A shunt is necessary in order to measure Amps and Amp-hours with a battery monitor. A shunt is an accurate, very low resistance resistor which is placed “in line” with the wire carrying the current to be measured. It is usually placed in the negative wire from the battery bank, such that all the current going into the battery (charging) or out (discharging) must pass through it. It reads 0.1 mV per Amp and is constructed out of brass with insulated base. The 50mV / 500A shunt includes taptite mounting screws and has two 8-32 tapped holes on one end to attach a bus bar. This is the industry standard shunt, calibrated with an accuracy of /- 0.25%. Recommended use of this shunt is for no more than 2/3 of rated current for continuous duty, so no more than 330 Amp continuous for long periods (for the 500 Amp shunt). The shunt can handle much, much larger surges without problem, it is the continuous current and the heating that causes that has limits. Regarding heat, the normal operating temperature range is -40C through 60C, and the shunt should not exceed 145 Centigrade or a permanent change in resistance can occur.
