

[Tom Metzger]

It's easy to do.

I just looked at the Xantrex installation instructions and you do not need to purchase a cable. You can easily make your own cable if you are able to do simple wiring.

You do need to twist together the pair of leads from the shunt. This just means a few turns per foot. Not rocket science.

It's the same as on my old Link 10.

 

[davisr]

Thanks Tom. I'm really not in favor of one brand or the other. I'm just asking questions. I quoted Don Casey on amp-hours only because Victron emphasizes amp-hours in its product info, where Xantrex just mentions this feature in passing.

Victron sounds like a quality product, and given the price, it's probably what I'll end up going with it, so thanks for pointing me in this direction.

Best,
Roscoe

 

[Loren Beach]

Yet another one

Speaking of battery monitors...
I have seen this line on display at a chandlery in the NW and they are carried by Downwind Marine in SoCal.
http://www.cruzpro.com/index.html
http://www.cruzpro.com/vah110.html
It is interesting how much alike the instrument faces and their specs are from several different vendors, isn't it?
Loren

 

[Willpatten]

Linklite

I put the linklite in my E38 last summer. Did my own harness. Pretty easy.
I use it to monitor two banks but I'm curious about the comment that it does one bank more accurately.
It reads one bank perfectly but the second is "auxilliary" and all I get is percent of charge. Sounds like that's the way it's supposed to be.
The instructions/manual are pathetic.
But it's definitely helped me manage the batteries and find a ground fault.
I'm happy with it.

 

[Loren Beach]

Another view of Battery stuff

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=221829&referrerid=38528

Interesting how the topic of measuring battery capacity and charging (and even the Link 10) evoke so many responses in another big 'net gathering place of sailors.

No totally new knowledge that I can see, but some of the points made and data presented are interesting and thought-provoking.

Cheers,
Loren

 

[Sven]

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=221829&referrerid=38528

Interesting how the topic of measuring battery capacity and charging (and even the Link 10) evoke so many responses in another big 'net gathering place of sailors.

And how the threads branch from forum to forum http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,4787.0.html with lots of insights, opinions, disagreements and advice.

Batteries and their chemistry really are like alchemy even today.

Thanks for the links ... we still don't have any battery monitor and I haven't even looked into how the two banks are wired yet ... the list is too long


-Sven

 

[Emerald]

Thanks for the links ... we still don't have any battery monitor and I haven't even looked into how the two banks are wired yet ... the list is too long


-Sven

Don't dispair Sven - instead of job security, think of it as project security - you know you've got guaranteed work

I have some trained mice for following wires. Let me know if you need to borrow them.

 

[Maine Sail]

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=221829&referrerid=38528

Interesting how the topic of measuring battery capacity and charging (and even the Link 10) evoke so many responses in another big 'net gathering place of sailors.

No totally new knowledge that I can see, but some of the points made and data presented are interesting and thought-provoking.

Cheers,
Loren

Interesting that in that thread on YBW not one individual clarified or perhaps understood that most all monitors can have the default values for "fully charged" adjusted or changed from the factory default of usually 2% acceptance. The calculation for the CEF can be adjusted but most folks don't..

The problem with most monitors is usually user error and not programming them correctly or not manually re-syncing them occasionally. IMO, even with user error, they are still better than guess work and wrecking a bank of batteries.

Also as batteries age the monitors need to be adjusted with them to keep a close to accurate reading. They are not always 100% accurate but they are closest thing we have, and are still a good tool..

 

[Sven]

Interesting that in that thread on YBW not one individual clarified or perhaps understood that most all monitors can have the default values for "fully charged" adjusted or changed from the factory default of usually 2% acceptance..

The problem with most monitors is user error and not programming them correctly or re-syncing them occasionally. IMO, even with user error, they are still better than guess work and wrecking a bank of batteries.

I did notice that you were posting in some of those threads too. You keep bringing up facts and an analytical approach which just confuses everyone BTW were the DVM differences due to where on wires you measured or the leads from the DVMs or calibration problems in the DVMs themselves ?

I had not been aware that the user could "tune" the monitors. You say that all of them can be adjusted. Was that a broad generalization or does it really mean that one doesn't need to look for that capability when picking one ?

Having read threads for a while now but being ignorant on the topic of what equipment is good for what, I wonder if one is better off installing one simple monitor per bank or if multi-bank monitors really are worth the complications ?


-Sven

 

[Maine Sail]

I had not been aware that the user could "tune" the monitors. You say that all of them can be adjusted. Was that a broad generalization or does it really mean that one doesn't need to look for that capability when picking one ?

They can't be adjusted or tuned in terms of actual measurement, as in, it's reading 12.25 volts and it should read 12.27 volts. They can however be programmed to be smarter and work better with your bank.

Bank size can be programmed, charge volt parameters, the % of amps going in can be set so that the meter reads 100% at differnet % of amps in / bank size.

The Link 10 for example ships with the charged parameters set at 2% of the bank which from the factory is a setting of 200ah. This means there must be less than or equal to 2% amps in of your banks total capacity for a period of about 5 minutes or more for the Link 10 to consider it fully charged. Mine is set for 1% not 2%. If my bank is accepting 4.8 amps it is not fully charged but at less than 2.4 amps going in it is much more accurate to approximate a full charge. If the "charged" parameters are not set up well the monitor may never recalculate the CEF (charge efficiency factor).

Some chargers that don't do float will often shut down before you get to 2% acceptance. In a situation like this the charge parameters for "100%" need to be adjusted so that the monitor can re-set itself. Despite a charger shutting off it still does not mean the battery was at 100% of charge just that the charger shut down at a predetermined "full charge"...


Peukert exponent can also be programmed.

In short these devices should be set up correctly to work correctly bu they will still give you a good idea of where you stand if only bank size is programmed..

 

[Sven]

I have some trained mice for following wires.

It was yours !?

We didn't realize it was specially trained (and probably house broken?).

When it jumped out of the storage under the v-berth on La Petite a few years ago it really startled us. We must have spent 4-5 hours scrubbing and cleaning after that and we started closing off the cowling vents when we weren't aboard. I hope you will apologize to it if it needed to get back aboard but couldn't, we just didn't know any better.

BTW, tell it to just ask for water next time. Chewing through the water tank on the Sanipotti leaves a mess but is of course still preferable to chewing through the lower tank.




-Sven

 

[Emerald]

It was yours !?

We didn't realize it was specially trained (and probably house broken?).

When it jumped out of the storage under the v-berth on La Petite a few years ago it really startled us. We must have spent 4-5 hours scrubbing and cleaning after that and we started closing off the cowling vents when we weren't aboard. I hope you will apologize to it if it needed to get back aboard but couldn't, we just didn't know any better.

BTW, tell it to just ask for water next time. Chewing through the water tank on the Sanipotti leaves a mess but is of course still preferable to chewing through the lower tank.




-Sven

Hi Sven,

that must have been my mouse Charlie. He's got a bit of "spirit" to him. I'll have a chat and let him know that if he keeps up this behavior, it's off to the lab for him