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Initial Settings

After Connecting to the Regulator, you should have the dashboard loaded in a browser. This page walks through every Setup tab in order. Plan on 10–30 minutes depending on how thoroughly you customize.

The regulator ships preloaded for a 300 Ah 12 V LiFePO4 bank and a typical 100-amp-class alternator. The defaults are conservative — safe but under-utilized. Walk through every tab once on first boot; afterwards you'll only return for occasional tweaks.

1. Unlock with the Settings password

At the top of every page is a Settings are Locked banner with a password field. The default password is:

admin

Type admin and click Unlock. The banner turns green; all form rows on all Setup tabs are now editable. Change this password as soon as you've finished initial setup — see section 11 below.

2. Setup → Vessel Info (required — blocks other tabs)

The first time the dashboard loads, the firmware forces the Vessel Info sub-tab. Every other tab refuses to open until Vessel Info is complete. This is by design: the cloud features (weather forecasts, leaderboards, charging analytics) need to know your boat and battery to be useful.

Fill in all of:

  • Vessel Information — Length, Displacement (lbs), Type (monohull / cat / trawler / powerboat), Make/Model, Year, Engine Make, Horsepower, Home Port.
  • Charging Equipment — Nominal Battery Voltage (12 / 24 / 48 V), Battery Capacity (Ah), Battery Type (LiFePO4 / AGM / Lead Acid / Other), Battery Make/Model, Alternator Brand/Model, Nominal Solar Panel Wattage (enter 0 if none).

Click Save. The yellow "Initial Setup Required" banner disappears and the rest of the Setup tabs unlock.

Nominal Battery Voltage is not a passive field edit. It is the sole source of the system voltage class (12 / 24 / 48 V), and changing it later rescales the charge profile and the hard-shutdown voltage to the new class (applyNominalVoltageChange()) — the dashboard warns you before applying. Set it correctly here rather than relying on a later change.

3. Setup → Alternator

Most users adjust two things here on day one.

RPM Table sub-tab — your low-power and high-power amperage targets.

The RPM Table holds the maximum alternator output current at each of 10 RPM breakpoints, in two columns: Low Charge Mode (everyday cruising, lighter on the alternator) and High Charge Mode (full-send, faster recharge, hotter alternator). Defaults are conservative; raise them once you've confirmed your alternator can sustain higher current at each RPM without overheating. Both columns are independent — set Low to a relaxed schedule and High to your aggressive ceiling, then toggle between them on the dashboard header during operation.

Basic sub-tab → Temperature Settings — alternator temp limit.

Open the Temperature Settings accordion inside the Basic sub-tab. Set Alternator Temp Limit to your alternator manufacturer's rated continuous winding temperature. The thermal loop derates current as the measured temperature approaches this number — set it correctly or the regulator will either overheat your alternator (too high) or never reach the rated output (too low). 220 °F is typical for marine alternators.

The other Alternator sub-tabs (CV Mode, Health Monitor, Protections) have sensible defaults — with one exception to check on day one. The Protections sub-tab now ships with the cold-charge lockout on by default: charging is blocked when the regulator's board temperature falls below about 40 °F. This protects lithium chemistries, which are damaged by charging cold. Lead-acid banks can be charged cold, so a cold-climate lead-acid user should turn it off (or lower the threshold) here. Note the board sensor reads warmer than true ambient, so the cutoff is optimistic — it can permit charging when the battery is somewhat colder than the threshold.

4. Setup → Battery

If your battery matches the default 12 V LiFePO4 profile, most fields are already correct. If you have a different chemistry or voltage class, the two values to check are:

  • Bulk voltage — your battery's absorption target (14.4 V on a 12 V AGM; 14.6 V on a 12 V LiFePO4; 28.8 V on a 24 V LiFePO4; etc).
  • Float voltage — long-term hold voltage. Some lithium installations set this very low (13.2 V) to discourage charging once the bank is full; others use 13.6 V for a gentle top-off.

Bulk / absorption / float voltages are also covered in your battery manufacturer's datasheet.

5. Setup → Weather Mode

Lets the regulator look up the next-day solar forecast for your home port (or wherever NMEA-supplied GPS says you are) and reduce charging when solar will do the job. If your boat has no solar, disable Weather Mode entirely — otherwise leave it on with default thresholds. The defaults err on the side of charging whenever conditions are at all uncertain.

6. Setup → Accel

Configures the accelerometer / IMU feedback loop: how rough water at anchor or at sea is detected and rolled into the dashboard's "voyage scoring." Defaults are reasonable; you only need to revisit this if dashboard scoring seems off after some real sea time.

7. Setup → Alarms

Personal-preference territory. The defaults are conservative — every alarm fires fairly easily. Walk through each row on first boot and either tighten or loosen the threshold to match your tolerance:

  • Over-voltage / under-voltage warnings (battery and alternator)
  • Over-temperature warnings (alternator, battery)
  • SoC low
  • Sensor disagreement (BatteryV vs. INA228 IBV)
  • Communication loss (NMEA, Victron VE.Direct, BMS)

The buzzer output (RJ3 pin 15) drives a piezo any time any active alarm is asserted, and the dashboard logs the trigger.

8. Setup → Battery Monitor

Two important values:

Full Charge Detection → Battery Capacity (Amp hr). Match your bank's rated capacity at the 20-hour rate (the manufacturer's headline number). This drives the coulomb counter — get it wrong and the SoC display drifts.

Other Settings → Set SoC (%) Manually. Type your best estimate of the current state of charge and click Set. The coulomb counter starts from there. Don't agonize over this — full-charge auto-detection (voltage above the Max Charge Detection Voltage threshold AND tail current below the Max Charge Detection Tail Current percentage for the configured time) will reset the count to 100% the first time you fully charge, then SoC becomes self-correcting.

The other sections (SOC Correction, Efficiency Parameters, the Peukert Exponent etc.) have reasonable defaults — pick chemistry-appropriate Peukert exponent if you want (1.0 for lithium, 1.05–1.15 for AGM, 1.15–1.35 for flooded lead-acid).

9. Setup → Engine

The Fuel Consumption Table is what drives the dashboard's fuel-burn estimate, range projection, and "gallons per hour" readouts. Fill in GPH at each RPM breakpoint for your specific engine.

Sources:

  • Manufacturer datasheet — most diesel manufacturers publish a propeller curve. Read GPH at each RPM off that curve.
  • Historical operating data — if you have a fuel-flow sensor or hand-calculated burn from past trips, that's better than the datasheet because it reflects your actual loaded prop.
  • Crude estimate — a naturally-aspirated diesel burns roughly 0.05 GPH per rated HP at cruise. A loaded 50 HP engine at cruise RPM is ≈ 2.5 GPH. Use this only as a placeholder until real data exists.

The other Engine settings (oil pressure thresholds, ignition input polarity, etc.) have appropriate defaults.

10. Setup → System

Engine & Alternator Parameters → RPM Scaling Factor. Adjusts the firmware's calculated engine RPM to match your physical tachometer. Run the engine at a known steady RPM (e.g. 1500 according to the dash tach). Read the dashboard's RPM. If the dashboard reads, say, 1620 when the boat's tachometer says 1500, multiply the current scaling factor by 1500/1620 = 0.926 and enter the new value. Re-check. Two iterations usually nail it. An approximation within 50 RPM is fine. On first installation the app opens a guided Engine Speed Alignment screen for this, just before characterization: with the engine running it shows the regulator's live RPM beside a slider, so you can match it to your tachometer without the arithmetic. You can also set it here by hand at any time.

Engine & Alternator Parameters → Pulley Ratio, Alt to Engine. The ratio of alternator pulley diameter divided by engine crankshaft pulley diameter. A standard 2:1 reduction (small alt pulley, large crank pulley) means the alternator spins at twice engine RPM. If you don't have calipers, count belt teeth or estimate visually — within 0.1 of the true value is fine. This is only used for the physics-model RPM projection; the actual control loop uses measured alternator RPM directly.

11. Setup → System: change the password

Still on the System sub-tab, find the Change Settings Password field. Enter your new password and click Change. Replaces the default admin. Write it down somewhere — if you lose it, you'll need to ground the GPIO45 recovery wire to get back into config mode (see Connecting to the Regulator → Override wires).

The Data & Communication and Display Preferences accordions in this tab are fine-tuning for advanced users — skip on day one.

12. After initial setup

Once Settings is filled out:

  • Start the engine. The dashboard's Live Data → Alternator tab shows duty cycle ramping up, current flowing, voltage rising toward bulk. The header strip shows live readings even on a phone across the boat.
  • Register for Cloud Features in the Cloud Features tab — enables history upload, OTA updates, leaderboards.
  • Run Automatic System Characterization — the guided one-button routine (Tuning → Commissioning) that measures your specific alternator and sets the control-loop gains, filters, and over-current thresholds from those measurements. This is the recommended way to tune the regulator to your installation.

If something doesn't work, the Console tab streams firmware status messages live. See Troubleshooting for the common failure modes.

Common Settings gotchas

Dashboard refuses to leave Vessel Info. All other Settings sub-tabs and all non-Settings main tabs (Live Data, Tuning, Plots, etc.) are blocked until Vessel Info is complete. Fill in all required fields and click Save.

Lost password. Ground the GPIO45 recovery wire at boot to re-enter configuration mode with default credentials. See Connecting to the Regulator → Override wires.

SoC drifts noticeably after a day. The most common cause is wrong Battery Capacity (Ah) in Battery Monitor. Second most common is missing full-charge detection — verify Max Charge Detection Voltage is set slightly below your bulk voltage (so the bank actually hits it during absorption).

Cross-references