Victron Battery Monitoring

The round Victron gauge on the wall displays the real-time status of the RoamRig power system. The Victron Connect (iOS and Android) gives the same information on your phone. Do not use One Place anymore for checking house power.

What do I need to monitor?

To make sure your system has enough power to continue operating, you’ll need to monitor the State of Charge % (SOC). Use the +/- on the gauge to scroll between screens. There are two screens needed to monitor your power: 

• State of Charge (SOC) shown as a percentage, is an estimate of how full your house batteries are. It is usually correct, but inaccuracies with the estimate can accumulate over time and lead to SOC being wrong. This is called drift, which we’ve described in detail here. To keep SOC accurate, regularly make sure your system is fully charged via shore power or driving.
• Main Voltage refers to the house batteries. Check voltage to confirm that SOC can be trusted: if voltage is less than 12.2v then you are almost out of power and you must ignore SOC (which has drifted) and charge right away!

Your batteries are full only when ALL of these conditions for a full charge have been met.

Victron Control Panel Display (round gauge on wall)

As you’ll see, you can view a lot of data with the Victron gauge:

• "Main" voltage: house battery voltage
• "Aux" voltage (1st Generation systems only): 
  • 1st Generation systems*: this is the chassis battery voltage (Mercedes’ starter battery) and was previously monitored with One Place.
  • 2nd and 3rd Generation systems*: continue to use One Place to check chassis battery voltage.
    
    *Guide: Which Generation of Revel Do I Have?
• Amps: refers to the net amount of current flowing through the system. A negative number indicates the battery is being consumed, and a positive number shows the battery is charging. 
  • “Net” is important! Your system may be charging and still show negative amps because it is consuming more electricity than the charge is providing. For example, if you are receiving 10 amps from solar, but are using 15 amps for your refrigerator, then the monitor will display -5 amps.
• Watts: very similar to amps for the layperson, but watts are also known as "power" in the electrical world. Also displayed as a net amount.
• Ah: "Amp-Hours"...think of this as how far you are from full. It's the equivalent of saying "I have used 5 gallons of fuel from my full tank". In a 420ah system, this will read -420 when you are at 0%, -210 at 50%, etc.  
• State of charge (%, aka SOC): this is an estimation of how full your batteries are. It is correct most of the time, but there are some exceptions that you should know about.

If the Victron display on the control panel is OFF, it means the batteries have reached their internal low voltage shut down. Here is what to do if that happens.

Victron Connect App

Download the Victron Connect app (iOS and Android) on your phone or tablet then watch our video for a walkthrough of how to set up the app and connect to your system.

Having used the Victron app a lot ourselves, we have a few tips that will help you get the most out of it:

• • • Victron Connect can be connected to multiple devices, but not all at the same time. 
    • Always create the Bluetooth connection directly through the Victron App. Do not use the smartphone/device’s Bluetooth settings to establish the connection with the RoamRig system.
    • The default passcode is 000000. This can be changed at any time. We recommend changing the passcode so that people at van/camping events cannot connect to your rig. Write it down somewhere so that you do not forget it! We recommend using your birthday as MMDDYY for an easy to remember 6 digit passcode.
    • We also recommend changing the name of your device to something more descriptive than the default (again can help with knowing which one is yours at van/camping events).
    • Ignore “time to go”. It is not a reliable estimate
    • Ignore “relay state”.

Victron Connect Settings 

2nd and 3rd Generation Revels

• Main Battery Settings page

• • Battery capacity:
    • 2nd Gen Revels: 520Ah (4 battery), 650Ah (5 battery)
    • 3rd Gen Revels: 960Ah (3 battery), 1280Ah (4 battery)

• • Charged voltage: 13.8V
  • Discharge floor: 0%
  • Tail current: 3.00%
  • Charged detection time: 10m
  • Peukert Exponent: 1.03
  • Charge efficiency factor: 99%
  • Current threshold: 0.20A
  • Time-to-go averaging period: 3m
  • Battery starts synchronized: ON
  • State-of-charge: leave unchanged
  • Zero current calibration: do not touch
• Relay
  • Relay mode: Default
  • Low SOC relay: set 0%; clear 5%
  • Low voltage relay: set 11.5V; clear 12V
• Alarms
  • Disabled/off
• Display
  • Main voltage, current, power, consumed Ah, State-of-charge: ON
  • Everything else off
• Misc
  • Monitor mode: battery monitor
  • Shunt current: 500A
  • Shunt voltage: 50mV
  • Aux input: None

1st Generation Revels

• • Main Battery Settings page
    • Battery capacity: 420Ah (Stage 1/2), 630Ah (Stage 3)
    • Charged voltage: 13.8V
    • Discharge floor: 0%
    • Tail current: 3.00%
    • Charged detection time: 10m
    • Peukert Exponent: 1.03
    • Charge efficiency factor: 99%
    • Current threshold: 0.20A
    • Time-to-go averaging period: 3m
    • Battery starts synchronized: ON
    • State-of-charge: leave unchanged
    • Zero current calibration: do not touch
  • Relay
    • Relay mode: Default
    • Everything else disabled
  • Alarms
    • Disabled/off
  • Display
    • Main voltage, current, power, consumed Ah, State-of-charge, starter voltage: ON
    • Everything else off
  • Misc
    • Monitor mode: battery monitor
    • Shunt current: 500A
    • Shunt voltage: 50mV
    • Aux input: Starter battery