Battery bank

[Phssthpok]

I checked the status of my battery bank (800Ah) last week which was overwintered with (2) US64 panels attached through a 16 amp PWM charge controller. Since it was quite sunny during the day I decided to wait until night fall so the batteries could rest for a while to get a more accurate reading.

According to the LED scale provided by the charge controller the bank was resting at about 12.5-13 volts, yet when I attached the Multi-meter it registered approx 14.6X volts.

Thinking this a bit odd, I decided to check the (2) T-125 batteries attaced to (2) 50 wat ARCO panels on my "nephews'" fort (yes....I wired their fort with 12v powah!). This set-up is wired through a 12 amp PWM CC with analog (swing needle) gauges for amps and volts.

The voltmeter on this CC read a solid 14.5 volts. Yet, when I attached the Multi-meter it peaked out at over 16(!!!) volts.

I'm scratching my head over this. I thought about voltage drop over the wires (18ga multistrand copper) but concidering both runs were less than 15 feet it shouldn't be an issue, yes? I just don't want to wind up frying the batteries. Am I missing something?

[wdyasq]

Have you checked your volt meter with a reference voltage? Try checking your car and/or truck battery.

Ron

[kurt]

hmmm you have 2 different meters giving different results than your multimeter. time to suspect the multimeter is it a digital meter?? if so try changing the battery. try checking your meter against a known voltage get some new flashlight batteries and measure them they should be 1.5 to 1.69v dc or so  then measure your car battery engine off and engine on. it should read aprox. 12.9v with the engine off and 14.5v with the engine on.

[poleframer]

Just went thru this myself, bad multimeter. But I still get different readings on various meters- inverter control, battery monitor, new multimeter vary by about .1 volts. Prolly aint worth chasing down.