Bidirectional ammeter? 12V System

[Reddinr]

So I went off to buy a bidirectional ammeter for my camping trailer. Thought it would be easy. Not so much. I just got back from a camping trip where the trailer battery failed to charge from the car. Probably a fuse or connector or something. Will fix it. But, I thought it would be nice to have a battery monitor for the lithium battery / charger system. I saw ones that had bluetooth so you can monitor from the car. I have not found one that is bidirectional though.

Anyone have experience with this? Most of the ones I saw were just uni-directional, calling themselves battery monitors. I have one of those and it works well for monitoring discharge only.

Thnx!

 

[WobblyHand]

Haven't seen one in ages. Remember them on older cars - when they had ammeters. Now they have volt meters which in my opinion are less useful. but volt meters had the advantage that small wires could be used. Ammeters need to have all the current through them, so heavy conductors were necessary.

How about these guys? No affiliation, just the first link I found in a search. https://hoytmeter.com/analog-panel-meters/automotive-test-equipment.html My search query on Duckduckgo was: Amp meter analog bidirectional. HTH.

 

[Reddinr]

Thanks for the link. I have looked at the old-school analog meters thinking maybe a cheap wifi camera pointed at an analog meter would work. I want real-time monitoring. During my last trip the battery was charging when I left (I checked with a clamp-on meter) but it stopped charging soon after leaving home.

 

[Reddinr]

Well, I think I found one. "Thornwave Labs" seems to have exactly what I need. They have a Wifi and b Bluetooth model that seems perfect. I think I am going to give it a try.