ePropulsion Spirit Battery Charge Level Indicator

wonkywinch

wonkywinch

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Since I know Ian posts here and has input to future designs, please could we have a battery charge level indicator on the battery itself?

I'm a new user and unless I plug the battery into the motor, I have no idea how much charge it has left. As I need to run the inverter to charge the battery, I can't always run the charger until the battery is fully charged and the light goes green.

A simple 4/5 LED "fuel gauge" type like all my Dewalt batteries have would be useful as I would like to know before going to the trouble of accessing the dinghy and/or motor leg to find out how much juice there is in the tank.
 
I've a Spirit and a couple of batteries, and I agree that this would be useful. Until they do this, a solution for you would be to buy the Spirit Battery Activator, a device the size of a champagne cork which you plug into the battery, which then displays the battery's percent charge. I've one, and use it a lot. So far I've only used it to check the remaining charge in a battery, but since it plugs into the battery output socket and the charging socket is separate, you might well be able to leave it in while the battery is charging and see as the percentage rises.
 
davidaprice said:
I've a Spirit and a couple of batteries, and I agree that this would be useful. Until they do this, a solution for you would be to buy the Spirit Battery Activator, a device the size of a champagne cork which you plug into the battery, which then displays the battery's percent charge.
Click to expand...
That's what I was looking for but at that price, I'll just connect to the motor!
 
With the battery at approx 50% charge, the connectors don't present a meaningful voltage, the two pin charge connector reads zero and there is 2.5v present on a couple of pins of the multi connector that the leg plugs into.

The state of charge can only be an approximation based on static voltage and that would be really cheap to measure using one of these £8.50 devices from Amazon.

https://amzn.to/3XaSW7D

I wonder if it's possible to get a circuit diagram and access the raw battery voltage, the readings I got suggest some electrickery switching between the plugs and battery that make a simple multimeter/voltage reading impossible. It appears you need the battery "activator" to trigger the connection to the two pins and allow charging/discharge that way.
 

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davidaprice said:
I've a Spirit and a couple of batteries, and I agree that this would be useful. Until they do this, a solution for you would be to buy the Spirit Battery Activator, a device the size of a champagne cork which you plug into the battery, which then displays the battery's percent charge. I've one, and use it a lot. So far I've only used it to check the remaining charge in a battery, but since it plugs into the battery output socket and the charging socket is separate, you might well be able to leave it in while the battery is charging and see as the percentage rises.
Click to expand...
I spoke to ePropulsion at the boat show about the lack of local battery level indication and asked why my £50 Dewalt batteries have a button and 4 LEDs but their £££ battery didn't. They said they had not included it as they wanted to minimise any potential items that might go faulty in the more hostile environment of a battery falling in the water. It is also why voltage is removed from the pins when the battery is disconnected.

They showed me the battery activator and I said it was perfect but the cost was prohibited. The guy genuinely didn't know they were trying to sell them for £60+ and I said they should be a £15 option. He agreed and is feeding this back to their manufacturing facility and he told me to "watch this space".
 
Last edited:
If you can afford an e-spirit then why would you want to save £60 and not know the battery state before setting off?

When I put the battery box together for our trolling motor it never occurred to me NOT to fit a Smart Shunt. I can check the battery state via Bluetooth at any time. It is also much more accurate than a device that is just measuring voltage.

- W
 
webcraft said:
If you can afford an e-spirit then why would you want to save £60 and not know the battery state before setting off?
Click to expand...
This information is available via the display on the tiller but means you have to clip the battery in to find out.

As the motor leg/tiller is likely fitted to your tender bobbing around behind your boat, the discussion is about checking partial charge state when the battery is separated (ie plugged into the charger inside your boat).

epropulsion-spirit-1-digital-screen.png
 
wonkywinch said:
This information is available via the display on the tiller but means you have to clip the battery in to find out.

As the motor leg/tiller is likely fitted to your tender bobbing around behind your boat, the discussion is about checking partial charge state when the battery is separated (ie plugged into the charger inside your boat).

View attachment 183252
Click to expand...

Victron Smart Shunt
 
wonkywinch said:
a. how would that work in this application?
b. they are the same price as the ePropulsion widget.
Click to expand...

The SmartShunt is a battery monitor. It measures battery voltage and current. Based on these measurements, it calculates the battery's state of charge and the time to go.

If the ePropulsion widget is the same price then get that.

I can't see the point of spending all that money and then not knowing how long the battery will power the drive for.
 
webcraft said:
The SmartShunt is a battery monitor. It measures battery voltage and current. Based on these measurements, it calculates the battery's state of charge and the time to go.

If the ePropulsion widget is the same price then get that.

I can't see the point of spending all that money and then not knowing how long the battery will power the drive for.
Click to expand...
I think we're on a different frequency.
 
webcraft said:
The SmartShunt is a battery monitor. It measures battery voltage and current. Based on these measurements, it calculates the battery's state of charge and the time to go.

If the ePropulsion widget is the same price then get that.

I can't see the point of spending all that money and then not knowing how long the battery will power the drive for.
Click to expand...
How long the battery will power the motor for will depend upon how much power you tell the motor to use and the state of charge of the battery.
Like wonkywinch I just want to know how much charge the battery has without connecting it up to the motor.

On full power the motor can discharge a fully charged battery in just over an hour. Use only 200 watts the battery life is nearly 5 hours.
 
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