Battery Meter

We spend about 4 months a year camping in Baja. It is not considered dry camping because they do provide water in the camp, but no electricity. In this case your battery health becomes very imporant. We use a 100 watts of solar panels to keep things charged. In general this is enough and works quite well. The exception is when we get a few days or a week of cloudy weather. In the past we used a meter connected to the 12 volt connections in the stereo cabinet. That worked okay but was not visable from the fronts seats. We decided to install a permenent meter in a more visable place.

Finished

Chosing the right place took some thinking but since we do not have a generator, the logical spot was in the panel that coveres the hole for the generator control. It is accessable by removing two panels in the upper portion of the bathroom. There are two plastic clips that can be turned to remove the panel. I cut a hoole in it to match the size of the meter.

Panel 1 Removed

Here is a picture showing the first panel removed.

Second Panel Removed

Now lets remove the second panel. The meter is mounted in the removable panel in this picture. It shows up at the bottom of the picture.

Back of Panel

The red and black wire have to be connect to the indicator panel. The panel is removed from the front. The plastic panel pops out. Here is a picture.

Pamel Removed

Next the 4 screws are removed.

Screws

Now that the panel is out we need to connect the red and black wire from the meter to the panel. The power connections are at one end of the connector. They are marked on the picture. The +12 is connected to the orange wire.

Power Connections

Put everything back together and it looks like this.

Finished

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