VAH110
The VAH110 Digital
Battery Monitor provides accurate low cost digital instrumentation for
three banks of batteries between 9.50 and 33.00 Volts. The VAH110 displays
battery voltage for three banks and charging or discharge current and
tells you how much battery capacity has been consumed and how much is
remaining in your main house bank. It keeps track of all current entering
and leaving the battery and applies the appropriate Peukert's and charge
efficiency factors four times per second. You can set Low and High voltage
alarms for each battery bank independently and a Low Amp-Hours Remaining
alarm for your main house bank. When activated, the built-in 85 dB alarm
will sound and the display will flash. Five levels of backlighting can be
selected and all set-up, calibration constants and alarm values are saved
to non-volatile memory. The VAH110 comes complete with a calibrated 450
Amp shunt to measure current.
All constants and
calibrations are pre-set during manufacture but you may alter these
settings to suit your particular needs. Calibrations can be altered using
the front-panel switches for: Battery voltage (for each battery
separately), battery current, charge efficiency, Peukert's exponent,
battery bank capacity (in amp-hours), low and high voltage alarms and low
amp hours remaining alarm value. Two auto-zero functions ( a one minute
and/or a 24 hour measurement) are easily initiated from the front panel to
zero the ammeter for maximum long term accuracy.
With a press of the
button you can display three different battery voltages (9.50 to 33.00 VDC
each in hundredths of a volt), current being delivered to or draining from
the main house bank (-450 to +450 Amps, in tenths of an amp below 20.0
amps), the number of amp-hours remaining in the house bank (0 to 3000
Amp-Hours) or the percentage charge remaining in the house bank (0 to
100%).
High volts, Low volts
and Low Amp-Hours Remaining alarms can be independently set using the
front panel switches and all alarms can be turned ON/OFF simultaneously
with the press of a single key.
The VAH110 draws only
0.035 amps and is designed to be left on continuously. 5 levels of
backlight (including OFF) can be selected from the front panel and is
saved to non-volatile memory. An external backlight on/off control is
provided to switch on backlights to multiple instruments simultaneously
with one switch.
The VAH110 outputs
Voltage (for all three battery banks), Amps and Amp-Hours Remaining on
the standard NMEA 0183 serial data line at 4800 BAUD. This ASCII
information can be used to log performance, repeat the display information
at a remote location or for use with the CruzPro SEAviz virtual
instrumentation software running under Windows on your computer. If NMEA
0183 serial data is not required, then the output terminal can be
programmed as an external alarm output pin.
A special output wire
can be programmed to turn on a charge source such as a generator when the
battery gets below a certain amount of charge and to turn the charge
source off again at a different programmable level of charge.
