This is great! One question - I assume you did the battery-battery charger because you've got effectively a "low-output/dumb" alternator, and this was the easiest "plug & play" option...? As I understand it though, one big benefit of lithium when off the grid is the fast-charging ability you could get from a high-output/regulated alternator. For example on ISBJORN, which has just under 1,000 aH Lead-Acid AGMs, we can blast out 220 amps from the alternator, but only when they're dead. As soon as voltage comes up, amps go down, so the charging time extends the fuller they get. But with lithium, I can go full-blast right til their full, right?! So like on ISBJORN, that battery-battery charger would be less than ideal, especially since I've already got the smart regulator that has a pre-programmed lithium profile. Am I understanding this correctly?
If I understand you ( and the video) correctly, I think the lead-battery only really come into play when there is a sudden shut-off from the bms. Then it buffers the return current. Otherwise the current just passes it and it will not slow charging down.
Yes, you're absolutely right. The internal resistance in a LiFePo4 bank is not as high as Lead-Acid/AGM, so it can take much higher charge in general. If the DC-DC charger is powerful enough, it won't matter much if you charge using that or directly from the alternator. But most DC-DC chargers I found are rather expensive for a high Amp spec, so in your case, the alternator on ISBJORN would most likely work just fine instead (if it's setup for LiFePo4 that is).
Hi Andy, Its a good question and interesting for your particular situation. If i remember correct you have some type of advanced regulator with the alternator? If this is the case you might be able to change a few small setting and it would work just fine. Would need to take a look. Ryan
Yes, BUT - it's more than capacity to absorb amps. Max voltage is a big issue, most dumb regulators may allow the voltage to exceed the cut out in the BMS wired into the top of each battery, and if that battery is the only thing connected to the alternator, when it cuts out you blow the diodes on the alternator and are now left sending the alternator for rebuild as well as shipping the batteries back to the factory to have the BMS replaced. Expensive, and slow, and you're dead in the water. Other big issue, and one rarely talked about, is float charging. Lead acids/spiral/gel/AGM will tolerate floating at a higher voltage. LiFePO4 do not. One of the big characteristics of the charge profile for lithium is that after reaching max charge, the battery must be allowed to run down to between 30-50% of charge before reinitiating charging/float. Most dumb alternators will happily keep floating at 13.7, rapidly killing the lithiums.
I am missing an important safety feature in this video. There should be a fuse installed as close as possible to the batteries, to prevent fire in case of a short circuit in one of the wires connecting the battery. It is enough to have a fuse only on the positive terminal. Do you have one installed and if so where? I find it dangerous to tell people to do a battery installation without mentioning the importance of the fuses.
Hello matthias. Yes this is a good point. We did not include it in the drawing but it is on the positive side just after the battery switch. This is where benteau placed it and we did not move it.
You should know/tell viewer that carbon fiber, unlike glass, is a good electrical conductor. So if you've got it around electrical components (like your battery box), treat it appropriately like steel or aluminum. Like your videos! ;)
Ryan..after watching this I have no doubt your business venture will do well...on a side note..DUDE..you flew F-16s!..as a pilot myself i suppose if i wasnt flying Falcons sailing a sweet blue water boat with a smart hot French gal would work...lol..thanks for the tech videos..well done
Don't forget to have all positive wires from each Lithium battery the same length, and each Lithium positive wires should have it's own fuse. On the negative side all Lithium negative wires should have the same length from batteries to negative busbar.
Ryan, you should look at the following, on how to best tie batteries together, specifically 4 in parallel. I think you have used “version 2” in this video, but you should be using version 3 or 4. www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html
WOW!! Now speaking as an electro-phobic I have to say that looked easy enough for me to give a try and that is saying something. Well done for making something difficult look easy.
Ryan, You want to watch this video: ruclips.net/video/Yf9N9zBgyB8/видео.html you can get 4 to 10 times more cycles out of your batteries if you cut off loads from running the batteries down below 20%. Lithiums hate being discharged too much too often. Also you might want to charge up to only 80% State of Charge. Lithiums hate being charged all the way. It generates heat and the more power you pump in the less goes to charging. If you two as daily users have the available amp hours, probably daily usage around 200 amp hours, you can probably charge between 20% SOC and 80% SOC no problem. This will really increase the longevity of the lithium cells. Most boats with one refrigerator, lights and computers at anchor use around 125ah a day to 175ah a day. Also if you shunt is programmable you want to definitely shut down the loads at 10%SOC and shut down the charging over 100% SOC. The bad thing is according to your diagram(if I was paying close enough attention) the shunt with programmable safety factors will shut off the load and the charging, You may want to find a way to separate charging and loads by a separate shunt. So if you are using too much electricity, the system will automatically recover via solar for instance. This might help: www.victronenergy.com/battery_protect/battery-protect Aren't those 170AH batteries so you have 680 amp hours????? You could maybe cycle around 35 SOC and 65 SOC and really get some efficiency out of the batteries as the solar would be soooo much more efficient at putting in power. Your alternator could drive the batteries to near 100% occasionally especially if you needed it, and the batteries might like to be reminded about their maximum capacity occasionally.
Looks good. It’s my idea to make the changeover myself at year end before I go full time cruising next year. I have done a lot of the background changes like you. Victron 120/3000/12 inverter charger and Victron 100/50 Mpt controller. Just the batteries to buy and deal with the alternators. I hope to do this soon and the batteries last. All in all a nice informative video guys
Hi Ryan. According to your Wiring Diagram your starter battery is directly connected to the alternator. The electricity generated in the alternator flows through your starter battery, which is an SLA, and continues through a Battery-to-Battery charger to your positive and negative terminals and continues to charge your Domestic Lithiums. The chargers you programmed for charging the Lithiums. So far so good. In your first video you show how to increase your alternator output with a Wakespeed regulator, which I assume you have to program for the type of battery as well. My question is how you program the Wakefield to charge the Domestic bank, which is Lithium but the generated current has to pass through the SLA-starter Battery?....or did I miss a point here?
Thanks for your clear advice. A few things I noted; Very important the battery parallel connections be of equal length between batteries to ensure the same resistance from each battery. It was not an issue for you as all your batteries were next to each other and you cut your own cables but some may be tempted to use an existing cable of different length they already have. Another thing to point out is that when disconnecting batteries always disconnect negative first and when reconnecting batteries connect negative last. André
The way you wired your batteries up in parallel is going to greatly shorten the life of your batteries and provide a single point of failure (lack of redundancy) on the failure of any single battery or cell. Because LiFePO4 batteries can push such high currents, even a very small amount of resistance in the setup makes a big change in voltage (V=IR) with a big current. The middle batteries in your bank will provide considerably less current than the ones on the end. You are right that the original configuration (taking the positive and negative off the chain, will be the worst configuration possible (the one on the far end will provide less than HALF the amperage of the one closest to the load), but your configuration isn't much better (the ones in the middle will be about 75-80% of the load of the ones on each end). The best configuration is to have ABSOLUTELY identical length cables, bring them all to a common bus bar for each terminal (I.e. have 4 equal length cables going from each of the negative posts to the negative bus bar terminal, and 4 equal length cables going from the positive posts to the positive bus bar terminal). In that instance, each of the batteries will be outputting the same amount (and discharging down to the same amount) and the failure of any single cell or battery will just result in the drop of that cell/batteries contribution rather than the full loss of all of the cells/battery. The guys at Climate Control did a test on this with 5 batteries that is worth reading. www.coastalclimatecontrol.com/index.php/blog/272-current-affairs-making-the-right-connections.html I notice that in your blog that you had some crimping failures... you really should have fuses on each of the batteries as you aren't protecting the load but the wires... I know you have one big one AFTER the battery switch but as you discovered, that left all of the wires up to that point unprotected. BlueSea makes some decent fuses that are easy to put in place and can act as your positive/negative bus bar while you are at it. Throw Sophie's hair dryer and some other load on and then put a DC Clamp on ammeter on each of the wires coming from your current battery bank... I suspect you'll be a bit surprised as to how much difference there is between your batteries (and of course since V=IR, you also have drastically different voltages as well...
Unfortunately the link to the article didn't work for me, so I haven't read it. I struggle to understand why this might be the case (reduced equality of charging/discharging) as with Ryan's method you guarantee the total cable length is identical even if the individual batteries vary in terms of negative and positive cable length. Any tiny variation in charge/discharge would actually be down to variations in each cells internal resistance. Both wiring methods will suffer from that but the advantage with Ryan's method is that the link cables between cells are so short the electrons have no distance to go to sort that out. I believe Ryan said his batteries had built in BMS so if you trust those to work as they should maybe fuses to individual batteries aren't needed. The one advantage I see with your method is that you can easily fuse each cable at the battery end. With Ryan's method the temptation could be to use fused links between cells instead of the bus cables, but that would introduce a single point of failure. Better to fix fuses to each battery post then link the fuses together with the bus cables imho.
@@mikebarry229 Not sure why the link doesn't work for you, I just tried it and it works fine, but the net of it is that unless the cables put the batteries exactly the same length from the common bus point (where they join the load), the ones closest will contribute considerably more amperage, shortening their life and when they fail first, they will take out the entire load. Whether or not they have a BMS is immaterial. To give you a sense, if you take a 5 battery system and wire them in series, the lithium battery closest will contribute 46 Amps while the battery farthest will contibute only 12 Amps. If you wire them still in series but take the feed from the centre, the middle battery contributes 27 A, while the end ones only contribute 18A. Doing it with equal length cables back to a common feed, means all batteries are contributing between 20-25A (still slight differences between the resistances of the cells that could be addressed by balancing the bank before connecting them).
@@steveburton5825 hi Steve link now works for me too. Ok, so obviously schemes 1 and 3 are just daft, and the test results are exactly as I would have predicted. Ryan if I remember correctly used scheme 2, and I understood that you were recommending scheme 4 as you said s2 would result in some batteries only getting utilised to about 80%. That is what I couldn't understand, I just couldn't see any reason for such a difference as in each configuration the cable lengths would be exactly the same for whichever cell you chose. Looking at the test results the variation in current draw between cells for Ryan's configuration (scheme 2) with lithium batteries was between 20 and 26 amps, and for scheme 4 was between 20 and 25 amps. They are virtually the same. If we accept that scheme 4 should show no variation at all the differences must be down to cell internal resistance which affects scheme 2 just the same. That means the maximum that can be attributed to the wiring in scheme 2 is just one amp out of 25 or 4%, but that is dwarfed by the differences due to differences in internal resistance. Cell balance In terms of charge in each cell shouldn't be an issue as in all 4 schemes the cells are linked in parallel and will naturally equalise when not under load. To sum up I would say based on the tests carried out s2 and s4 are equally valid choices. S4 has some advantages in terms of ease of fusing and battery removal without having to disconnect the entire bank, but disadvantages in terms of extra cable length (cost, complexity, cable losses and connection losses). I would also point out that for scheme 2 in order to carry out the test short links were wired between each terminal and the main cables so clamp meters could be used and this alone could account for the tiny differences noted between s2 and s4. If you can imagine a revised version of s4 where you didn't worry too much about the individual cable lengths to the positive and negative terminals of each cell so long as the total length of both was exactly the same for every cell, that wouldn't change S4 at all. S2 is just a functionally equivalent version of S4. In both circuits the electrons have to travel through exactly the same amount of cable to provide the power required, regardless from which cell they originally came. That is not true for S1 and S3 and accounts for the variation in cell usage for those configurations.
@@mikebarry229 He did indeed use Scheme 2 but there is still a 30% difference between the ends and the middle in that scheme. The guys at BlueSea and Climate control would argue with you that they are equivalent (and they aren't in my testing with 12 batteries (in a 2x6 configuration for 24V system). Doesn't really matter anyway as it doesn't appear that Ryan is listening to either of us! :-). I guess if I had Sophie on the boat looking at me with those adoring eyes, I wouldn't be paying much attention to esoteric discussions on LiFePO4 either!
Hello Ryan. My feance and i just got our first sailboat ever Ready to sail.shes a1984 35' Allmand sloop rig.we have bought 5 /190ah power queen lop bms batteries,3/195w ecoworthy solar panels,a renology rover ( think it's 60a) Our motor is a d722e3 marinized kubota,Motorola alternator ( not sure what size) We have a blue sea system heart interface link 2000 We are a 12v system with house bank going to be lithium Engine and starter going to be regular 12v. I bought a renology bt mod And I have a 2000/3000wattt inverter. We want to keep house bank and the engine bank seperate.. Can you help me with any tips?
Excellent video Ryan, informative and well presented, However l think you could have had Sophie poke her face in once in a while. Fair winds and safe travels.
Hey what best potects the 100ah 12volt lithium battery from rain and salt water if a bettery box is too big? This battery is IP65 rating and will be right by the transom of my montgomery 10 and will be directly connected to a 55lbs thrust aquos hewsing transom black trolling motor. Great video. Looking forward to your feedback.
Hi Ryan, very interesting video. I do have a question in reference to the 12V/12V charger to charge the lithium battery service pack from the engine AGM battery. I have Mastervolt on my boat and I know the Mastervolt Magic that is made to achieve this charging job. Problem is that Mastervolt Magic only exist in max 20 amps witch is a bit low compare to +/- 80 amps that the engine alternator can give. Can you tell me what alternative to Mastervolt I have for those 12V/12V chargers? Thanks for your help, Regards STEFAN
Figure how much it's going to take then add 50% to it? Best rule of time estimating I've seen is double and increment units. So if your best guess is three hours, figure six days. If two days, figure four weeks. (And if you don't have water when the power is out, you need a manual pump. Redundancy in all critical systems.)
Price of Lithium cells continue to fall. See www.statista.com/statistics/883118/global-lithium-ion-battery-pack-costs/ ... but, in order to be useful for mass market, they still need to cost about 1/1000th of 2010 cost. They were 151/1000 of 2010 cost, in 2019, but lithium cells still have a long way to go before they are going to be utilized widely. BTW: many resellers of lithium cells try to get 2010 prices. Why is that? How can that be? Must be shortages.
Wouldn’t running at 48v system allow for a lower current hence the basic 12v systems on a boat won’t be as power hungry for maybe adding a buck converter for those and having the inverter running on the higher voltage lower current what are the risks involved in this ?
There seems to be a raging debate amongst the self proclaimed experts online and the battery manufcturers that LIFEPO4 can be used to start big high compression diesels and also used for big bow thrusters. Most companies i know and respected installers say that Lead Acid is the only battery to use for diesel starting and big thrusters, and if there was an emergency that all your lead acids were dead you could use the lithium to start the diesel but they advise against it unless its the only option. So that being said you are part owner of a company and have a dedicated lead acid which is no surprise because they perform that function better than any other battery, but why is it that the Lithium should not be used for this? The high amp inrush will shut down the BMS or does it actually harm the cells and if so how? I know some of the big names say that they will not warranty Lithium used for starting/thrusters. I see a lot of youtube installs that completly remove lead acid and im wondering how long they use their lithium only systems with no issues and how the batteries perform long term from being used against what the manufacturers suggest. any info would be helpful. thank you.
Ryan - not sure you are aware; I am seeing alot of negative comments online (Amazon, et all) about lack of customer support at Dakota Lithium. Also saw the start of a tear down on the battery, where the short circuit test failed...
Ryan, I don't know if this is an issue or not - outside US - but Mark Grasser doesn't have an internet presence so have no idea how easy and what support for their products outside US? Also, did you consider and/or discount Integrel generator solution? If so be interested to know your thoughts.....
Hi my boat is located near the city of Trieste in Italy I would like to install lithium batteries and change the system Perhaps you know someone in this area who could be recommended for this work Regards
It's almost the same design I made, the only issue I haven't resolved yet (and you neither I see) is how to maintain under charge the starter battery when the engine is off and you are at the hook for several days under solar and wind power or moored at the marina connected with the shore plug.
If the charger is set to charge on a Lithium profile. Will this be bad for the SLA. Or do we now need 2 battery chargers when connected too shore power?
A great video, thank you. One related question was I noticed you do not use vane steering gear but rely on auto pilot, which can be power hungry. With fridges and electronics as well, you must use a fair bit of power on long trips. How long do you have to run the engine for each day to keep everything topped up? I guess the solar panels alone are not enough? Thanks
Hello, I recently took a course on electrics on a yacht and the teacher there claims that fuses should be in the positive network and not in the negative What do you think about this?
if my house batteries are also the batteries for my bow thruster on my sailboat, will this be an issue changing my house batteries from lead acid to Lithium?
I have one question ... how does the shunt communicate with the inverter / charger? You never showed any connection between the two on the schematic. Are they both Bluetooth devices?
Thanks Ferfetched! I'm a t-shirt and jeans guy. I wish i was more creative and i could just make my own and sell them... but i'm not. I have many more but some colors show up better on camera than others so many you never get to see! - Ryan
So in this LiFePO4/lead setup, is all your loads (220v, 110v, 12v) running off the inverter/charger? Or just the 220v/110v? If not, does the 12v loads jump off the busbars?
I'm looking to also install LiFePO4 and I really enjoyed your video. My design is going to be almost identical to yours, but I'd change one or two things. First is I'm planning on keeping the start battery separate from the house bank side but I'm still going to run the DC to DC charger like you're doing. The difference I'm thinking of doing is adding a toggle switch to the signal wire back to the ignition so I can shut off the charger if needed or if I don't need that extra power going to the house bank. The Alternator will still be connected to the lead acid starting battery so it's still connected. The other thing is your battery crimping should be more of a compression of the lug onto the wire in stead of a one sided crushing force. Better crimping tools will be marked with the lugs so that you get a nice even press and compression of the wire. Thank you for the very informative videos!
Great both videos!! One question: Can you have 2 or more batteries groups separated but in parallel? example: 4 batteries in one box and more 4 batteries in other box (2 meters distance) connected with the first box.
Yes you can but check that your Lithiums can accept being connected in series or parallel as some won't. The only other thing is when connecting a bank ensure that all the cables are the same length to keep the resistance the same to each battery and to each bank. The banks can be apart some distance. Best to use one of these to protect your batteries. sterling-power.com/products/alternator-open-circuit-protection-device?_pos=1&_sid=272ee4f3e&_ss=r André
Hey Ryan. I am actually getting Dakota batteries (talked with Elise). Is this video still good to follow or did things changed since were in 2023? Also what did you mean 11:19 about the way terminals are connected?
He's talking about having the positive and negative connection on the opposite sides of the battery bank. If you number them left to right 1-4, he has the negative on battery 1 and the positive on battery 4, instead of having both positive and negative on 1 or 4. Lately people are recommending having all the battery terminals go to a busbar with equal length wires and then connecting to the busbar. This will use each battery equally and keep them balanced. He also neglected to mention fuses and with Lithium batteries, a class T is recommended for the primary protection of the battery bank. Some people are putting an MRBF on each positive terminal before going to the busbar.
We’ve got 600W coming on the arch we’re installing, on top of the 400W we already have on the deck. At this rate, I can soon start a hairdresser salon on the boat 😂
A great video Ryan, well done. I had to chuckle about those Victron charge profiles though because I use altered ones depending on context - aiming at 90%SOC in port but always 100% heading into night during passage - you never really know what the weather brings tomorrow and I hate burning fuel to charge batteries. You touched on a couple of things that I did differently; not me correct making you incorrect, just different. My alternator charges only my LFP house bank, partly because charging LA beyond 80% is ridiculously slow. I switched to a Balmar alternator/external regulator to charge much that hose bank faster (fuel is precious during passage). You touched on alternators but I took that step. My LA starter battery is maintained solely, by DC-DC charger from my house bank, Sure, that means if my house bank suddenly vanishes then I die - but I'm over that. But it means that a single dead battery can easily just sit out without affecting the others. I'm also happier because this batteries can weld metal if you drop something on them. About connecting in my 4x100Ah LFPs, I went the Victron approach using a "Power In" to provide battery busbars, with a fuse for each battery, on top of the same sort of distribution bus bar arrangement. I didn't let my LFPs just sit "quietly" at first because their internal BMSs communicate with each other to give battery to battery levelling. And it works! I interrogated the BMS array that day, a week late, a month later again etc and the internal pack voltages are always nearly identical. The only thing I'm reticent about is that by windlass draws from my house bank as it did before but I'm on passage mode, at Panama on my way to Australia from Europe so that can wait until after I arrive and switch to fun sailing. An observation about my Victrom 100/30 MPPTs and I have one for each 305W solar panel. The fact is that they are just insane, never performing in concert under the same conditions - and it's anybody's guess as to which one misbehaves. Just crazy.
Wow nice video clip! It has motivated us to start considering changing over our AGM batteries to Lithium. We are worried our charging system may be too complex on our Nordhavn40 so we would have to hire someone. Learned a lot about the importance of the charger, alternator charging. Thanks a lot. Wanna come fly to Kitimat BC and help us? Lol. Jen
Lots of great information here. Thanks for that. I do have a question after looking at the Dakota website. Are your battery cases standard BCI sizes like Group 31, D8, U1, etc? I didn't see mechanical drawings or size specs listed.
A peek into the past is also a peek into the future. Germany lost 1/2 of it's PKW4 tanks to batteries in parallel. It was a good thing. In the morning, the tanks could not start and dead batteries could not turn the turrets. Yachts and semi trucks are often supplied with isolation switches. They allow batteries to momentarily tackle huge discharges such as starting, then be isolated for separate charging and storage. If i am going to buy two big 12 volt batteries, I'd instead buy two 6 volt batteries to use in series. They don't squabble in series. One gentleman on youtube yanked his electrical project, and posted a new article when he learned the right way he should be encouraging. When things go wrong, disconnect every single battery, and charge them individually. Don't leave anything in parallel. Fair seas, Maties.
I've been looking at a boat recently and planning on upgrading the electronics (radar, solar etc) and new batteries is one of them. Currently it has 3 Lead Acid House batteries, 1 starter battery and 2 fridge batteries. I was thinking of upgrading the House batteries to Lithium as there isn't a huge amount of space for lots of solar as I would need a frame and the transom is quite narrow.
hi Ryan, i have pretty much the same setup as you described in the drawing. i have my starter and housebank batteries connected to the alternator through a diode bridge. in order not to fry my alternator after installing a lifepo4 battery, i was wondering if it is a good option to connect a DC-DC charger between the Alternator and the LIFEPO4 battery instead of placing it between the starter and the house battery bank?
This is a very useful video, just one question. How do you trickle charge the engine starter battery? The DC-DC converter will only charge from starter to house, not the other way.
Ryan, exceptional video details. Any chance you can do a more recent transparent update on Dakota lithium sailboat batteries considering many changes and other conflicting reviews of manufacturing quality and technology changes from competitors. Specifically, do you still stand by your brand and does it still live up to your standards or has the company grown and become compromised in the process. All the best, great content. Thank you
On this video "You dis well grasshopper? S/V Bright Eyes Retired electrical Engineer, Oh Ya you did not say anything about battery C Factor or the amount of MAX current you can draw at any given moment
Hi Ryan ー this is very informative. I'm just looking into this conversion. My question is how does on-off switch fit into the wiring diagram? Or A-B-Both switch? Thanks!
I am still not convenced that battery to battery conection VS external battery connection which is better, for external connection - longer wire (more voltage dro and costp) S/V Bright Eyes On Subs the connection is battery termall to Terma, sorry never could spell, Ha Ha
Well, this video is a bit old, but since it was published, Ryan passed his ABYC certification, became a marine electrician and started consulting to help sailors design their system. So if you'd like, drop us an email! :)
Ryan I just purchased my first sail boat. im in the process of updating the battery and also going electric motor 48v. my question for you is if i install a 48v battery bank for the motor and house how would i convert 48volt to 12volt? thanks for you great videos it help alot
That was fantastic Ryan. I'm about to put in 800ah of house Lipo and I am quite nervous about it as I have the same complications of a bow thruster battery and engine battery...oh and a battery for two electric winches...also a bit concerned about the alternator and generator alternator...Im about to get a qualified electrician to install it all, but still worried (I think rightly so) as to whether he really can get his head around everything...wish me lick!...Thank you so much.
Great vid! One thing came to mind tough. I was thinking that lithium battery bank should only be charged via battery to battery charger. In this setup inverter / charger loads only lithiums. That ok because engine starter battery is assumed to be full, because it is utilized on moments, and it is loaded then first. And finally to the question. Before you did this lithium upgrade, alternator charged Both battery banks. How did you disconnedted the original setup of Both banks? I am planning also Similan upgrade for Jeanneau boat. Just thinking last considerations..
When I was a boy I made an electric hot dog maker. It was just a bunch of railroad spikes in pairs nailed through a board. About six pairs. I ran house current to the first pair and then from nail Tek nail to the back now. As you’re saying in your video I ran the wires the hot in the cold to the first pair. I found that if I Try to make six hotdogs, one hotdog across each pair of nails, the first pair of nails cook the hotdogs very quickly the second pair let’s quickly the third pair even less quickly and the last pair didn’t cook at all. I bet you could’ve put both hands across the nails on the last pair without getting much of a shock. This was about 1955. Why boat manufactures didn’t know this is beyond me. I’m sure they did. The issue was that the boat buyers didn’t know!
Hi John, It was answered on a later episode, Ryan slap me if I am wrong or out of my place. He got 4 solar clusters, think of four quadrants, two on starboard with flex and rigid panel and two on port with flex and rigid panel. So total of four, split that way so panels can be efficient in case one section is shaded. Lau
Nice overview you provide Ryan. What I do not understand is the function of the B2B charger. The Li batteries are able to be charged at a much higher rate than SLA's. When all the charging is done via the SLA, will that battery not act as a hurdle for the Li and hence slow down the charging to a lower level than would be possible for the Li. I assume that quicker charging of the Li is better than slower, to minimize engine hours or maximize available output from the solar panels. Might there also be a temperature issue for the SLA battery? Would you care to explain when you have time and opportunity?
Wow...that was a serious project. I might be a little apprehensive as some fires start with the electrical system being overloaded or improperly installed. You made it seem very easy and straight forward. Nice job.
The True Smart Battery Isolators Kit is a perfect dual battery system partner. It will automatically charge your lithium batteries based on voltage reading. See more details at www.trueam.com or www.dfna.info for single item.
Hi Ryan and thanks for the video. I'm looking into converting to Lithium. In your setup, you're not charging the starter battery with solar, only with the alternator. What is the reason for that?
This is great! One question - I assume you did the battery-battery charger because you've got effectively a "low-output/dumb" alternator, and this was the easiest "plug & play" option...? As I understand it though, one big benefit of lithium when off the grid is the fast-charging ability you could get from a high-output/regulated alternator. For example on ISBJORN, which has just under 1,000 aH Lead-Acid AGMs, we can blast out 220 amps from the alternator, but only when they're dead. As soon as voltage comes up, amps go down, so the charging time extends the fuller they get. But with lithium, I can go full-blast right til their full, right?! So like on ISBJORN, that battery-battery charger would be less than ideal, especially since I've already got the smart regulator that has a pre-programmed lithium profile. Am I understanding this correctly?
If I understand you ( and the video) correctly, I think the lead-battery only really come into play when there is a sudden shut-off from the bms. Then it buffers the return current. Otherwise the current just passes it and it will not slow charging down.
Yes, you're absolutely right. The internal resistance in a LiFePo4 bank is not as high as Lead-Acid/AGM, so it can take much higher charge in general. If the DC-DC charger is powerful enough, it won't matter much if you charge using that or directly from the alternator. But most DC-DC chargers I found are rather expensive for a high Amp spec, so in your case, the alternator on ISBJORN would most likely work just fine instead (if it's setup for LiFePo4 that is).
@@joarsvensson4968 uppenbarligen får jag åka till Tjörn och få konsultation inför kommande konvertering :)
Hi Andy, Its a good question and interesting for your particular situation. If i remember correct you have some type of advanced regulator with the alternator? If this is the case you might be able to change a few small setting and it would work just fine. Would need to take a look. Ryan
Yes, BUT - it's more than capacity to absorb amps. Max voltage is a big issue, most dumb regulators may allow the voltage to exceed the cut out in the BMS wired into the top of each battery, and if that battery is the only thing connected to the alternator, when it cuts out you blow the diodes on the alternator and are now left sending the alternator for rebuild as well as shipping the batteries back to the factory to have the BMS replaced. Expensive, and slow, and you're dead in the water.
Other big issue, and one rarely talked about, is float charging. Lead acids/spiral/gel/AGM will tolerate floating at a higher voltage. LiFePO4 do not. One of the big characteristics of the charge profile for lithium is that after reaching max charge, the battery must be allowed to run down to between 30-50% of charge before reinitiating charging/float. Most dumb alternators will happily keep floating at 13.7, rapidly killing the lithiums.
"Big current back into the alternator". Yes, you definitely are not an electrical engineer.
I am missing an important safety feature in this video. There should be a fuse installed as close as possible to the batteries, to prevent fire in case of a short circuit in one of the wires connecting the battery. It is enough to have a fuse only on the positive terminal.
Do you have one installed and if so where? I find it dangerous to tell people to do a battery installation without mentioning the importance of the fuses.
Hello matthias. Yes this is a good point. We did not include it in the drawing but it is on the positive side just after the battery switch. This is where benteau placed it and we did not move it.
You should know/tell viewer that carbon fiber, unlike glass, is a good electrical conductor. So if you've got it around electrical components (like your battery box), treat it appropriately like steel or aluminum.
Like your videos! ;)
Ryan..after watching this I have no doubt your business venture will do well...on a side note..DUDE..you flew F-16s!..as a pilot myself i suppose if i wasnt flying Falcons sailing a sweet blue water boat with a smart hot French gal would work...lol..thanks for the tech videos..well done
Are you missing fusing so you don't burn your boat down 😮
I've seen lot of lithium battery instalation video on boat by other sailing channels. This was easily the most detailed and well made of the lot.
Best lithium conversion video I've seen! Thank you both for putting this together.
Nice job, Ryan! Thanks for sharing. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍😊⛵⛵⛵⛵⛵⛵⛵⛵⛵
Ryan getting better in front of the camera ;=)
Good job, Ryan clearly explained.
Your hair is fine. But ,for all that work, I hope she had to use that hair dryer! Lol!. Love the bike shirt!
Awesome video!! One question please..... why 4 MPPT's 👍🏼
Don't forget to have all positive wires from each Lithium battery the same length, and each Lithium positive wires should have it's own fuse. On the negative side all Lithium negative wires should have the same length from batteries to negative busbar.
Complete bull.....
Ryan, you should look at the following, on how to best tie batteries together, specifically 4 in parallel. I think you have used “version 2” in this video, but you should be using version 3 or 4. www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html
Easy-peasy. Thanks, Ryan.
Need fuse protection at both ends of each battery. Too much risk of fire here.
Are you saying both on the positive and negative?
WOW!!
Now speaking as an electro-phobic I have to say that looked easy enough for me to give a try and that is saying something.
Well done for making something difficult look easy.
Ryan,
You want to watch this video: ruclips.net/video/Yf9N9zBgyB8/видео.html you can get 4 to 10 times more cycles out of your batteries if you cut off loads from running the batteries down below 20%. Lithiums hate being discharged too much too often. Also you might want to charge up to only 80% State of Charge. Lithiums hate being charged all the way. It generates heat and the more power you pump in the less goes to charging. If you two as daily users have the available amp hours, probably daily usage around 200 amp hours, you can probably charge between 20% SOC and 80% SOC no problem. This will really increase the longevity of the lithium cells. Most boats with one refrigerator, lights and computers at anchor use around 125ah a day to 175ah a day. Also if you shunt is programmable you want to definitely shut down the loads at 10%SOC and shut down the charging over 100% SOC. The bad thing is according to your diagram(if I was paying close enough attention) the shunt with programmable safety factors will shut off the load and the charging, You may want to find a way to separate charging and loads by a separate shunt. So if you are using too much electricity, the system will automatically recover via solar for instance. This might help: www.victronenergy.com/battery_protect/battery-protect Aren't those 170AH batteries so you have 680 amp hours????? You could maybe cycle around 35 SOC and 65 SOC and really get some efficiency out of the batteries as the solar would be soooo much more efficient at putting in power. Your alternator could drive the batteries to near 100% occasionally especially if you needed it, and the batteries might like to be reminded about their maximum capacity occasionally.
Superb video. Thank you for your efforts!
Looks good. It’s my idea to make the changeover myself at year end before I go full time cruising next year. I have done a lot of the background changes like you. Victron 120/3000/12 inverter charger and Victron 100/50 Mpt controller. Just the batteries to buy and deal with the alternators. I hope to do this soon and the batteries last.
All in all a nice informative video guys
Hi Ryan. According to your Wiring Diagram your starter battery is directly connected to the alternator. The electricity generated in the alternator flows through your starter battery, which is an SLA, and continues through a Battery-to-Battery charger to your positive and negative terminals and continues to charge your Domestic Lithiums. The chargers you programmed for charging the Lithiums. So far so good. In your first video you show how to increase your alternator output with a Wakespeed regulator, which I assume you have to program for the type of battery as well. My question is how you program the Wakefield to charge the Domestic bank, which is Lithium but the generated current has to pass through the SLA-starter Battery?....or did I miss a point here?
I have the same question, did you get the answer?
@@kathrynlockwood1180 ---no, i did not---
Thanks for your clear advice. A few things I noted;
Very important the battery parallel connections be of equal length between batteries to ensure the same resistance from each battery. It was not an issue for you as all your batteries were next to each other and you cut your own cables but some may be tempted to use an existing cable of different length they already have.
Another thing to point out is that when disconnecting batteries always disconnect negative first and when reconnecting batteries connect negative last. André
The way you wired your batteries up in parallel is going to greatly shorten the life of your batteries and provide a single point of failure (lack of redundancy) on the failure of any single battery or cell. Because LiFePO4 batteries can push such high currents, even a very small amount of resistance in the setup makes a big change in voltage (V=IR) with a big current. The middle batteries in your bank will provide considerably less current than the ones on the end. You are right that the original configuration (taking the positive and negative off the chain, will be the worst configuration possible (the one on the far end will provide less than HALF the amperage of the one closest to the load), but your configuration isn't much better (the ones in the middle will be about 75-80% of the load of the ones on each end).
The best configuration is to have ABSOLUTELY identical length cables, bring them all to a common bus bar for each terminal (I.e. have 4 equal length cables going from each of the negative posts to the negative bus bar terminal, and 4 equal length cables going from the positive posts to the positive bus bar terminal). In that instance, each of the batteries will be outputting the same amount (and discharging down to the same amount) and the failure of any single cell or battery will just result in the drop of that cell/batteries contribution rather than the full loss of all of the cells/battery.
The guys at Climate Control did a test on this with 5 batteries that is worth reading. www.coastalclimatecontrol.com/index.php/blog/272-current-affairs-making-the-right-connections.html
I notice that in your blog that you had some crimping failures... you really should have fuses on each of the batteries as you aren't protecting the load but the wires... I know you have one big one AFTER the battery switch but as you discovered, that left all of the wires up to that point unprotected. BlueSea makes some decent fuses that are easy to put in place and can act as your positive/negative bus bar while you are at it.
Throw Sophie's hair dryer and some other load on and then put a DC Clamp on ammeter on each of the wires coming from your current battery bank... I suspect you'll be a bit surprised as to how much difference there is between your batteries (and of course since V=IR, you also have drastically different voltages as well...
Unfortunately the link to the article didn't work for me, so I haven't read it. I struggle to understand why this might be the case (reduced equality of charging/discharging) as with Ryan's method you guarantee the total cable length is identical even if the individual batteries vary in terms of negative and positive cable length. Any tiny variation in charge/discharge would actually be down to variations in each cells internal resistance. Both wiring methods will suffer from that but the advantage with Ryan's method is that the link cables between cells are so short the electrons have no distance to go to sort that out. I believe Ryan said his batteries had built in BMS so if you trust those to work as they should maybe fuses to individual batteries aren't needed. The one advantage I see with your method is that you can easily fuse each cable at the battery end. With Ryan's method the temptation could be to use fused links between cells instead of the bus cables, but that would introduce a single point of failure. Better to fix fuses to each battery post then link the fuses together with the bus cables imho.
@@mikebarry229 Not sure why the link doesn't work for you, I just tried it and it works fine, but the net of it is that unless the cables put the batteries exactly the same length from the common bus point (where they join the load), the ones closest will contribute considerably more amperage, shortening their life and when they fail first, they will take out the entire load. Whether or not they have a BMS is immaterial. To give you a sense, if you take a 5 battery system and wire them in series, the lithium battery closest will contribute 46 Amps while the battery farthest will contibute only 12 Amps. If you wire them still in series but take the feed from the centre, the middle battery contributes 27 A, while the end ones only contribute 18A. Doing it with equal length cables back to a common feed, means all batteries are contributing between 20-25A (still slight differences between the resistances of the cells that could be addressed by balancing the bank before connecting them).
@@steveburton5825 hi Steve link now works for me too. Ok, so obviously schemes 1 and 3 are just daft, and the test results are exactly as I would have predicted. Ryan if I remember correctly used scheme 2, and I understood that you were recommending scheme 4 as you said s2 would result in some batteries only getting utilised to about 80%. That is what I couldn't understand, I just couldn't see any reason for such a difference as in each configuration the cable lengths would be exactly the same for whichever cell you chose. Looking at the test results the variation in current draw between cells for Ryan's configuration (scheme 2) with lithium batteries was between 20 and 26 amps, and for scheme 4 was between 20 and 25 amps. They are virtually the same. If we accept that scheme 4 should show no variation at all the differences must be down to cell internal resistance which affects scheme 2 just the same. That means the maximum that can be attributed to the wiring in scheme 2 is just one amp out of 25 or 4%, but that is dwarfed by the differences due to differences in internal resistance. Cell balance In terms of charge in each cell shouldn't be an issue as in all 4 schemes the cells are linked in parallel and will naturally equalise when not under load. To sum up I would say based on the tests carried out s2 and s4 are equally valid choices. S4 has some advantages in terms of ease of fusing and battery removal without having to disconnect the entire bank, but disadvantages in terms of extra cable length (cost, complexity, cable losses and connection losses). I would also point out that for scheme 2 in order to carry out the test short links were wired between each terminal and the main cables so clamp meters could be used and this alone could account for the tiny differences noted between s2 and s4. If you can imagine a revised version of s4 where you didn't worry too much about the individual cable lengths to the positive and negative terminals of each cell so long as the total length of both was exactly the same for every cell, that wouldn't change S4 at all. S2 is just a functionally equivalent version of S4. In both circuits the electrons have to travel through exactly the same amount of cable to provide the power required, regardless from which cell they originally came. That is not true for S1 and S3 and accounts for the variation in cell usage for those configurations.
@@mikebarry229 He did indeed use Scheme 2 but there is still a 30% difference between the ends and the middle in that scheme. The guys at BlueSea and Climate control would argue with you that they are equivalent (and they aren't in my testing with 12 batteries (in a 2x6 configuration for 24V system). Doesn't really matter anyway as it doesn't appear that Ryan is listening to either of us! :-). I guess if I had Sophie on the boat looking at me with those adoring eyes, I wouldn't be paying much attention to esoteric discussions on LiFePO4 either!
Ryan. Mistakes happen. Nicely done, Ryan. Nicely done !!
Hello Ryan. My feance and i just got our first sailboat ever
Ready to sail.shes a1984 35' Allmand sloop rig.we have bought 5 /190ah power queen lop bms batteries,3/195w ecoworthy solar panels,a renology rover ( think it's 60a)
Our motor is a d722e3 marinized kubota,Motorola alternator ( not sure what size)
We have a blue sea system heart interface link 2000
We are a 12v system with house bank going to be lithium
Engine and starter going to be regular 12v.
I bought a renology bt mod
And I have a
2000/3000wattt inverter.
We want to keep house bank and the engine bank seperate..
Can you help me with any tips?
Excellent video Ryan, informative and well presented, However l think you could have had Sophie poke her face in once in a while. Fair winds and safe travels.
Hey what best potects the 100ah 12volt lithium battery from rain and salt water if a bettery box is too big? This battery is IP65 rating and will be right by the transom of my montgomery 10 and will be directly connected to a 55lbs thrust aquos hewsing transom black trolling motor. Great video. Looking forward to your feedback.
Hi Ryan, very interesting video. I do have a question in reference to the 12V/12V charger to charge the lithium battery service pack from the engine AGM battery. I have Mastervolt on my boat and I know the Mastervolt Magic that is made to achieve this charging job. Problem is that Mastervolt Magic only exist in max 20 amps witch is a bit low compare to +/- 80 amps that the engine alternator can give. Can you tell me what alternative to Mastervolt I have for those 12V/12V chargers? Thanks for your help, Regards STEFAN
That hydraulic crimper sounds like you are torturing a rat! I'm glad to know that no rodents were harmed in the making of this video!
Hahaha 😂 I laughed!
Wow! Great video! Do you really run your hot water heater off 4x170ah lithium batteries? That is an amazing game changer!
Shouldn't the MPPTS negatives have gone into the input side of the negative shunt?
Figure how much it's going to take then add 50% to it?
Best rule of time estimating I've seen is double and increment units. So if your best guess is three hours, figure six days. If two days, figure four weeks.
(And if you don't have water when the power is out, you need a manual pump. Redundancy in all critical systems.)
Price of Lithium cells continue to fall. See www.statista.com/statistics/883118/global-lithium-ion-battery-pack-costs/ ... but, in order to be useful for mass market, they still need to cost about 1/1000th of 2010 cost. They were 151/1000 of 2010 cost, in 2019, but lithium cells still have a long way to go before they are going to be utilized widely. BTW: many resellers of lithium cells try to get 2010 prices. Why is that? How can that be? Must be shortages.
Wouldn’t running at 48v system allow for a lower current hence the basic 12v systems on a boat won’t be as power hungry for maybe adding a buck converter for those and having the inverter running on the higher voltage lower current what are the risks involved in this ?
Hello ! Veery good explication. Please wish power DC/DC do you choose from victron for how many AH of batterie ? Thanks
There seems to be a raging debate amongst the self proclaimed experts online and the battery manufcturers that LIFEPO4 can be used to start big high compression diesels and also used for big bow thrusters. Most companies i know and respected installers say that Lead Acid is the only battery to use for diesel starting and big thrusters, and if there was an emergency that all your lead acids were dead you could use the lithium to start the diesel but they advise against it unless its the only option. So that being said you are part owner of a company and have a dedicated lead acid which is no surprise because they perform that function better than any other battery, but why is it that the Lithium should not be used for this? The high amp inrush will shut down the BMS or does it actually harm the cells and if so how? I know some of the big names say that they will not warranty Lithium used for starting/thrusters. I see a lot of youtube installs that completly remove lead acid and im wondering how long they use their lithium only systems with no issues and how the batteries perform long term from being used against what the manufacturers suggest. any info would be helpful. thank you.
Ryan - not sure you are aware; I am seeing alot of negative comments online (Amazon, et all) about lack of customer support at Dakota Lithium. Also saw the start of a tear down on the battery, where the short circuit test failed...
Ryan, I don't know if this is an issue or not - outside US - but Mark Grasser doesn't have an internet presence so have no idea how easy and what support for their products outside US? Also, did you consider and/or discount Integrel generator solution? If so be interested to know your thoughts.....
Great video. Which Battery to battery DC charger do you recommend.
Thanks!
Thanks Ryan! Very informative.
Hi my boat is located near the city of Trieste in Italy I would like to install lithium batteries and change the system Perhaps you know someone in this area who could be recommended for this work Regards
Do I need special lithium batteries for a boat? Or will just any lifePO4 work?
You are talking about a “battery to battery charger” do you have a specific example of one of these? Can’t find that product
It's almost the same design I made, the only issue I haven't resolved yet (and you neither I see) is how to maintain under charge the starter battery when the engine is off and you are at the hook for several days under solar and wind power or moored at the marina connected with the shore plug.
If the charger is set to charge on a Lithium profile. Will this be bad for the SLA. Or do we now need 2 battery chargers when connected too shore power?
A great video, thank you. One related question was I noticed you do not use vane steering gear but rely on auto pilot, which can be power hungry. With fridges and electronics as well, you must use a fair bit of power on long trips. How long do you have to run the engine for each day to keep everything topped up? I guess the solar panels alone are not enough? Thanks
Hello, I recently took a course on electrics on a yacht and the teacher there claims that fuses should be in the positive network and not in the negative
What do you think about this?
if my house batteries are also the batteries for my bow thruster on my sailboat, will this be an issue changing my house batteries from lead acid to Lithium?
I have one question ... how does the shunt communicate with the inverter / charger? You never showed any connection between the two on the schematic. Are they both Bluetooth devices?
Super explanation! Its not easy if you have no knowledge of these batteries! Thanks!!!
This was such a brilliant, approachable video. Genuinely, thank you.
Thank you for the video answered so many questions
I am a marine electrician and i must say youre pretty impressive. Are you all self taught?
Do you have a video on setting up solar with lithium batteries?
Where would your bow thruster hook up and play into this system?
A very well put together video, which I'm sure will be clear enough for most boat owners to follow.
Fantastic video!
ohhhh that crimper is cring!! i had a squeeky crimper too last year.
You’re not using tinned wires?
Ryan has the best T-shirts......... this may not be the first time I have pointed this out. Another day, another great T-shirt.......
Thanks Ferfetched! I'm a t-shirt and jeans guy. I wish i was more creative and i could just make my own and sell them... but i'm not. I have many more but some colors show up better on camera than others so many you never get to see! - Ryan
So in this LiFePO4/lead setup, is all your loads (220v, 110v, 12v) running off the inverter/charger? Or just the 220v/110v?
If not, does the 12v loads jump off the busbars?
Yes the busbar would directly feed your 12V fuse block.
It’s a really useful video, especially the diagram. You could have saved downtime by making the new cables before disconnecting anything.
I'm looking to also install LiFePO4 and I really enjoyed your video. My design is going to be almost identical to yours, but I'd change one or two things. First is I'm planning on keeping the start battery separate from the house bank side but I'm still going to run the DC to DC charger like you're doing. The difference I'm thinking of doing is adding a toggle switch to the signal wire back to the ignition so I can shut off the charger if needed or if I don't need that extra power going to the house bank. The Alternator will still be connected to the lead acid starting battery so it's still connected. The other thing is your battery crimping should be more of a compression of the lug onto the wire in stead of a one sided crushing force. Better crimping tools will be marked with the lugs so that you get a nice even press and compression of the wire. Thank you for the very informative videos!
Thanks for the note David! I agree about the Crimping... just need to find the correct tool for it. - Ryan
we also move our boat to 660Ah lithium batts. and it was cost for us 270 $.
Wow so much informations and its completly free. I love it thanks Ryan :)
we just ask that you like and subscribe :)
Great both videos!! One question: Can you have 2 or more batteries groups separated but in parallel? example: 4 batteries in one box and more 4 batteries in other box (2 meters distance) connected with the first box.
Yes you can but check that your Lithiums can accept being connected in series or parallel as some won't. The only other thing is when connecting a bank ensure that all the cables are the same length to keep the resistance the same to each battery and to each bank. The banks can be apart some distance. Best to use one of these to protect your batteries.
sterling-power.com/products/alternator-open-circuit-protection-device?_pos=1&_sid=272ee4f3e&_ss=r
André
@@SoundzAlive1 Great Ryan! See you on the Ocean!
Is it me or do Ryan look happy every time he say lithium ???
That wouldn’t surprise me (Ryan gets stars in his eyes every time he enters a marine or a hardware store 😆)
I LOOOVE batteries and tools man..
Hey Ryan. I am actually getting Dakota batteries (talked with Elise). Is this video still good to follow or did things changed since were in 2023?
Also what did you mean 11:19 about the way terminals are connected?
He's talking about having the positive and negative connection on the opposite sides of the battery bank. If you number them left to right 1-4, he has the negative on battery 1 and the positive on battery 4, instead of having both positive and negative on 1 or 4. Lately people are recommending having all the battery terminals go to a busbar with equal length wires and then connecting to the busbar. This will use each battery equally and keep them balanced. He also neglected to mention fuses and with Lithium batteries, a class T is recommended for the primary protection of the battery bank. Some people are putting an MRBF on each positive terminal before going to the busbar.
Damn i love my life whit hybrid inverter 😉
great work Ryan,nicely done...how's that hair dryer working out Soph???
It’s blowing full steam 😂
@@RyanSophieSailing HAHAHA nice, need more solar then Ryan
We’ve got 600W coming on the arch we’re installing, on top of the 400W we already have on the deck. At this rate, I can soon start a hairdresser salon on the boat 😂
@@RyanSophieSailing well you'll need all that just for the hair dryer and hot water heater for the shower lolol
Vous êtes les meilleurs Ryan et Sophie, Joseph.
Good Good gooooode video 👍
A great video Ryan, well done. I had to chuckle about those Victron charge profiles though because I use altered ones depending on context - aiming at 90%SOC in port but always 100% heading into night during passage - you never really know what the weather brings tomorrow and I hate burning fuel to charge batteries.
You touched on a couple of things that I did differently; not me correct making you incorrect, just different.
My alternator charges only my LFP house bank, partly because charging LA beyond 80% is ridiculously slow. I switched to a Balmar alternator/external regulator to charge much that hose bank faster (fuel is precious during passage). You touched on alternators but I took that step. My LA starter battery is maintained solely, by DC-DC charger from my house bank, Sure, that means if my house bank suddenly vanishes then I die - but I'm over that. But it means that a single dead battery can easily just sit out without affecting the others. I'm also happier because this batteries can weld metal if you drop something on them.
About connecting in my 4x100Ah LFPs, I went the Victron approach using a "Power In" to provide battery busbars, with a fuse for each battery, on top of the same sort of distribution bus bar arrangement. I didn't let my LFPs just sit "quietly" at first because their internal BMSs communicate with each other to give battery to battery levelling. And it works! I interrogated the BMS array that day, a week late, a month later again etc and the internal pack voltages are always nearly identical.
The only thing I'm reticent about is that by windlass draws from my house bank as it did before but I'm on passage mode, at Panama on my way to Australia from Europe so that can wait until after I arrive and switch to fun sailing.
An observation about my Victrom 100/30 MPPTs and I have one for each 305W solar panel. The fact is that they are just insane, never performing in concert under the same conditions - and it's anybody's guess as to which one misbehaves. Just crazy.
Wow nice video clip! It has motivated us to start considering changing over our AGM batteries to Lithium. We are worried our charging system may be too complex on our Nordhavn40 so we would have to hire someone. Learned a lot about the importance of the charger, alternator charging. Thanks a lot. Wanna come fly to Kitimat BC and help us? Lol. Jen
Lots of great information here. Thanks for that. I do have a question after looking at the Dakota website. Are your battery cases standard BCI sizes like Group 31, D8, U1, etc? I didn't see mechanical drawings or size specs listed.
A peek into the past is also a peek into the future. Germany lost 1/2 of it's PKW4 tanks to batteries in parallel. It was a good thing. In the morning, the tanks could not start and dead batteries could not turn the turrets. Yachts and semi trucks are often supplied with isolation switches. They allow batteries to momentarily tackle huge discharges such as starting, then be isolated for separate charging and storage. If i am going to buy two big 12 volt batteries, I'd instead buy two 6 volt batteries to use in series. They don't squabble in series. One gentleman on youtube yanked his electrical project, and posted a new article when he learned the right way he should be encouraging. When things go wrong, disconnect every single battery, and charge them individually. Don't leave anything in parallel. Fair seas, Maties.
I've been looking at a boat recently and planning on upgrading the electronics (radar, solar etc) and new batteries is one of them. Currently it has 3 Lead Acid House batteries, 1 starter battery and 2 fridge batteries. I was thinking of upgrading the House batteries to Lithium as there isn't a huge amount of space for lots of solar as I would need a frame and the transom is quite narrow.
hi Ryan, i have pretty much the same setup as you described in the drawing.
i have my starter and housebank batteries connected to the alternator through a diode bridge. in order not to fry my alternator after installing a lifepo4 battery, i was wondering if it is a good option to connect a DC-DC charger between the Alternator and the LIFEPO4 battery instead of placing it between the starter and the house battery bank?
This is a very useful video, just one question. How do you trickle charge the engine starter battery? The DC-DC converter will only charge from starter to house, not the other way.
Ryan, exceptional video details. Any chance you can do a more recent transparent update on Dakota lithium sailboat batteries considering many changes and other conflicting reviews of manufacturing quality and technology changes from competitors. Specifically, do you still stand by your brand and does it still live up to your standards or has the company grown and become compromised in the process. All the best, great content. Thank you
My girlfriend makes me stay in a bnb and I'm done. No, seriously..find somewhere to lie down, and go to sleep....
Ryan, being in the industry have you seen insurance companies resistance to changing to LI and how do we make sure it isn’t a problem?
On this video "You dis well grasshopper? S/V Bright Eyes Retired electrical Engineer, Oh Ya you did not say anything about battery C Factor or the amount of MAX current you can draw at any given moment
Totally useless video.
Hi Ryan ー this is very informative. I'm just looking into this conversion. My question is how does on-off switch fit into the wiring diagram? Or A-B-Both switch? Thanks!
I am still not convenced that battery to battery conection VS external battery connection which is better, for external connection - longer wire (more voltage dro and costp) S/V Bright Eyes On Subs the connection is battery termall to Terma, sorry never could spell, Ha Ha
How can I get a consultant on my particular boat to ensure I get it right?
Well, this video is a bit old, but since it was published, Ryan passed his ABYC certification, became a marine electrician and started consulting to help sailors design their system. So if you'd like, drop us an email! :)
Ryan
I just purchased my first sail boat. im in the process of updating the battery and also going electric motor 48v.
my question for you is if i install a 48v battery bank for the motor and house how would i convert 48volt to 12volt?
thanks for you great videos it help alot
That was fantastic Ryan. I'm about to put in 800ah of house Lipo and I am quite nervous about it as I have the same complications of a bow thruster battery and engine battery...oh and a battery for two electric winches...also a bit concerned about the alternator and generator alternator...Im about to get a qualified electrician to install it all, but still worried (I think rightly so) as to whether he really can get his head around everything...wish me lick!...Thank you so much.
so many years later and yep we bought dakota lithium 200 ah for our install,. is coming up thanks for the video
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Great vid! One thing came to mind tough. I was thinking that lithium battery bank should only be charged via battery to battery charger. In this setup inverter / charger loads only lithiums. That ok because engine starter battery is assumed to be full, because it is utilized on moments, and it is loaded then first. And finally to the question. Before you did this lithium upgrade, alternator charged Both battery banks. How did you disconnedted the original setup of Both banks? I am planning also Similan upgrade for Jeanneau boat. Just thinking last considerations..
When I was a boy I made an electric hot dog maker. It was just a bunch of railroad spikes in pairs nailed through a board. About six pairs. I ran house current to the first pair and then from nail Tek nail to the back now. As you’re saying in your video I ran the wires the hot in the cold to the first pair. I found that if I Try to make six hotdogs, one hotdog across each pair of nails, the first pair of nails cook the hotdogs very quickly the second pair let’s quickly the third pair even less quickly and the last pair didn’t cook at all. I bet you could’ve put both hands across the nails on the last pair without getting much of a shock. This was about 1955. Why boat manufactures didn’t know this is beyond me. I’m sure they did. The issue was that the boat buyers didn’t know!
Well my system has 16 T105 Batteries, 1680 Ah, LOL, close to 1K lbs..... S/V Bright Eyes
why drawing show 4 mppts? how many panels you have?
Hi John,
It was answered on a later episode, Ryan slap me if I am wrong or out of my place.
He got 4 solar clusters, think of four quadrants, two on starboard with flex and rigid panel and two on port with flex and rigid panel.
So total of four, split that way so panels can be efficient in case one section is shaded.
Lau
Nice overview you provide Ryan. What I do not understand is the function of the B2B charger. The Li batteries are able to be charged at a much higher rate than SLA's. When all the charging is done via the SLA, will that battery not act as a hurdle for the Li and hence slow down the charging to a lower level than would be possible for the Li. I assume that quicker charging of the Li is better than slower, to minimize engine hours or maximize available output from the solar panels. Might there also be a temperature issue for the SLA battery? Would you care to explain when you have time and opportunity?
Wow...that was a serious project. I might be a little apprehensive as some fires start with the electrical system being overloaded or improperly installed. You made it seem very easy and straight forward. Nice job.
So when I bought my Dakota batteries I was told to fuse each one...? Any thoughts?
The True Smart Battery Isolators Kit is a perfect dual battery system partner. It will automatically charge your lithium batteries based on voltage reading. See more details at www.trueam.com or www.dfna.info for single item.
Hi Ryan and thanks for the video. I'm looking into converting to Lithium. In your setup, you're not charging the starter battery with solar, only with the alternator. What is the reason for that?