Bernie and Carols Isuzu fit out.

[BernieQ2]

I'm thinking of putting a water flow meter in line so I can see how much water I have used or have left . I'm thinking of the "Topargee" from ebay
Any thought on these or some thing better ? They can be double A's or direct wire to 12volt the topargee ones.
We have a 250Lt fresh tank and 200Lt grey .
Bernie .

[JohnM]

Hi Bernie, fitted a topargee unit 12 months ago find it quite good, works well if you fill up each time, but as we often only put in 80l (in a 200l tank, the size of out potable bladder) if we are parked up for any length of time, you have to manually do the calculation and then change the capacity and reset, so we tend to use the old 4 light version in these instances. The main use of the Topargee unit is to determine what the usage of the shower, washing machine etc is.
I feel, more a gimmick than useful in our situation.

[BernieQ2]

Thanks John, I always fill to full each time so the calculation would be only once .
Bernie

[JohnM]

I hooked mine up on the inlet hose the first time to find out the true capacity, then subtracted 10 percent, for a safety margin and came up with 193l
when we travel we tend to camp out for a couple of weeks at a time, and top up out of portable bladders in the back of the toad when ever we go to town, to empty the cassettes, get groceries or just plain sight seeing. If there is no suitable water where we are camped

[BernieQ2]

Thanks again John, never thought of doing the inward as well
Bernie

[mikeg]

The instructions that come with them are clear and easy to follow. Although the instructions say the unit can be mounted either before or after the pump their rep told me when I bought mine that the best place to mount the unit is after the pump and with a non return valve between the pump and the unit as apparently there have been some reports of inaccurate readings with the unit placed before the pump. Also the reset button needs to be pushed after each fill.

[BernieQ2]

back to Johns first answer yes we also do carry 4 20lt jerry cans (plastic) when we do long trips last year we were in one spot for 27 days each time we went to town for food or stuff we filled them then put in main tank as required . But this last trip was only 7 nights I would have liked to know just how the water was holding out . There wasn't any reason to be to precious as there was water available there .
I didn't have to add any but I don't know how much is still in the tank . I only took one spare jerry can for the week (empty).
Thanks also to JD for his email .
Berne .

[BernieQ2]

Me again I have a question/s ? As a few know we have been away again for 7 days.
My battery's drop to 12.5/7 as the sun drops I have 600w of solar on the roof every day was sunshine from sun up till last light .I have 480 amph AGM battery's (two at 240amps)
I have done a little experiment today when the soc was full and showing 14.1 on the solar controller . I removed the solar panels from the solar controller , the batteries dropped down to 12.5 . confirmed on my multimeter , it had 12.6 .
The only thing running over night is the Hisence fridge (240v) via the inverter , on one morning when the diesel heater was turned on my controlers green light went red yes I know the heater pulls 10 amps I don't know if the fridge also kicked in its almost impossible to hear. Also had the laptop on which I turned off and the green light came back on...solar meter showing 12.1 at the time .
Your expert thoughts ?
BernieQ .

[BruceS]

With AGM batteries I think you'd need to keep the 14.1 volts at that voltage for several hours at least.
You would probably get that voltage a few minutes after either solar or battery charger starts belting it in.
Do you have a clamp meter Bernie? After several hours of holding it at 14.1V test how many watts are flowing into the batteries still.
I'm hesitant to suggest your batteries are sus ............

[Newcastle George]

Bernie,
12.5 is approx 75% charge and 12.7 approx 95% and if the fridge was running the voltage will show a slight drop in voltage due to the fact you don't have lithiums.

George