Lithium Retrofit

[narfi]

It's been warm so I cranked heat up in Odyssey and started my spring project early.

Starting with 4 golf cart batteries and a start battery in each hull. The golf cart batteries are Trojan T105 6v 225ah wired in series parallel for 12v 450ah each hull or a total of 900ah 12v. Only drawing them down to 50% has given me roughly 450ah usable.

I am keeping the start batteries, but replacing the house batteries with 4x of the new Renogy Rego series batteries, 12v 400ah each of lithium for a total of 1600ah 12v. They are Bluetooth, rv-c can bus, and self heating.

Staring with 6x 100 watts of flexible solar panels run parallel through a single MPPT controller. (It's tracking said my best production day last year was in June with 2400watts produced in 24hrs)

I am replacing the solar with 4x 550watt bifacial glass panels and 2x of the same 100watt flexible panels.

5x Victron 50amp MPPT controllers, one for each of the glass panels and 1 for the two flexible panels run in series.

1 new Victron Cerbo Gx with 7inch display. (The display is on a HDMI and USB cables from the Cerbo which is mounted back with the electronics. The display will be mounted at the nav station.

2 new Wakespeed ws500 smart alternator regulators. These receive battery amps, temp, etc... from the batteries over the can bus. They also have a shunt on the alternator cable and a temp sensor on the alternator itself. It is amazing what these things can do, protecting the batteries and alternators is the primary focus for me, but they can do a lot more. I won't use it, but their whitespace programming will sense when the engine needs power for the prop (starting movement, getting on plane, etc... based off custom rpm settings) and will take the power curve and prop curve and only ask the difference from the alternator. This is especially useful for under powered sailboats and RVs.

With all the devices I have going into the victron Cerbo Gx I'm installing a powered (by 12v) USB hub for more inputs. I already have a victron multiplus inverter/charger so it will be connected to the screen as well and the main display will show me battery levels, and house loads as well as solar, generator and alternator outputs.

I am installing some fans in my fridges and freezer to hopefully keep them from frosting up as much and a new thermostat in one of them as well. I have a few wireless temperature sensors that communicate with the Cerbo so I can check the temperatures in them without opening the doors.

All of this going through the Cerbo Gx is then accessable to me online wherever I am, including all the nmea 2k insterment data such as gps location, wind, speed, etc...

With 4x the solar and 4x the usable battery amp hours, I'm hoping we can run everything around the clock without worrying much about management. Fridges and freezers, fans, heaters, inverter, starlink, etc... if it is looking really good then I'll play with induction cooking and see how that goes.

The house and start batteries were under the rear bunks, but 2 of the Renogy Rego batteries won't fit where the 4 forklift batteries did before. My plan was to cut out the start battery box and move it back about 2 feet, tight but should fit though some of the plumbing and wiring from the bathroom pushes up into that bay, so without cutting I can't be positive it will work.

I cut it out, then cut out the house battery box as I need to make it about an inch deeper as well as longer. I discovered that the area behind the steps up to the bed was much bigger than I realized and there was a lot of wasted space there. So my current plan is to drop the start battery down below the house batteries, seal and vent it, then put the house batteries in.

This has a hidden benefit in that it makes winter storage easier. I can remove the lithium and bring them inside and the start battery is close enough I can switch it over for a surge buffer when on shore power. The inverter charger isn't supposed to be subject to 12v loads without a battery installed.

2 of the glass panels will go on the coach roof. And two will go on a stainless tube frame off the back of the coach roof above the rear deck/walkway. It's a little awkward as I need to keep the center open for the dinghy derrick (line from the top of the mast over an extendable beam inside the boom run from the electric winch) so it will be two stainless frames one on each side. The forward edges attached to the top of the coach roof behind the traveler track, the outer corners will have a vertical post beside the transom steps and the inner corner will have a diagonal brace to existing posts holding up the coach roof. They need to be stronger than just the solar and wind as I want to be able to hang hammock chairs off of them as well.

[cape man]

Wow! Well done sir! I may have to come see her. A side trip to Lake Clark wasn't in the cards last summer (we were too early for the bears at Brooks Falls), but it sure is a trip with a magnet pulling on my mind.
As usual, your work is top notch and we'll researched.

[fallguy1000]

Well, I'm going to look up the rego. My system is similar, but smaller and I use the app for the cerbo vs a screen.

My batteries are 2 63 pound gr27 agms and I have room for two more, but have only drawn them down once. A small ac unit would be nice, but that would kill the two.

I've been so busy with the hulls; there has been little time for working on other things. I have a window leak that needs attention more than anything.

Winter here has been mild, too.

Good luck. My solar has been quirky; probably ought to have separate controllers to really make sure they are both producing. My solar panels are 106 pounds for 640 watts, but with the small battery bank; they've never produced more than 2k.

I'm interested in the Wakespeed ws500 and will read with coffee this am. What engines are on your boat if I may? Are they inboard?

[narfi]

Wow! Well done sir! I may have to come see her. A side trip to Lake Clark wasn't in the cards last summer (we were too early for the bears at Brooks Falls), but it sure is a trip with a magnet pulling on my mind.
As usual, your work is top notch and we'll researched.

This is a good place to fly to Brooks from as well as a couple other cool fly out tours. We are a lot closer than Anchorage or Homer so the tours from here usually beat the crowds.

Would love to see you out here! Could put you up in our BnB for a few days free or a heavy discount on Odyssey, unfortunately we are still at the stage where we have to make money with her.

[narfi]

I'm interested in the Wakespeed ws500 and will read with coffee this am. What engines are on your boat if I may? Are they inboard?

The Rego are about 110lbs for 400amp hours.
I primarily chose them because of the self heating. But price played into it as well, I got in on their initial pricing which is about half what they are listed for now. (I paid 1600 each.)

If you don't need heating I think you could find cheaper drop in options that still have Bluetooth and can bus communications.

I have 54hp Yanmar diesels with sail drives. They each have 2 alternators, one internally regulated for the start battery and a 160 amp for the house batteries.

The Wakespeed is amazing. If you have the time and enough coffee they have 2x 4 hour seminars on YouTube I would highly recommend.
The first is titled Wakespeed 101 and the second is Wakespeed 202. 8-9 hours I watched them in consecutive evenings and was impressed.

Since you have the Cerbo, you could use a victron to nmea2k adaptor cable and get some of the info on your plotter. I'm not sure yet as it's not my primary goal, but might be a beneficial side effect of what I'm doing.

One of the things I liked about the Wakespeed siminars is it kind of demistified all the can bus protocols for me. I wouldn't say I'm at amateur level yet, but starting to wrap my head around it. Nmea2k, RV-C, Seatalk, etc are all similar enough they can share some or most of their messaging, you just need adaptor cables or splice in your own, and know which wires are which.

[narfi]

Good luck. My solar has been quirky; probably ought to have separate controllers to really make sure they are both producing. My solar panels are 106 pounds for 640 watts, but with the small battery bank; they've never produced more than 2k.

From all I've read it's best to have separate MPPT controllers for each panel if there is any chance of shading. Less important with the newest and most expensive panels maybe.

The panel voltage should be higher than your battery voltage. 18v might be marginal for a 12v system, but you can get around that by wiring two in series to provide the controller from 36v from the panels.

I don't know enough about AC to know what size bank you would need to last overnight without a generator running. My diesel heaters doent draw much electricity and God runs my ac for free.

[narfi]

The 8guage x 5/16 lugs I needed to finish installing the controllers came in yesterday. Landon started the heat in the boat after school so it was pleasant to work in when I got home. Cut the first cables coming from the controllers to length for attaching to the bus bars. Got out the lugs and my fancy new swedger which has already done a really nice job on the 4/0 lugs.

From the panels to the breaker/switches and switches to the controllers is higher voltage and requires 10 gauge, but once controlled down to 12v requires 8guage. The cable seemed loose in the new lugs, and then the lugs didn't swedge very nicely at all. Got it "ok" and started on my second (of 10, 5positive and 5negative) and it still didn't seem right.

Twisted the cables around a bit till I found markings and they are 10guage routed to the bus bars. I had forgotten and thought everything was 8guage and hooked the controllers up with the wrong cables.

It took me almost 4 hours to remove all the controllers from the back wall of the void "cabinet" where I had installed them at the edge of my reach and rewire them and install them back. The 10 gauge to the breakers are slightly shorter now so had to cut the corner vs as nicely bundled back behind like I had intended, but it doesn't look to bad, and it's back behind where no one will see anyways, just my sensibilities.

Still need to secure the communication cables and cut a lot of zip ties, but almost done back in there. I had installed the 7in screen at the nav desk the night before so that's looking pretty good too.

It's pretty frustrating when you expect to get in a productive night's work and end up slightly behind where you started after 4 hours.

[pee wee]

You must not have taken pictures of the bad parts, because that all looks good.

[narfi]

You must not have taken pictures of the bad parts, because that all looks good.

Hehe no, I was to frustrated with myself for pictures. But really tidy 10guage looks as nice as tidy 8 gauge. Until it gets too hot

I finished getting it all back together last night and powered on the system. Pretty exciting, the Cerbo works well and connected to my house starlink (boat starlink is on hold for the winter) updated and started showing power flow in the screen and phone app and laptop 'remotely'. No solar installed yet on the roof, but the chargers are wired and reporting 0watts like they should, however only 4 of the 5 showed up... 5 showed on local Bluetooth but only 4 wired to the controller even though I had communication cables to all of them.

Unplugged one at a time from the USB hub to figure out which one it was and plugged it into a different port but no luck. Got a different cable and plugged it into the controller but the socket felt weird so snuck back my phone and took a picture of the socket.... One pin was bent over :/

Unscrewed it from the back wall and was able to perform surgery through the speaker hole access I've been working through and got the pin back straight and plugged in, now all 5 report properly.

Next up a lot of tidying and running communication cables for the batteries and alternators controllers and powering on the plotter to see if it sends info to the Cerbo. I need a USB extention for the smart shunt still but was able to make it stretch for testing by routing through the steering and autopilot chains (not a good permeant solution)

[narfi]

Here is what it looks like in the app on my phone and a widget on home screen.