Thoughts on the Batrium watchmon4

hi,
As the new watchmon4 has been released a few weeks ago, what are your thoughts on it?
I have mine and it looks very clean and tidy,not to be hidden away anymore,
:heart:

Bigfillly said:

hi,
As the new watchmon4 has been released a few weeks ago, what are your thoughts on it?
I have mine and it looks very clean and tidy,not to be hidden away anymore,
:heart:

Click to expand...

I just got mine the other day as well as 7 leafmon's

The quality control on the leafmon's was very poor. On 3 of them the clear potting material seeped into the connectors that connect each together. On 2 of them I could not even plug them in and the other just barely sits in there. I snipped off the connector and had to solder to it directly

I let customer service know and they responded

My only criticism so far are those connectors - they are so damn tiny and fragile. I hope in the future that they change them out and make them bigger and more robust

Also the lack of clear documentation. Its rather scattered

Funny enough I did have an issue with the junction box to plug the longmon wires into before it goes to the watchmon4 it had excess plastic in the corners of both square plugs, so I couldnt plug the longmon wire in, I dug it out with a pin and managed to get them to sit in but it shouldnt come out like that, especially when you pay that much for it?

I have not got my hand on WM4 yet but have seen the progress on Batrium and they have stepped up ALOT compare to where they were a couple of years back. In beginning they only managed most of the installs and stepping from that to a DIY community takes HUGE efforts in terms of quality and documentation and how easy it can be to set it up.

Many things i had up they already fixed but there is of course a long way left to go to be #1 BMS in all terms They are close in my mind but for the average person with no electrical skills it is still a complex setup

I received mine last week, bear in mind I'm an EE by trade for the offshore survey industry, so I'm used to wiring stuff, I also have a hand in shipping the product we build, and we are a small 5 person company so I understand about everyone being stretched, my thoughts:

1. The 3d printed stuff looks crappy compared to the previous din rail mounting base - the print quality is a bit nasty.
2. The QC on the cellmon cables is poor. If you are going to fill the back of the crimp with hot melt, at least fill the back of the crimp, don't just put a small cold blob on there which doesn't stick to the crimp or the cable insulation
3. As a follow on from point 2, either crimp, or solder, or do both - but don't mix and match in a batch. I had 2 that were not crimped + soldered, just soldered, and one of those wasn't soldered properly, the wire pulled out. I remade it. I'm talking the +ve ring terminal here.
4. The packaging was a bit too recycled - they need to improve the packaging.

My cellmon cables also had the same issues. One even had a loose wire - the solder did not stick. I had to fix it

My shutmon cable was also wired backwards on one end - when I first plugged it in - my watchmon shut off till I realized it was backwards

I appreciate the fact that they are under pressure to deliver and I am glad I got my hands on one when I did.

Aside from those issues - I now have it up and running and the core software is fantastic!

I hope they figure out their QC problems soon - they have a great product

Totally agree, this product is fantastic. The software is great and I'm slowly getting to all the finer points but still a lot to learn. My biggest criticism is the longmon cables too. I've had constant issues with cables loosing connections and then no monitoring. I've cut and shut and few of them to work properly and have now ordered some more.

But as I said earlier great product.

I agree with you on the wires, I ordered 3 more longmons as spares and have extra wires now,
As I said in the first post, i love the way it all looks and it doesnt need to be hidden away anymore (mine isnt anyway)
I had a play with the software over the weekend and it looks real nice with info everywhere, great job all round, apart from the wires.