Advanced battery monitor
Installing the Simarine Pico Blue
With the plethora of electrical kit now deemed necessary by most bluewater cruisers, the need for a comprehensive system to monitor power usage has never been greater.
However, most battery monitors only oversee one or two things and even then often only provide a simple, one-line display rather than log information so that trends may be identified. So it was with keen interest I opened the Simarine Pico Blue package, the contents of which promised to provide a complete battery and tank monitoring solution for our more demanding marine application.
We installed the system on a 45ft steel ketch that was being prepared for long-term bluewater cruising. From a multitude of possible combinations, we installed the following:
Pico display unit
The display is a sleekly-designed 3.5in LCD panel with a smart anodized aluminium casing and a thick ‘Gorilla’ glass screen with anti-reflective coating. It’s certainly pleasing to the eye.
Two versions are available, the budget, single-channel Pico One, which can only use the SC302T (single 300A shunt and two tank inputs), and the standard Pico that can be used with any of the wide range of shunts and modules available. An integral barograph is optional on both, as are flush or standalone mounts.
We installed the standalone Pico Standard LCD with the barometric option.
Main shunt
The main shunt module (SC300 or SC500) allows 12V or 24V voltage monitoring, as well as battery temperature and continuous current flow up to 300A/500A (400A/600A peak). With the SC500 that is a maximum power of 7.2kW at 12V or 14.4kW at 24V, so it can be used for monitoring high current consumers such as inverters, bow and stern thrusters, winches etc.
We connected an SC500 between the main service battery bank and the combi inverter-charger, to enable us to monitor inverter current, overall service bank drain and charge current, along with the corresponding battery voltage and temperature.
Auxiliary shunt modules
The Quadro shunt (SCQ25) has four independent inputs for monitoring consumer/generator currents up to 25A each (35A peak). These are ideal for supervising individual power sources such as solar panels, wind and water generators, alongside high-power consumers such as refrigerators, water-makers and so on. For higher current demands, two individual channels may be combined to give the ability to monitor up to 50A (70A peak).
We wired it to monitor both the hydro-generator and solar regulator outputs, with the two remaining inputs to oversee the fridge and water-maker.
Each SCQ25 module is supplied with an 8m-long data cable, which connects the network to the display panel and powers the system. If you need more than four channels, they can be ‘daisy-chained’ together or ‘star-wired’ from a Sicom splitter box.
Tank monitoring
The 4-way tank module (ST107) measures tank levels, temperatures and auxiliary battery voltages. It has four inputs for temperature sensors or resistance-type tank level senders, then a further three for voltage inputs and/or active tank senders.
We used two voltage inputs to monitor the engine and bow-thruster batteries. The onboard tanks of fresh water, fuel and holding tank are all monitored with resistive tank senders, giving us comprehensive monitoring with a couple of spare inputs.
Power up
Once we’d installed the network and powered up the system, the display automatically identified every module installed, allowing each to be accessed individually and their separate inputs to be initialised in terms of name and operating parameters. This was not difficult to do using the display panel, although it’s even easier if you download the Pico app and use your tablet or phone instead for text editing. The app also makes it extremely simple to perform upgrades in the future by enabling direct downloads of any firmware updates – a useful feature and genuine bonus for the boat owner of no fixed abode.
From our limited experience of using both the display panel and the app on a smart phone, it appears there’s considerably more information available from the system when using the app. The 3.5in LCD display is clear and easy to read – it would have been all too easy to clutter it up with too much information. Even better to utilise the larger display of a tablet.
Another major feature of the system is its data-logging capability, which is due for release as a firmware update at the end of summer 2018. Simarine informs us that it will allow historic battery status and current flow logging, among many other user-selectable options. The data can be stored for several years on the display alone or you can synchronise the logged data to the app. This will be a major boon for those wishing to store an accurate, long-term record of their electrical consumption and generation, allowing easier identification of trends.
Conclusion
Any item of equipment that costs around £500 must be a serious, considered purchase, but if you think about what is included and weigh up the cost of four tank gauges, five shunts and a smart digital ammeter/voltmeter for multiple sources, then the Pico strikes me as pretty good value. Alternatively, you could choose the budget Pico One package for less than half the cost of the larger system we installed. n Price as installed: £530 (LCD £260; SC500 £100; SCQ25 £85; ST107 £85). n Other prices: Pico One package (LCD + SC302T) £210. n www.simarine.net