After damaging and then replacing our original 560 battery with a poor substitute, we have damaged that battery as well and I've thrown up my hands and elected to upgrade the whole system to a lithium battery.
In consultation with Cary, I successfully took delivery of the same lithium battery CI is now installing with new camper builds. However, since I'm upgrading my system, I have a handful of other steps I have to navigate in order to do this. First, I'll have to swap out my CTEK (I have an older version that won't play nice with lithium) in order to have DC-DC charing from the tow vehicle. Second, I'll have to eventually install a new AC charger/tender. Finally, and this is the root of my question today, I will have to install a battery monitor since my trailer does not have the TriMetric.
I'm an admitted novice at any conversation of anything electrical, so please bear with me. I've consulted with some sales reps/dealers, and I have come to think that the
Victron SmartShunt 500a battery monitor is a good solution for what I'm doing. The reasoning: most battery monitors include some sort of LCD screen that has to be mounted inside the trailer. As we all know, real estate is a little tight in the battery compartment and trailer. This SmartShunt actually doesn't have a screen at all - it has integrated bluetooth and relies on the user to "provide the screen" by way of a smart phone connection*. Therefore, the shunt can be installed inside the battery cavity and out of sight, and doesn't need any further bulkhead real estate for mounting a display.
I've reviewed the SmartShunt manual and also perused some YouTube educational videos trying to get a feel for how to handle the install. It honestly seems pretty simple and straight forward, but there is one big hangup that I'm sensing.
The install instructions first calls for the battery's negative terminal to be disconnected. The negative cable that had been on the battery now connects to the SmartShunt "System Load Minus" post. This represents all loads (accessories) and chargers. Then, a new battery cable is routed from the SmartShunt "Battery Minus" post to the negative post of the battery. By placing these two cables in this way, essentially all power that goes in or out of the battery flows "through" the shunt and allows it to measure/monitor things. A final simple connection from the SmartShunt to the positive terminal of the battery provides the monitor with the power it needs to work.
Here's what is confusing the snot out of me. When I consult the CI manual, the schematic for the battery/power wiring seems to suggest that the negative cable attached to my camper right now doesn't do anything but connect directly to the chassis ground stud. I don't see where any "loads and chargers" are integrated into that negative battery cable in the camper.
Am I reading this schematic wrong? My novice take-away is that the camper might actually be wired in a way that is incompatible with the product I'm looking at. Near far as I can tell, all of the "loads and chargers" are only connecting to the battery positive post. Is there a basic electrical concept I'm missing here?
*Of course, there is risk here just as with any product that relies on an app or software solution to run - the moment Victron decides to axe their app or stop supporting this model of battery monitor, the app won't work anymore and I could potentially have functioning battery monitor with no way to actually read the data. It would be a battery monitor that I cannot monitor, if that makes sense. I'm keen to that risk because I've recently witnessed the bad version of it from some friends who used the Kamado Joe temperature controller called iKamand. The device can only be controlled by a smartphone, which was great until Kamado Joe decided to stop producing and stop supporting the device. Overnight, folks who had spent 300 bucks on a temperature controller for their grill had nothing but a fancy brick that wouldn't even turn on.
