Configuring a Simarine Pico with a GP Factor Power Panel
Battery Wiring:
Per Simarine, the shunt should be the only thing connected to the accessory/house negative. Everything else needs to go on the other side of the shunt. This would included the connection with other batteries, the chassis, and anything else. The default wiring schematic incorrectly shows to connect the negative of the starter battery to the negative of the accessory/house battery (black wire with the red ‘x’ through it') which goes against the Simarine recommendation. Instead connect the starter battery negative to the shunt. I had to use this 6GA splicer/joiner from Ace Hardware.
Simarine Pico:
Setting up a 100ah Lithium Ion battery in the Simarine Pico should follow the following settings based on Pico User Manual and their YouTube Channel. If you have something other than 100ah, you may have to change the settings below slightly.
TYPE: LiFePO4
C/20: 100 Ah (note: For lithium batteries, only input C20 rating and keep C10 and C5 as “Not Set”)
C/10: Not Set
C/5: Not Set
Voltmeter: For mine, more than one was available with slightly different readings - I chose the second one. I have the Renogy 100ah with built in bluetooth, so I took the active reading from the Renogy mobile app and found the voltmeter reading on the Pico that matched what I was actively seeing on the Rynogy mobile app.
Ammeters: I only had one defaulted I believe,
Range: 300 A. The SC303 shunt that comes with the GP Factor board is recommended to set to 300 A, which is the shunt capacity. I found this on the Simarine YouTune channel.
Advanced Settings:
TTG AVG: I have mine set to “Short,” which means that TTG will respond to the change in current more quickly,
TTG SOC MIN: 0% If this is set to anything else, that would be the “zero” point. The default is 20% which means that when PICO will display the remaining state of battery to be 0%, the actual state of the battery will be 20%.
CEF: 100%
The below settings are defaulted and called out in the Pico User Manual. The are the correct settings I have found with the 100ah battery. This is because my “12V” 100ah battery is actually 13.8V at full charge, at rest. So 12x1.15 = 13.8. If you know yours to be different, you could adjust this.
Voltage: 1.15
Current: 1.0
Time: 5m 0s
