Balmar SG-200 Battery Monitor

[Peeew]

I am going to update my firmware with the new update for August 2020. I see that the gateway needs to be updated first. But do we still need to disconnect the other displays etc in the system before updating each?

[steve77]

Originally Posted by Peeew

I am going to update my firmware with the new update for August 2020. I see that the gateway needs to be updated first. But do we still need to disconnect the other displays etc in the system before updating each?

Somewhere in some correspondence a few months ago I was told that I no longer had to disconnect devices during the update process. It was only one update that required that, and it should not be required for future updates.

At least that's what I remember.

Cheers!

Steve

[wsmurdoch]

Originally Posted by JensLB

Reading the article on marine how to, about under load voltage vs SoC. Gives me the feeling that this bank is closer to 50% than 82%...
https://marinehowto.com/under-load-b...oltage-vs-soc/

For someone interested in measuring the actual "State of Health" of their battery or determining the voltage vs amp hours remaining at a particular discharge rate for their battery, the West Mountain Radio Computer Battery Analyzer might be useful. West Mountain Radio - Computerized Battery Analyzer My CBA IV produced this discharge curve this summer for one of the four group 31 Sams Club batteries in my house bank. The battery was two years old when tested. It still met its claimed 105 A-hr capacity and was about half discharged at 12V under a load of 5.25A. The details of the test are on the graph.

Bill

[Wood]

Originally Posted by Wood

Last chance for the SG200.

As previously posted I converted to LiFePO4. The SG200 reported 87% SOH fairly quickly and over 15 full and partial cycles has remained there. My initial load testing showed this to be false. Nominal capacity is 560AH. Actual more like 585AH.

Last week I drew the battery down to 3.0v per cell - or 12v for the battery. At 3.1v+ per cell - 12.4v+ battery, the SG200 was reporting 0% SOC. The BMS I am using reported over 25% SOC when the SG200 started reading zero. The BMS believes the battery is 100% SOH. The BMS and SG200 both report the same voltage and amperage under load and charge.

I charged the battery to a balanced 3.6v per cell - 14.4 v. The BMS reported 100% SOC a little before that. Acceptance had started to decline and was around 70amps. The SG200 was showing 92%. I switched to other batteries and let the lithium battery rest for several hours with no load / charge except for the SG200 [I turned off the BMS]. The readings remained the same.

Since this full charge there have been a few partial cycles from the engine alternator as I cruised back home.

On the mooring now - this morning the SG200 reported 55% SOC. The BMS reported 76%. I will be leaving the boat for a week so am charging so I can maintain refrigeration during my absence.

When charged I will factory reset the SG200. If it doesn't get with the program over the next few cycles I'm going to pull it out.

Well, after a few more cycles there is no marked improvement. If anyone is interested in a used SG200 w/ bluetooth it's in classifieds.


Last previous cycle looked promising. The SG200 zeroed out SOC very early but tracked charging fairly closely. I charged to 97% according to BMS. One cell was bouncing at 3.65v and still accepting ~80amps. The SG200 was showing 100%+ 10 minutes earlier - so maybe a difference of 16AH - 3% of a 560AH bank.

I left the boat Sunday 8.16 4PM and returned today 8.21 at 2PM. I left the fridge / freezer running. So about 120 hours.

150AH consumed. BMS read 73% SOC and still shows 100% SOH. SG200 showed 58% SOC and SOH now showed 90%. Voltage matched.

It's not even close. I'll probably replace with a BV712 but need to do more reading. I have 2 FLA banks I want to keep an eye on with one device.

[berwick]

I've given up on mine too, never got it working correct all summer, very disappointed

Richard

[Prospective]

So here's my readout at end of a week long cruise with multiple charge/discharge cycles. I have the latest firmware and confirmed all settings for FLA bank and factory defaults. Voltage does not seem to come even close to SOC. I've confirmed voltage via a separate monitor so that appears correct but I would think the SOC for a bank under minimal load of 2.38 amps and a voltage of 12.25 would be more like a 65-70% SOC. Certainly not 89%.

And SOH went from 100% down to 90% and then inexplicably back up to 100% during the week. Very disappointed in this product and that Chris has stopped replying to this thread.

[witzgall]

I am still here, and listening.

I have been working with several Cruisersforum members offline. If you are having issues and need help, please reach out and fill out a case here: https://balmar.net/contact-technical-services/ and either one of the support reps or myself will answer.

I recognize that some are having issues with the product, and feel that it is not living up to expectations. We have been working hard to make the SG200 the best battery monitor available. With thousands of units sold, we do hear good things from many users. This does not mean that it is perfect. As new issues come up, we are taking the effort to do additional testing in our lab and get to the bottom of it.

Recently, we have received some complaints about issues that are new - and possibly related to the use of a shorepower charger in conjunction with an ACR. If you are seeing performance issues and you think this may apply to you, I encourage you to reach out using the form above.

There are a huge, perhaps infinite variations of the systems to be monitored. When we find new variations that we did not account for, we are committed to doing the work to make the product perform well.

Having said all of that, and I hope nobody takes this as a slight, but we do get regular calls where the product is either installed incorrectly or not used as intended. Sometimes it is easy for us to identify these issues, but other times it may be hard for us to find the "Smoking gun" causing the issues.

Chris

Originally Posted by Prospective

So here's my readout at end of a week long cruise with multiple charge/discharge cycles. I have the latest firmware and confirmed all settings for FLA bank and factory defaults. Voltage does not seem to come even close to SOC. I've confirmed voltage via a separate monitor so that appears correct but I would think the SOC for a bank under minimal load of 2.38 amps and a voltage of 12.25 would be more like a 65-70% SOC. Certainly not 89%.

And SOH went from 100% down to 90% and then inexplicably back up to 100% during the week. Very disappointed in this product and that Chris has stopped replying to this thread.

[Prospective]

Originally Posted by witzgall

I am still here, and listening.

I have been working with several Cruisersforum members offline. If you are having issues and need help, please reach out and fill out a case here: https://balmar.net/contact-technical-services/ and either one of the support reps or myself will answer.

I recognize that some are having issues with the product, and feel that it is not living up to expectations. We have been working hard to make the SG200 the best battery monitor available. With thousands of units sold, we do hear good things from many users. This does not mean that it is perfect. As new issues come up, we are taking the effort to do additional testing in our lab and get to the bottom of it.

Recently, we have received some complaints about issues that are new - and possibly related to the use of a shorepower charger in conjunction with an ACR. If you are seeing performance issues and you think this may apply to you, I encourage you to reach out using the form above.

There are a huge, perhaps infinite variations of the systems to be monitored. When we find new variations that we did not account for, we are committed to doing the work to make the product perform well.

Having said all of that, and I hope nobody takes this as a slight, but we do get regular calls where the product is either installed incorrectly or not used as intended. Sometimes it is easy for us to identify these issues, but other times it may be hard for us to find the "Smoking gun" causing the issues.

Chris

Chris, thanks for responding. I just submitted my second ticket on the balmar site just about a half hour ago so please look for it. I reference this thread as well.

I DO have an ACR between my house and start banks. If that could be part of the problem I would love to discuss it.

[Bycrick]

I’ve got one of the original Merlin SmartGauge which I bought mostly out of curiosity quite a while ago. They were quite insistent that it be hooked up DIRECTLY to the battery. Since I don’t use an ACR, I never thought about the implications of using one, and it’s effect on "the battery" that the SG is trying to measure.

The ACR is going to, in effect, change the configuration of the battery bank when it closes. If you’re constantly varying the measured battery bank configuration, it’s going to be really interesting to see how they figure out things like SOC or, even worse, SOH.

Now I’m interested in this thread.

[lateral]

I don’t see why it should make much difference to simultaneous dynamic charging discharging.
Unless the start battery is partly stuffed.
(Which mine is at 10yrs old)

[Bycrick]

The SmartGauge (and the SG200) is supposed to track your battery over time to "learn" what its characteristics are. So, if you have a 450 Ah house battery and a separate 100Ah engine battery, what happens to all the "learning" when you tie the two batteries together for a while and then separate them again?

For what it’s worth, the original Merlin SmartGauge seems to address the problem with an optional, extra-cost accessory SmartBank system. It appears to hook up to the SG, read both batteries and then control a relay, just like an ACR.

So it appears that Merlin recognized the problem.

[Cthoops]

We had the first version of the Balmar Smartgauge. The first one didn’t work out of the box, so we contacted Balmar and sent it back for a replacement. The second one was troublesome (we had an occasional E4 message a few times that wouldn’t clear by pressing a button per the instructions, requiring us to disconnect the whole thing to clear).

It died for good a few weeks ago, just a month out of its two year warranty. Not pleased given the original price. We tossed it in the trash and won’t be buying another.

[Prospective]

I had the original smartgauge with house and start bank connected with an ACR. I was concerned with the exact same issues as are being pointed out, although I will say it appeared to give reasonable accurate data.

I decided to switch to the SG200 to get the Amp monitoring and was told the ACR shouldn't be an issue as the SG200 is shunt based and attaches to the house bank negative cable. Interesting to now learn the ACR may be a problem with this device. Anxious to here a work around.

[Bycrick]

Normally, if one has a house battery and a starter battery, one only wires the house battery to the shunt; the starter battery negative connects to the common negative bus. For the shunt to read the starter battery current, the battery negatives need to be hooked together and then connected to the shunt. But if one does that, then engine starter current will also be combined with house bank current. It doesn’t sound like that’s a solution. I can’t see how the shunt affects the ACR problem except to make things worse.

[lateral]

The fact that some of the current is going to the start battery and not all to the house could be a problem? Although only if the smart shunt is last connection
to house negative and start is going thru shunt. Is that what you are saying?
Did my wiring a year and a half ago and can’t remember already. ��