Alden UK Alden "No Nonsense" Battery Computer

The Alden battery computer is a very sophisticated, system, calculating what power you have available and how much power you are consuming, however, it’s beauty is that is so simple to use and more importantly so easy to understand!

Unlike most other battery computers on the market, this system is not and was not designed to be installed primarily on boats.  This system is made by Alden, one of Europe’s most respected solar and satellite equipment manufacturers.

The computer is installed with a 100amp shunt (larger systems available) In essence, a device is installed between the motorhome and the battery (s) and every bit of charge or discharge is measured and calculated.  This enables you to see at a glance exactly how much power you are consuming or conversely how much power you are storing (charging) in the batteries from charging sources such as solar panels, hook up or split charging from the engine

With the operation as simple as a three way switch the display options available are battery voltage,  amount of charge/discharge and state of battery.  The state of battery is  very simple to understand.  When the system is installed (Average installation £100) the system is told the battery capacity. Taking the Van Bitz long term test motorhome Minnie Winnie as an example there are two 125 Elecsol batteries installed.  So the system is set to 250

So press the rocker switch to the left, the battery voltage is displayed, flick to the middle position and the charge/discharge (a number with an arrow UP or Down) is displayed and flick to the left the amount of power left is displayed.

This then puts you in control! If you see that your discharging your batteries at a fairly high rate, and you know why, say by using an inverter for example, everything is OK, however, should you have a discharge and not understand why, this allows you time to establish why before it becomes a problem.

Many other systems that are designed for boats will not function correctly when a solar panel is introduced as the trickle from the panel can confuse the computer into thinking that the system is discharging when the system is actually charging, only for the computer to rapidly re-asses its reading once it gets dark.  This type of situation does not occur with the purpose made simple to use battery computer from Alden.