How much power does Monitoring Power Use actually use?

[wildebus]

It is useful to be able to monitor the power in your Motorhome. But monitoring power uses power, but how much? I decided to check on my system before I get it all ready for trips out once the weather is warmer

I have a Victron setup for monitoring everything. This includes a bunch of Victron BMVs and a Cerbo GX Unit, as well as various chargers and controllers. All these devices take some power, and even if each is very little it all adds up, but question is how much?

This is a view of 12 hours at a time where the solar is not harvesting, so the numbers are not affected by any charging going on

The orange line is the current.
This is the draw for all the Victron Monitoring, plus a few other bits of monitoring kit.
The current is bouncing between 0.6A and 0.7A and in terms of draw from the battery, the Battery bank dropped from -300.5Ah to -308Ah in the 12 Hours.
So this would be 15Ah/Day being taken out the battery, and more than likely around 13Ah a day more than a system that has no monitoring and is 'factory fresh'. Is the extra load worth it? That would be up to the individual

There is one device that I usually leave on 24/7 but was off in the numbers above.... The Internet Router. Looking at the data, the router is pulling between 0.2A and 0.3A. Call it 2.5A average, which makes it around 6Ah/Day an Internet Router takes from the battery.

So having the ability to fully monitor my electrics system AND remotely report it via the Internet adds up to a total of about 21Ah a Day. More than might be expected actually. I thought it would be less.

Right now in February in Scotland, solar is still poor and is only just keeping up with the load (33Ah brought in in the last 24 hours). Come the spring it will be a different picture and that 21Ah load will be much more insignificant.

More info can be seen on my Website blog post

 

[Mr and Mrs Tupcox]

I've always understood that technology cost.

And simples .
My first van swift Royal m plate. Had one battery 110ah no solar basic lights I did have 12v tv. Would last me 3/4days if off grid.

Every time I up graded I needed more power more batteries then solar then finally lithium b2b.

 

[nabsim]

All the kit will be drawing current though David not just the BVM’s. All mppt controllers and probably b2b will have some led’s lit, if they also have either displays or Bluetooth it will be more. I do know my BVM, Victron mppt, Votronic mppt (with separate display and my Votronic b2b are drawing a total of very little but I can’t put a number on it. I would guess a couple amps tops per day though as even with my router left on and the usb chargers left on but not in use it’s hard to see any drop overnight when not in use. Yes there is some though

 

[wildebus]

All the kit will be drawing current though David not just the BVM’s. All mppt controllers and probably b2b will have some led’s lit, if they also have either displays or Bluetooth it will be more. I do know my BVM, Victron mppt, Votronic mppt (with separate display and my Votronic b2b are drawing a total of very little but I can’t put a number on it. I would guess a couple amps tops per day though as even with my router left on and the usb chargers left on but not in use it’s hard to see any drop overnight when not in use. Yes there is some though

Absolutely right. that is why I only knocked off 13Ah instead of 15Ah if you were not monitoring.