Voltmeter vs. State of Charge Meter

gark

I understand that a Voltmeter is better and more accurate to determine when to charge your batteries, so why are there State of Charge Meters out there and shouldn't they be accurate. Is there something out there as accurate as a Voltmeter and as convient as a State of Charge Meter?

BGW

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scottyb

There sure should be
Let us know if you find it.....

you may find it here ....or....
http://www.kansaswindpower.net/meters.htm

gornoman

A state of charge meter IS a voltmeter. It is just smoothed over so the readings don't bounce all over the place as you come in and out of the throttle. You can "calibrate" a SOC meter with your voltmeter so you know at a glance when to charge your pack.

BU had a small digital display voltmeter offered a while back. Don't know any more about it.

They still show it on their site:

gark

Check out this article:

http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower..._metering.html

it states that we should be measuring Amp-Hours. Has anyone heard this?

scottyb

Very expensive solar home technology Trojan has done all the math on the amp-hour thing for you and has made the information available on their website.... They recommend at maximum 50% drain on golf cart batteries. So once again here are the numbers for 100% and then 50%....
100% 36v = 38.20v and 50% 36v = 36.31v
100% 48v = 50.93v and 50% 48v = 48.41v
So buy the cheap meter and monitor your batteries fully charged and drawn down to 50%...then make a mental or physical mark on the meter ..... NOW you have a fully useful meter ......

gark

I found a Craftsman digital meter at Sears today for $11 dollars. Took a reading at home and the batteries are reading 37.8v and each battery is reading 6.2v or 6.1v. Thats after charging them this past weekend and taking the cart around the block a few times; I would guess 10-15 min run time. Not too bad for a cart I got from a guy that let it sit in a field for the past 6 months.

scottyb

NOoooo....Not bad at all Looks like all of your batteries survived the abuse

pggroves

Not for the budget conscious.

dereckbc

OK here is the problem, SOC is only valid after a battery has been at rest for 4 to 6 hours after a charge or discharge cycle. So basically anything you get is an idiot light or meter.

flatfour

I've been surfing around here educating myself on 36V carts. A friend of Dad's has an EzGo that needs some TLC. Came across this thread and saw something familiar.

Just wanted to give some info on the meter pictured in the post by gornoman.

The meter is made by Datel and the part number is DMS-20PC-1-DCM-C
I have one of these on my motorcycle to monitor the charging system since it does not even have an idiot light. The meter is completely weatherproof.

I bought mine from http://www.digitalmeter.com
I see the price has gone up since they were $41 when I bought a year or so ago.

Now back to my crash course on batteries and chargers