The Victron BMV-700, like any good battery monitor, allows you to better maintain your batteries and track your energy usage and charging systems. Monitors pay for themselves many times over, and we can't imagine being without them on any battery-based system. When an independent, stand-alone system is desired, the Victron BMV series is an excellent choice. 

The Victron BMV battery monitors are highly accurate, incredibly easy to install, and very reasonably priced. The BMV-700 monitors multiple parameters for one battery bank via a 500A shunt. The BMV-702 is similar but also monitors the voltage of a second bank, provides a mid-bank value, or senses battery temperature.

Since there are inefficiencies in charging and discharging (Peukert's law), the BMV-700 monitor performs sophisticated calculations to correct for these factors. Once the size of the battery bank is configured into the monitor, all of the other calculations, including the nominal battery voltage, are automatic. Each parameter, such as the voltage at which the battery is considered empty, can be adjusted if desired to accommodate individual battery characteristics and/or user preferences.

Installation is a snap. The battery monitor display comes with both a round and square bezel, and fits a 52 mm (2-1/16") hole. The shunt attaches between the battery and the ground connections, and a provided RJ12 UTP cable connects the two. A fused wire (included) connects the shunt assembly to the positive battery terminal for voltage sensing.

The displays are:

Battery voltage: this readout is useful to make a rough estimation of the battery’s state-of-charge. Excessive voltage drops for a charged battery when under heavy load can also indicate that battery capacity is insufficient.

Current: this represents the actual current flowing in to or out of the battery. A discharge current is indicated as a negative value (current flowing out of the battery). If for example a DC to AC inverter draws 5A from the battery, it will be displayed as –5.0A.

Power: power drawn from the battery in watts.

Consumed Amp-Hours: this displays the cumulative Ah consumed from the battery. A fully charged battery sets this readout to 0.0 Ah (synchronised system). If a current of 12A is drawn from the battery for a period of 3 hours, this readout will show –36.0 Ah.

State-of-charge: this is the best way to monitor the actual state of the battery. This readout represents the current amount of energy left in the battery. A fully charged battery will be indicated by a value of 100.0%. A fully discharged battery will be indicated by a value of 0.0%.

Time-to-go: this is an estimation of how long the battery can support the present load until it needs recharging.

There are also a wide variety of alarms that are user-configurable.

You can view and capture real-time and historical data from the BMV-700 to a Windows computer with the VE.Direct to USB interface. 

All Victron products (except for batteries) come with a 5 year worldwide warranty, supported by an international network of service points and dealers.

For more information, see the Victron BMV-700 & BMV-702 Battery Monitor Install Guide and Owner's Manual.