[QUOTE=catalyst;15603]Hello

New member and new to us Catalina 36 MK11 owner.

Does anyone have experience with the NASA MARINE CLIPPER BM2 BATTERY MONITOR 12 VOLT 200Ah?

We plan extended cruising in a few years and want to start now prepping the boat with solar, wind etc. There are several offerings and new technology that offers organic vs led displays, but with a cost.

Thanks in advance for the insight[/QUOTE]

Not personally a big fan of them. The Victron BMV-600 is a better BM.....

Here are some details about the Victron.

[url]http://forums.catalina.sailboatowners.com/showthread.php?t=125606[/url]

[QUOTE=catalyst;15609]Would you please elaborate on why you're "Not personally a big fan of them"[/QUOTE]

Low cost shunts that max out at 200A. The Victron and Xantrex products come standard with 500A shunts.

The biggest battery bank you can use this on is 600Ah you can't fit a bank big enough on a C-34 to max out a Victron or Xantrex..

No adjustment for Peukert which can make these monitors quite useless as used on sailboats with large banks and low loads. It uses a "factory preset" Peukert number which means your adjustment to match your bank is only a "close enough is good enough" scenario....

No adjustments for when to "reset".

And overall just a lack of useful needed features to make a battery monitor work well. The display size takes up about 3X the real estate the Victron or Xantrex monitors do so fitment can be an issue...

Mainsail: The only thing I'm unsure of on the new Victron shunts is the UTP connector as far as corrosion problems in the long-term. ??

I installed the Xantrex linkpro was easy to install and use

[QUOTE=HowLin;15805]Mainsail: The only thing I'm unsure of on the new Victron shunts is the UTP connector as far as corrosion problems in the long-term. ??[/QUOTE]

Lots of communications cabling on boats these days use a similar connection. Garmin, Raymarine, Xantrex, Maservolt, Victron on and on and on. Every Link 2000R remote control from the old Cruising Equipment, which invented the Link series, uses a similar cable as do the Xantrex remotes for their battery charger and inverter series.. Some of these have been around more than 25 years, and it is usually the remote that fails not the cable...

I use a product called [URL="http://store.caig.com/s.nl/sc.2/category.192/.f"]DeOxIt Shield[/URL] and spray each connection before assembly. Not had any issues.....

We've had the telephone cable connector between our Link 2000 and Freedom 15 since 2003, still workin'. If your boat is dry down below, as it should be, no problems.

[QUOTE=stu jackson c34;15816]If your boat is dry down below, as it should be, no problems.[/QUOTE]

How do you do that, only drink alcohol in the cockpit? ;)

And here I thought that's what the bilge was for! Silly me!

Tip: The reason they invented white wine was to get the red wine stains out.

I recall we were quite careful not to let our cockpit get dry when Commodore Ising was piped aboard our vessel this summer during a rendez-vous in Newport Harbor!

But getting back to the subject of battery monitors, let me try again with this query. We installed a Victron 602 monitor earlier this summer.
However, we noticed that when at rest at anchor or sailing (i.e., no longer charging via either a shore power connection or engine) and minimal load on the system (fridge off, etc.), the battery monitor will show maybe 1 amp coming IN to the house bank!

I have 2 theories on this:

1) I have been unable to find out what is the Peukert factor for our housebank (a pair of West "SeaVolt" 6V deep cycle flooded) -- nothing indicated on the batteries and nothing on West's website. Could the lack compensation for Peukert factor cause a false reading of a phantom charge?

2) I notice that the cooling fan intermittently runs and indicator lights operate on the shore power charger even when we're off shore power (its an older WestMarine charger they no longer carry). The charger has separate outputs for the 2 banks (house and starter). Maybe its defective in some manner, and is leaking a charge from the starter battery over to the house bank? (Our battery banks are connected with a Blue Seas ACR, but I notice this phenomenon even with the ACR disabled.)

Thoughts? Other theories?
__________________

[QUOTE=Chachere;15819]I recall we were quite careful not to let our cockpit get dry when Commodore Ising was piped aboard our vessel this summer during a rendez-vous in Newport Harbor!

But getting back to the subject of battery monitors, let me try again with this query. We installed a Victron 602 monitor earlier this summer.
However, we noticed that when at rest at anchor or sailing (i.e., no longer charging via either a shore power connection or engine) and minimal load on the system (fridge off, etc.), the battery monitor will show maybe 1 amp coming IN to the house bank!

I have 2 theories on this:

1) I have been unable to find out what is the Peukert factor for our housebank (a pair of West "SeaVolt" 6V deep cycle flooded) -- nothing indicated on the batteries and nothing on West's website. Could the lack compensation for Peukert factor cause a false reading of a phantom charge?

2) I notice that the cooling fan intermittently runs and indicator lights operate on the shore power charger even when we're off shore power (its an older WestMarine charger they no longer carry). The charger has separate outputs for the 2 banks (house and starter). Maybe its defective in some manner, and is leaking a charge from the starter battery over to the house bank? (Our battery banks are connected with a Blue Seas ACR, but I notice this phenomenon even with the ACR disabled.)

Thoughts? Other theories?
__________________[/QUOTE]

Matt,

First disconnect the charger & re-check you may have some leakage through it from the start battery. Cheap chargers can do this. They are only "isolated" via diodes on the outputs and diodes can go bad for many reasons.

Next, with all loads OFF, insert a DVM on the mA or A scale between the NEG wire and the battery post to confirm there are no parasitic loads etc.. If it reads zero then you need to calibrate the Victron to also read zero. It is in the manual for how to calibrate......

Oh your batteries are Deka/East Penn, same as what Sam's Club sells in many states. If you call them with the Sea Volt model number they will give you the Peukert #... I know the 230Ah Deka/East Penn GC2 battery is 1.27 but am not sure of the Sea Volt which I believe is the lesser Ah battery with 215Ah...

Thanks so much, Rodd - as always, you are a font of wisdom for us!