Sorry if I missed something, what has that to do with the quality of the shore charger?What if...
You developed a leak of some sort that required constant bilge pump... for several days maybe... while you were away from the boat?
Sorry if I missed something, what has that to do with the quality of the shore charger?What if...
You developed a leak of some sort that required constant bilge pump... for several days maybe... while you were away from the boat?
What if...
You developed a leak of some sort that required constant bilge pump... for several days maybe... while you were away from the boat?
-Chris
Sorry if I missed something, what has that to do with the quality of the shore charger?
Call my Insurance Company!
Et cetera...
Sure, all good points.
As you know, though sometimes Xhit happens.
Anyway, I was only suggesting consideration, just in case... not making a recommendation.
Oh... and twice, I've seen decently maintained boats on our dock "sprang a leak" -- both times in the dripless shaft seals -- that was working on sinking the boat in each case. Had the owners not been there at the time, the boats would have sunk in the slip. OTOH, in those cases, the pumps weren't keeping up anyway...
-Chris
I like to keep our boat's bilge completely dry and clean! I bet you are the same way!!
I have known this was coming, but the time is now. My almost 7 year old house bank with 3 Chinese made sealed LA 8D batteries is dying. I need to replace it and am trying to come up with options. I am hoping that you all can help me walk through the decision process.
I have a MagnaSine 2812 inverter charger and a 6KW genset. No solar at this time. The other batteries in the boat are an 8D AGM start battery of undetermined age, 2 original 8D sealed LA batteries for the thrusters, windlass, and crane, and a group 27 AGM genset start battery that is a year old.
The batteries are in the aft lazarette underneath the cockpit. They are not easily accessible with very little overhead clearance. In this same space are the thruster batteries, DC electrical panel, and a diesel hydronic furnace. I can changed the form factor of the batteries if needed.
I would prefer to not go with the 8D size again. They are simply hard to manage. However, I certainly can if that is going to be the best option. Watering batteries in this location will be tough. However, I could opt for a watering system if I went with wet LA batteries. I would prefer to spend as little money as possible (I am a sailor after all) but at the same time am looking at long term cost per kWh.
Here are the options as I see them. I am also open to others I haven't thought of.
Wet GC2 batteries - I can buy these at Costco for under $80 each with each pair giving me 210 AH. I could fit 8 to 10 where those three 8D batteries are now by changing the battery boxes. A watering system would keep them watered. It would take a bunch of cables but I figure for under 1 boat unit I could install everything. This would give me 800-1000AH of capacity, 1/2 of which would be usable so 400-500AH.
8D AGM - Other than the 160lbs each, this would be the simplest and easiest to do as three would drop in to replace what I have. More expensive at ~$1,800 for three of them. 700-750AH with about 350-375AH usable.
Firefly Oasis: I would prefer to be looking at this in a couple years instead of now. I'd like to have other folks get more experience with them. $500 each for 116AH. Can be discharged down to 20% SOC apparently, but doing that dramatically reduces the number of life cycles. They claim a 50% depth of discharge will give 3600 cycles, 80% will give 1000. That is still about 2x the number of cycles a wet cell GC2 would have at 50%.
I'm sure there are other options as well. I'm not interested in LiPo batteries at this point and I know there are other form factors which would be good to look at. AGM GC2?
For the way we currently use the boat most of the time, the Oasys is likely overkill. We primarily weekend the boat with an occasional week or two away from dock power. GC2 wet cells would be fine for us but I have an ignorant question. What risk is there to have the wet cells in the same space as the diesel furnace? What is the realistic risk of an explosion due to gas buildup in the same space as a flame?
OK, I think I have pinned it down. If I can get a firm quote from Metroplex in TX. I will go a similar direction as Angus. I will go with the L16 AGM 6v batteries.
I also was digging around in my lazarette today and was reminded that the two 8Ds for the thruster bank HAD been changed by the PO. Currently there are 2 Lifeline AGM 8Ds there. The same battery as was used to replace the Engine start battery. So at this point I think I will leave well enough alone on the thruster bank.
Anyway, the only question is 4 x L16 or 6 x L16. 4 would give me 780 Ah weighing 484lbs. This is about the same weight as the current house bank and 30-100Ah more capacity than when the boat was new.
I like the idea of going with 6 however as it would bump my capacity to 1,170 Ah, plenty to drive my wife's CPAP all night and keep me from discharging the batteries very deeply. My only concern is that I would be adding about 250 more pounds in the process. To keep that in perspective it would be about the same as if my son-in-law was sitting in the aft cockpit. Not sure how much I would notice the added weight over time.
I could get 1 battery box that would hold 4 batteries nicely. With a bank of 6, I would likely use three dual boxes.
So, 4 or 6 batteries?
Another option! Go for 8 of the L16's. Then when the thruster bank dies, don't replace it. Otherwise you will always be out of sync with battery ages and never be able to merge the two banks. Add a couple of solar panels as well.
I'm happy to spend your money, but in my defence I've been spending my own in the same fashipon
I would recommend against Rolls/Surrette. I bought into the mystique for an off grid house and it was a big, costly mistake. Support was non-existent from factory. I have had two cells fail, and both times it took 3+ months to get replacements. The first was under warranty in the first year of use, and shipping cost as much as the battery would have. The second replacement I bought through a dealer with shipping included in a larger order he had placed. While waiting for the 3 months to get replacements, I had to run the bank at 46v nominal instead of 48v, but fortunately all my gear was sufficiently adjustable to do that.
Never again.
Dave. Better measure the bottoms of the battery boxes. I went to replace mine 3 seasons ago and American made 8 d would not fit to bottom of boxes. Went with 6 Crown wet batts. Water them once a season and they never use a lot of water. Have used the Odyssey PC1800 batts before on another boat and they were great.
Dave. Better measure the bottoms of the battery boxes. I went to replace mine 3 seasons ago and American made 8 d would not fit to bottom of boxes. Went with 6 Crown wet batts. Water them once a season and they never use a lot of water. Have used the Odyssey PC1800 batts before on another boat and they were great.
The connecting wires would ideally all be the same gauge and length, both + and -
If not, I personally think the imbalance issues would be minor.
And completely overcome if you're worried, by rotation say once every six months, as with tires.
And just in case you haven't seen Gibbo's screed SmartGauge Electronics - Interconnecting multiple batteries to form one larger bank
Or, maybe put them together, see about the weight issue, worst case put in a ballast on the other side?
The connecting wires would ideally all be the same gauge and length, both + and -
If not, I personally think the imbalance issues would be minor.
And completely overcome if you're worried, by rotation say once every six months, as with tires.
And just in case you haven't seen Gibbo's screed SmartGauge Electronics - Interconnecting multiple batteries to form one larger bank
Or, maybe put them together, see about the weight issue, worst case put in a ballast on the other side?
The connecting wires would ideally all be the same gauge and length, both + and -
If not, I personally think the imbalance issues would be minor.
And completely overcome if you're worried, by rotation say once every six months, as with tires.
And just in case you haven't seen Gibbo's screed SmartGauge Electronics - Interconnecting multiple batteries to form one larger bank
Don't mean to hijack David's thread, and, hope David can forgive me for placing photos of my batt stuff in here.
Please Note [on hand drawn diagram]: After time to let all the batts settle down... 12.4 Full Charge number difference regarding the two top batts compared to 12.7 on two bottom batts [I don't understand why that difference??]. Also, mentioned on bottom of page - with charger is on the top two batts show charge level of 13.41 while bottom two batts show 13.51 [top batts is where the charger hooks in]. I might add; when starboard engine is running the same multi meter displays 14.7 across the board.
We combined the thruster and windlass with the house bank. The hose bank is 10-t105's with 4 on one side of the engine and 6 on the other. The inverter/charger/major loads are taken from opposite ends of the bank, ie; positive is on battery 1 and negative is on battery 10. The interconnecting cables are 2/0 with 4/0 feeding the inverter/charger and the neutral/positive bus. The thruster and windlass are 4/0 cable also. When we we're anchored out we don't use the thruster and when we use the thruster we aren't out anchoring.
If you rotate the left-side pair 180° and make that +/- interconnect on the far left... and IF your ground cable can still reach the negative terminal of the upper-left-most battery....
You can avoid crossing wires with the +/+ jumpers.
The -/- jumper, if made long enough to be the same length and the +/+ jumper, would have a big curve in it...
The folks here on TF straightened me out on how to wire the batts. Here is what we ended up with. The output cable should be on the far opposite sides of the bank.
Check the new diagram and see if this is what you had in mind. One of the limiting factors is where the cable cutouts are in the box. However, nothing says I can't take a saw to the boxes and lids and make some new ones.
Edit: As I look at it Chris... If I did but another opening in each box near the bottom on the inside edges, I would be able to lay the parallel links in such a way as to avoid the crossing. Once I get the boxes and lay it all out, I'll see how difficult it will be to make some decent cuts in the boxes. So I changed the new diagram to reflect some new openings in the boxes where the yellow marks are.