Working out the state of charge with your leisure battery is a hit-and-miss affair, even if you have a simple meter as part of your control panel. The Clipper BM-1 Compact from marine accessory company NASA takes a lot of the guesswork out. This unit is easy to fit and hooks up to the battery via a 100A shunt, which allows the battery condition to be accurately monitored.
As well as displaying the battery voltage, it also shows the power being drawn from the battery in amps, as well as the battery power remaining – both as a percentage and the number of hours it will last, based on the power being drawn. This allows users to turn off appliances to extend battery life. We’ll be installing one shortly to test it in practice.
