Another way of doing things. I have a Mastervolt moniter that was on the
boat when I bought it. At the time I was mainly interested in monitering the net amps going in/out of the
batteries so the
solar is connected upstream from the shunt. Works fine as if I want to know the
solar output I can pull up the controller on my computer (Morningstar that has an ethernet connection so I can pull up current and historical information through a windows program).
I've decided I would like to also know the current drain without pulling up the solar program on the computer. Bought a
cheap (read Chinese) meter with shunt.
Since there is no free lunch, the down side of the cheapness is that it can only handle 50 amps of load Not sure what the starters use, but the solar can kick out more than 50 amps and the
inverter uses up to 90 amps when running the coffee maker. I know the draw of the coffee maker (uses 8 ah to make a pot of coffee).
Solution was to connect the negative side as follows:
Battery
Mastervolt shunt
On the upstream side of the shunt I have the negative from the
inverter, negative from solar and one side of the small shunt.
Small shunt
On the upstream side of the small shunt I have the negative from the other loads.
Not necessarily a total "yachtsman" solution, but provides the info I want without having to fire up the computer and do (simple) math.
Bill
Wired it in series with the negative from the controller