As all of my friends (as all of my customers are) will tell you, the number one thing I recommend for their very first RV upgrade it a good quality Battery Monitor. I have several in stock, but my favorite is the Thornwave Labs BT-DCPM Bluetooth battery monitor.
This is a super smart, very robust, very flexible battery monitor. You can read all about it here, but these are some of my favorite features
1) The battery monitor and current shunt can be mounted in the positive or negative battery lead. This is the only battery monitor on the market that allows this! It makes for a much easier install to be able to choose which lead to connect the monitor to.
2) It has two voltage monitors built in. This is very useful for monitoring both the coach battery and the chassis battery on a Class C motorhome. It’s also great for my 24V system on my 5er, because it allows me to monitor both my 24V Battle Born battery bank, and the Victron 24 to 12V down converter I use to run all of the 12V stuff in the trailer.
3) It has a built in relay driver that can be used for all kinds of fun stuff. You can have the relay driver turn on/off with a variety of timers, with voltage levels, or you can manually turn it on from the PowerMon app on your phone or tablet.
I use the relay driver to enable the battery heaters on the new, self heated Battle Born Batteries. This battery comes with a small switch that you can wire in to turn the heaters on/off, but I think it is way cooler to use the BT-DCPM to report the battery temperature remotely, and then be able to turn the heaters on from my phone.
The new self heated batteries from Battle Born have a built in thermostat that turns them on at 35F and off at 45F. So why do you need a switch, since they are all automatic? The Thornwave battery monitor has a built in timer that allows you to only heat when the sun is shining. No need to heat at night, only just when charging.
At Leisure Solar, we do standard RV electrical solar and battery upgrades. But we also love doing fun custom designs. Give us a call to discuss your RV electrical needs.
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