i love knowing what’s going on around me, especially in our karavan. up until now we had this measly (sorry but it’s true) tank gauge and the nice but rather limited battery indicator. instead i got this, made in slovenia. cool.

it’s not just a pretty face, though, it’s also actually nicely architected. the main unit can be linked up with a number of modules that can measure a number of parameters. the most important is the status of the battery bank, in our case 2 agm batteries hidden in the enclosure on the left below (the right box is part of the air conditioner).

shunts are used for that purpose; basically a massive resistor with very low resistance that measures a very small voltage drop caused by the current flowing through it.

above the shunt used by the victron system, below the simarine unit that replaced it.

i pretty much just dropped the new unit into the place of the old one, with a few small changes to the cabling to make it less messy. not sure i succeeded …

the most difficult part was that the new system uses a different cabling method (i like it better) and a different cable. should be easy to use the old one to pull in the new one, right? wrong! there was absolutely no way the new cable (which is actually thinner) would go in. what to do

in the end the solution was simple. if the cable was not going to come out it would have to stay in and work with the new system. luckily the simarine system requires fewer wires. and one less hole, too, not sure what i am going to do to cover that up.

the new panel in place. i love it, so simple but with a wealth of information.

next i need to connect the quadro shunt (4 small shunts in one package) to the fuse box in the boot. all i have to do is run a thin cable along the length of the van. how hard could that possibly be … ?