Add 12v volt meter at dinette table

Simply convenience. Other than getting up, pushing the button on systems monitor, when sitting at the dinnett we use the solar controller to check battery voltage. Which when setting at the dinette, its difficult to see 12v meter on the solar controller, or a night need a flash light to see it. Its also at rear door/across isle. So to see still need to get up to go look.



Simply adding a 12v meter that can be turned on/off at dinette to check batteries.

I picked up an inexpensive volt meter from amazon. It has an on/off so we dont need to look at it or constant power drain,
(later measured draw-my multimeter shows breif 0.01 amps (10 mA) when turned on then drops below what my meter will register, when off no measurement. )



Have power behind the shelf added at dinette so installing here. Removed the shelf and took to shop.


Meter will mount thru face of shelf but required a bit of back counter boring as shelf is bit too thick. Using 1 1/8" butterfly bit drilled face of formica about 1/8" deep, center of bit thru back, then from back side using 1 1/2" bit to remove about 1/4" of material. Then finished drilling thru from front with the 1 1/8" bit.

Mounted. Power wire soldering to incoming power to USB switch, so meter will work whether USB switch on or off. Ground I'll have to tap extra wire at dinette.



Fun part. Re routing wires thru shelf supports and zip ties to keep from falling down.



Nice!...
Touch face and meter displays voltage. (camera doesn't like it but numbers are crisp and clear


Touch again and it displays percentage. Set at 100%=13.6 volts.
This not really useful as battery will always show less than 100% in use. 12.1,12.2 volts is when I start turning things off.



And long touch meter turns off. Just a nice round dome.
Major upgrade, not really- just simple convenience of touching the little meter to read battery status when sitting at dinette.

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Related dinette pages

Part 4 add AC/DC laptop charger @ dinette
Part 3 Adding 12v receptacles and the dinette shelf this meter was mounted in
Part 2, Add 110v Receptacle/Inverter remote switch at dinette
Part 1, addition of under table shelf that started all this

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