I got this wonderful birthday message from Cruisers & Sailing Forums today and thought I’d share it…
Hello richwest3,
Happy Birthday from your friends at Cruisers Forum; we wish you all the best in the year to come. May your boat be leak free. May your sails be in good repair. May the winds be fair, the weather kind and May your days be filled with the exquisite pleasure of new adventures, fabulous destinations and excellent friendship.
Happy Birthday!
What a nice wish. Today’s my third 21st birthday. I think I’ll have three drinks this afternoon to celebrate.
If you don’t know about cruisersforum, check it out. It has a high ratio of knowledgeable and kind people to curmudgeons. There’s a link above.
-Rich
Update: We had my birthday dinner at Orbit 360 in the Auckland Sky Tower. It was wonderful: the food, the view and mostly my date! Here are some pics…
Check mark number 3: Lithium Iron Phosphate Batteries installed!
New Galley Counter
Install an Air Conditioner
Repair Dry Rot in Head Bulkhead
Install Lithium Batteries
Replace Transmission Damper Plate
We can leave it at that, unless you’re technically minded (or a glutton for punishment). If you are, read on.
We had four Trojan T105 lead-acid batteries for a 450 amp-hour battery bank. We installed air conditioning to get ready for the heat of Indonesia and with that install, we had two goals for batteries: offset the weight of the air conditioner addition and get enough power to run the aircon for at least an hour a day. To achieve these goals, we decided to make the move to lithium batteries.
Our “old” Trojan T105s. Only 18 months old but we wanted more usable capacity and less weight.
Here’s the weight savings we’ve realized…
We’re 58 Kg (or 128 lbs) lighter with the lithium batteries. The air conditioner weighs about 18 Kg (40 lbs.) including the water circulating pump, so net, we’re 40 Kg (88 lbs.) lighter. Bring on the ice cream!!!
Power Calculation:
With our 450 Ah or lead-acid batteries, we could charge them daily to 90% and use them down to 50%. To charge lead-acid batteries to 100% takes a long time – usually not practical. To preserve battery life – you don’t really want to discharge below that level. These numbers make our usable capacity 180 Ah.
Lithium batteries can be charged to 100% as they take almost full charge current right up until they get full. They can be discharged almost completely, but let’s call 10% safe. That’s 90% usable capacity of our new 400 Ah battery bank capacity for 360 Ah total usable power.
With the new batteries, we doubled our available battery power!
What Batteries?
We bought battery cells and BMS units (Battery Management Systems) from AliExpress (I was going to assemble them myself) and waited almost two months before they told us they couldn’t ship them to us in New Zealand. I scrambled around and found someone here in Auckland that imports similar batteries already assembled and in a stainless steel case for not much more money. Here’s what they look like:
Batteries I bought from MicroMall in Auckland. These were about $1,000 NZD each and we installed two of them.
Are they good quality? I opened up the case and inspected the batteries. The workmanship looks excellent. All lithium batteries of this type are made up of individual 3.4 volt cells. All these cells are made in China at one of just a few factories. Basically, the battery cells are pretty much all the same. If you aren’t assembling your own battery from cells, the difference is the workmanship. I’m very happy with what I see in these batteries. Time will tell the whole story.
Are they safe? Lithium batteries are made from several different chemistries. The ones that get the bad rap are not lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) like our new batteries. These might be safer than lead-acid batteries. Here’s a video that shows just how safe they are. Keep in mind that they are destroying several types of lithium batteries. Ours are LiFePO4 (or LFP).
And speaking of destroying, here’s what our boat’s looked like for the past week…
Another mess on Legacy! That’s our bed that’s folded up. It’s amazing that I’m still married!
And here are a few pictures of the completed installation:
The battery box under our bed with the two new LiFePO4 batteries installed.These blue boxes are Victron DC-DC converters. We use these to charge our lithium house battery bank from our engine alternator via the start battery. (More in the system diagram down the page.)And the $$$s just keep rolling. A new battery monitor was necessary to keep track of the battery charge level. We installed a Victron BMV-712.Optima Spiral Wound AGM Start Battery. I’m glad it’s maintenance free as it’s tucked in a corner of the battery box.
Here’s our system diagram.
Note: This is the first version of the system. See update below with current, better version.
An issue with lithium battery installations on a boat is that the battery can be unexpectedly disconnected from the system by its internal BMS (Battery Management System). If this happens while the alternator is putting out a lot of power, it can destroy the alternator or worse yet, a voltage spike can destroy all the electronics on the boat.
To prevent this, there are several complicated schemes, none of which interested me. I instead chose to install a separate start batter (we’ve never had one before) and charge that small battery with the engine alternator. While that’s charging, two 30 amp, Victron Orion-TR DC-DC converters charge the lithium house bank. We use two of these to get 60 amps of charge current.
This also limits the power coming from the alternator. Because lithium batteries can take about all the power you can throw at them, the alternator can be damaged from overloading and overheating. This DC-DC scheme solves that issue as well.
The start battery we chose is an Optima spiral-wound AGM battery. It’s only 44Ah, but according to Optima, there is no limit on charge current (as long at the battery stays below 125C).
OK, that’s all I’ve got and the culmination of two years of research. We’ll see if it all works. Cross your fingers! -Rich
Update: May 21, 2021
We’re out for a little shakedown cruise and the batteries are incredible, with one exception: the DC to DC converters are getting too hot (the cases get to 150° F, 65C). I knew this was an issue before we left and ordered fans for them, but instead, during a brief stop at a marina, I made a change in the system.
I rewired the system so that the alternator is now charging the lithium house bank. I am using one Victron Orion TR DC to DC converter to change the starting battery form the house bank.
The reason I didn’t do it this way from the start was to protect the alternator and boat electronic systems from a voltage spike caused if the battery management systems took the lithium batteries off line. Now, to protect the system, I installed a Sterling Alternator Protection Device (APD) across the alternator. Also, I hope is that the load of the DC to DC converter would also help protect the system in the case of a battery disconnect.
I replaced a faulty Balmar alternator temperature sensor and have the alternator regulator set to limit the alternator to 100 C. I also set the belt manager to #1 to de-rate the alternator output a bit.
As it sits now, I’m getting about 60 amps from our 90 amp alternator. It gets hot enough to throttle back about every fifteen minutes with the output droping to around 20 amps for two minutes.
The DC to DC converter, now charging the start battery, stays cool as it doesn’t have much work to do to keep the starting battery charged.
Here’s our revised system drawing…
During our May NZ cruise, I got a good chance to see the new system working and I’m thrilled. The only issue we had was that the battery monitor wasn’t tracking the SOC (state of charge) well. I could tell this because when we were motoring (and charging), the battery voltage would reach 14 volts (the point I’d set for maximum), the charging current would drop to close to zero and the monitor would read about 85% SOC.
I was lowering the charge efficiency factor 2% at a time to try to correct this. I got down to 89% and it was getting closer but it was not perfect. Changing the Peukert’s exponent from the recommended 1.05 to 1.00 fixed this and I was able to bring the charge efficiency factor back to 95%. Now the tracking is very close to perfect.
Update: April 12, 2022
It’s been just over a year with our lithium batteries, and though Covid has prevented offshore cruising, we have used them quite a bit. At the berth, we seldom plug in the AC, relying on batteries and solar instead.
An article from Marine How To was sent on the Pacific Puddle Jump email list. It was a great read with lots of food for thought and I’ll link it here. I’m not in 100% agreement with him, but he makes a lot of great points. It’s prompted me to plan a 1-year-checkup on my batteries.
The one thing I don’t mesh with is the requirement for the battery BMS to send a signal before disconnecting the battery from the system. Yes, that would be great. No, it’s not going to happen with current state of what’s available on the market.
ABYC says: If a shutdown condition is approaching, a BMS should notify the operator with a visual and/or audible alarm prior to disconnecting the battery from the DC system.
Only a couple of very expensive batteries have such a signal wire that can be used to stop alternator charging (field control) or sound an alarm. It seems that this requirement has been interpreted to allow for a Bluetooth display of BMS status on a phone. I argue that in real life, no one will ever see such a display in time to stop the alternator.
It did make me wonder about the condition of my lithium batteries and if the cells were staying balanced. When I installed my batteries, I bought two BMS units with Bluetooth, but when I couldn’t get the bare cells shipped form China, I went with batteries that had an integrated BMS with no communications. I thought I’d open my batteries and check the cell balance level manually. If they were out of balance, I’d install the Bluetooth BMS units instead of their built-in BMS. It would be nice to be able to check cell balance periodically without disassembling the battery cases, but if it ain’t broke, I ain’t goin’ to fix it.
There’s nothing to fix there. Only 1 mV difference and only in one cell. The reason the port battery voltages were lower is that I took out and tested the starboard battery first while the port battery continued to discharge.
Another maybe minor issue is that on the little cruise we’re on now, I found that the battery monitor was very much overestimating the battery state of charge. When the monitor got to 100%, the batteries were still at about 13.5 volts and taking 50 amps. Definitely not at 100%.
I had the Victron BMV-712 monitor charge efficiency set to 95% as per recommendations I found online. But when I look at the statistics on the battery monitor history, I find this… Discharged energy 220.6 KWh, Charged energy 256.4 KWh. Doing the division says that only 86% of what’s gone into the batteries has come out. That’s 86% efficiency. Lithium should be more efficient than that, but that’s what I’ll set it to now and see how it works out.
It’s possible that the cause of this lower than expected efficiency is that the cell balancing on the BMS seems to be resistive. It’s usually done with FETs that dissipate a lot less power as heat. Here’s a picture of the BMS…
Issue 3… There was quite a bit of rust on the stainless steel battery cases. The picture below shows the crevice corrosion after cleaning it up with Barkeepers Friend.
After cleaning, I treated it with a corrosion inhibitor spray. I hope that’s enough.
Update: January 25, 2024 (almost 3 years after install)
The difference between cells was only 0.002 volts. This was with the batteries at about 25% SOC and it had been about three weeks since they’d been up to 100% SOC. The difference between port and starboard batteries was because I test one battery while the other is in use, then swap them to test the other battery.
I was considering some changes to the settings on the Balmar regulator. I decided to leave well enough alone. Here’s more about that.
Just a note about the system to date:
The Balmar high output alternator failed in New Caledonia. I had it repaired in New Cal and it wasn’t that big a deal to get it fixed. I decided to get rid of the unreliable and troublesome Balmar alternator while we were in Australia. We installed a Bosch alternator and it’s great. There’s more about that here.
The 10 amp battery charger in the diagram failed and I replaced that with a 15 amp Victron charger. Some people say that these small chargers aren’t big enough for our 400 amp-hour battery bank, but I’m not trying to fully recharge the bank overnight. When we have access to shore power, it’s often for days or weeks while we’re at a dock. The 10 amps was plenty (with our solar as well). The 15 amps has been more than enough.
Here in Indonesia we’re having a very hard time finding propane or lpg. We bought an electric kettle for coffee making to save gas and now, a little drip coffee maker (more here). We also treated ourselves to a toaster. Wow, the luxury. The electrical system is handling the larger demands just fine and we’re now getting about 6 months from a 7kg cooking gas tank (which we have to fill by gravity transfer from a local gas cylinder).
And another of the five major Auckland projects is done: Air conditioner installed!
New Galley Counter
Install an Air Conditioner
Repair Dry Rot in Head Bulkhead
Install Lithium Batteries
Replace Transmission Damper Plate
We plan to head to Indonesia when Covid permits and we’re worried about the heat, in that we don’t handle it well. We’re thinking that if we can get cool (or at least cooler) for an hour a day, it might make it manageable for us. This MarinAire 6K BTU unit will draw about 45 amps when run from our inverter and we think we can handle that load for an hour or so a day, or more on intensely sunny days or when we make a long run under power.
The reason item #4 is on our to-do list is to supply this unit with power. We also installed a new Dometic 1600 watt, 230 volt inverter to run the aircon from batteries. If we’re at a marina, since the unit is 230 volts, we can just plug in and run it all day.
Fitting everything in was a challenge. The project required several shoehorns!
Here’s the unit installed in its new home under the galley counter.We printed the vents on our 3D printer. We can aim one vent at me and one at Cyndi when we’re lying in bed.Remind me to speak to HR about the working conditions on this boat!
Update: July 23, 2021
Covid-19 has postponed our cruise to Indonesia (the reason for the air con install) but we have found a use for the air conditioner that we hadn’t anticipated – it’s our new heater! As a heater, it’s great (when we’re plugged into shore power which is most of the time these days). It keeps the boat at a wonderfully constant temperature and is actually quieter than our little space heater (which we gave away).
We’re also using it in dehumidify mode when we’re away from the boat to dry things out and that is really helping with mold and mildew. The reason we only use it that way when we’re away for a few hours is that it makes the boat really cold. When we get home, we switch it to heat mode and in five or ten minutes, the boat is cozy again.
There are five major boat projects we want to get done while we’re here in Auckland:
New Galley Counter
Install an Air Conditioner
Repair Dry Rot in Head Bulkhead
Install Lithium Batteries
Replace Transmission Damper Plate
As you can see, the first one is crossed out. That’s right, it’s done!!!
Okay, so maybe the sparkles are a bit over the top, but that’s how we see it. We’re so pleased
In order to install air conditioning, we needed to remove the galley counter. Since the laminate was worn through in places and the wood underneath was rotting, this was a great chance to replace it… and replace the corroded faucet, and the leaking drinking water faucet, and the questionable sink drains… The list felt endless but it wasn’t. It’s done.
Here are some pics of the process:
The Obligatory Before Photo.The faucet still worked but it didn’t look very good.Our cockpit doesn’t make a very good workshop but it’s all we have.The lumber yard on our side deck makes us the hillbilly boat in the marina.A disturbing test fitting of the new, sealed plywood. “Disturbing” in that we thought we might like this natural wood better than the laminate we chose (and ordered, and paid for, and shipped).
Our first couple of days having a car in Tauranga were spent shopping, doing errands, and revisiting a couple of our favorite spots. One exciting new thing we came across was the Gourmet Night Market, a weekly Friday evening event that takes place during the summer.
We headed over around 5:30pm, trying to get ahead of the crowd, and were rather overwhelmed by the choices. Finally we settled on steak sandwiches with horseradish sauce, followed by Coromandel mussels served in a creamy wine sauce (these may have been the best mussels we’ve ever had). After that there were Chinese dumplings before finishing the evening with Dutch ice cream. Meanwhile live music played, and by the time we left, there was a pretty big crowd.
What a fun event this was, but as we headed off, leaving the festivities behind us, we both started feeling a little off.
One of the things that comes with this lifestyle is repeatedly experiencing the feeling of being an endless visitor. There are flip sides to this coin. The upside is that there’s so much novelty, which makes this life frequently interesting and gives it a spark. The downside is that we often feel like outsiders, ghostly observers hovering about the edges of a picture instead of being inside it. This feeling passes with enough time in a given place, but initially it can be accompanied by a mild depression.
We both started to feel this after the food truck event. Maybe it was being in such a festive atmosphere and knowing no one. Then arriving back at the marina to see the tight-knit Friday happy hour crowd partying. We missed our friends and the community we’d been a part of in Auckland, and it would take some time to feel a part of this one again.
Still, feeling like outsiders was only a part of this. A larger part was what we call post-project depression. We’ve noticed this happens when one or both of us achieves a big goal. There’s so much mental and physical energy that builds up to the event that no matter how arduous the process or desired the accomplishment, life can feel like a deflating balloon once it’s done. In this case the goals achieved had included cruising the Hauraki Gulf, moving to Tauranga, and retrieving our car.
Rich bounced back pretty quickly, but over the next few mornings I’d open my eyes and find the depression still lingering. Like a cat waiting for me to wake up, it was just there. I was in one of those loops where I had a lot to do but couldn’t seem to get anything done. I was feeling blocked on stuff I was doing for the blog, then the road trip plans were proving overwhelming. I’d tried to organize a first trip only to realize I’d need to figure out all of them in order to make the pieces fit into a cohesive overall plan.
So often the way to break out of a rut is to just take a step, any step, even if it’s not exactly right. I was making yet another stab at figuring out a trip for us which could begin with a stop Rotorua, only 50 minutes away. In an effort to be helpful, Rich found a great hotel deal on Wot If, the travel site we were using at the time. I hadn’t actually planned on spending the night, but it might make things easier. I asked him if we could parlay this into a longer trip. He said sure, but it turned out he was thinking 2 nights in Rotorua while I was thinking of a multi-day road trip to other areas. Once we got that cleared up, Rich said he really wanted to get back quickly and get started on some projects.
It was at this point the realization hit me that we could do most of these trips in a series of two- or three-day stints. It would mean a fair amount of extra driving overall, but taking on that inconvenience would clear up a couple of other challenges, the biggest of which was sticker shock.
Inexpensive yet nice hotels in New Zealand can be hard to find. At this point in our travels, we were finding great deals on a site called Wot If, which showed a month’s worth of prices all at once. It’s amazing how much the price would drop if one was willing to just pick a week earlier or later, or even just a day earlier or later. By limiting our destinations, I could pick days with reasonable prices and as a bonus, do it during nice weather.
This would end up being our method of travel not just for this season, but for all of our travel since then. (Note: We no longer use Wot If, which changed. Instead we start with Google, then use sites like Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, etc., to find the deal that works best for us.)
So, we booked a night in Rotorua. It didn’t seem like much compared to the list of places I hoped to visit, but by making a list of more things I hoped to do there (I say “more” because we did stuff there the previous year), I felt uplifted, hopeful, and happy. Small steps can mean a lot.
Meanwhile, one afternoon during the period when we were both feeling down, I thought a trip to the beach might help. We went and found the surf was up. We walked along the beach and watched the surfers, and by the time we were done both of us felt uplifted. Sometimes a great way to feel better is to get out in nature for awhile. –Cyndi
(Click to enlarge any of the photos in the gallery below.)
