House bank 6 volt vs 2 volt cells

[Capt Hugh Wilde]

Last night someone asked if she was over 80', and she is, she is 90' if you add both hulls together.

[Capt Hugh Wilde]

Inverter, solar controller, main panel, ground buss in port hull, battery switches, gen set, and battery boxes. Digital Duo chargers, and nanopulsers.

[Capt Hugh Wilde]

[Capt Hugh Wilde]

The solar water heater unit came this week as well. It is 2 panels for the water, and a small electric panel and pump to push the water up from the water heater to the panels on top of the flying bridge hardtop.

All of the solar will be on top of the bridge hardtop, and we are starting construction on that soon.

[Capt Hugh Wilde]

Originally Posted by taildragerdrive

This has been a very informative thread.

I have a Lifeline 6 x 2v house system in my boat installed in 2006 by the previous owner. The boat has solar panels that maintain them in a fully charged condition when I'm away. I also have a wind generator and of course engine charging.

Both the previous owner and I have maintained the house bank in good condition. The system seems to perform well even though it is now 7 plus years old.

I am new to sailing and have little experience with these systems.

So I'm wondering how long is this system likely to last?

Is this system likely to fail quickly or simply deteriorate some over time?

I'm about to start longer cruising trips should I be considering replacing the house batteries?

Thanks

This is a great argument in favor of the 2 volt system.

I have battery temp sensors off of the solar charger, the inverter charger, and both alternator regulators. The alternators also have temp sensors from the regulators.

With proper voltage setup on all of the charging sources, and the fact that the batteries are not in the engine room, but in a locker that is in the cockpit, they should stay much cooler.

I would say that as of right now, the 2 V cells have the lead.

Question however, if you did lose a cell,and removed it, how could you adjust the charging so not to wipe out the rest of the bank trying to drive it to full 12 volt charge?

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by Capt Hugh Wilde

This is a great argument in favor of the 2 volt system.

I have battery temp sensors off of the solar charger, the inverter charger, and both alternator regulators. The alternators also have temp sensors from the regulators.

With proper voltage setup on all of the charging sources, and the fact that the batteries are not in the engine room, but in a locker that is in the cockpit, they should stay much cooler.

I would say that as of right now, the 2 V cells have the lead.

Question however, if you did lose a cell,and removed it, how could you adjust the charging so not to wipe out the rest of the bank trying to drive it to full 12 volt charge?

With a cell removed, the charge current will be higher, thus faster charge rate. You need to monitor cell voltage and stop charging when full.

[Capt Hugh Wilde]

I have just found a web site for a company in California selling Lithium Batteries at a very good price.
It is Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturing
Does anybody know anything about them and are they real?
Or is it just a nice website and a scam?

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by Capt Hugh Wilde

I have just found a web site for a company in California selling Lithium Batteries at a very good price.
It is Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturing
Does anybody know anything about them and are they real?
Or is it just a nice website and a scam?

My guess is almost half of CF'ers that are using LiFePO4 Winston cells have bought them from Balqon. I did. Check out their clearance cells like 700 a-hr for $565.

[scoobert]

Originally Posted by Fuss

Give it a puff now and then..

Sounds like a good simple idea, but then you have to store it, maintain it (water) and somehow charge it.

If you started a thread on how to maintain the charge of an extra 2v cell alongside the other 2v cells, it would generate many replies, mostly I think saying not to have a spare.

Imagine the thread... Can I just parallell a spare 2v cell to one of the other 2v cells in my battery bank?... it would generate pages of discussion.

Then typically of boats, because you went to all this trouble, it would then never be needed.

but if you carry 3 spares, you can charge them with a 6 volt charger as their own bank :P

[nes]

Originally Posted by scoobert

but if you carry 3 spares, you can charge them with a 6 volt charger as their own bank :P

It is not that much more to carry 6 spare cells, and charge it off the main charger. Which would get you back to one of the earlier discussions about multiple banks and parallel/series.
Quite a few of the ones that I checked out were configured to charge up to three banks at a time from shore power.

Have you considered the possibility of using 7 of the 2 volt cells in series? by my calculations that would put you at about 14.7 VDC or about 22% higher than the normal voltage, this seems to be less than the high voltage limits on most of the equipment that I have looked at (~16 VDC). It would also reduce the current required to do anything, until the first cell went bad, at which point you would be back to the 12 VDC configuration, after you jumpered it out of the circuit. My experience is in large generation, where the big motors are designed for 6,900 VAC 3 phase, but we ran them at about 7,400 VAC or so, and the motors for the 4,160 system were run on about 4,700 VAC. Now I admit that both of these voltage ranges result in about 5 - 10% higher than design, but the motors ran 24/7 for years, and we ran the plant for at about 30 years that way.

Perhaps someone can show why this is a really bad idea, or at least it will keep the discussion going.

BTW, I am really interested in this discussion on the 2 volt cells for my next boat, not the one I have now, and if the 7 cell system is a good idea, I might incorporate that in it.

[Tx J]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt Hugh Wilde
I have just found a web site for a company in California selling Lithium Batteries at a very good price.
It is Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturing
Does anybody know anything about them and are they real?
Or is it just a nice website and a scam?

Originally Posted by deckofficer

My guess is almost half of CF'ers that are using LiFePO4 Winston cells have bought them from Balqon. I did. Check out their clearance cells like 700 a-hr for $565.

Looked over the Balqon website, one of the worst websites I've ever come across.
Products portrayed with no links or further explication, pdf docs with corrupted downloads (never got one, mult tries), lots of BS technojargon with little actual detail, weird overall layout and internal linkages, page download misfires (to be fair, might just be server traffic overloads).

I looked all over for info/description on the mysterious 'battery management system/BMS' which some of the battery pages mentioned as being advisable to have, and implied was supplied by Balqon: nada. Yes, other mfg's products can charge and maintain Li-x batteries, but Balqon mentions their own unit, so where is it?

Totally cr@p corporate projection, would be real hard to trust them with simple CC info; no sale here, sorry.

[FlyingCloud1937]

While it sounds like a reasonable approach, it's not. What would happen is you wold have to increase the charge voltage to 17.2 bulk charge, else the bank would become sulphated from under charging at only 14.8 volt.

A 12 volt nominal battery needs to charge at 14.8v/6 cells= 2.466 volts per cell. Now that we have 7 cells we need to charge at 17.2 to keep the bank from sulphating.

Lloyd

Originally Posted by nes

It is not that much more to carry 6 spare cells, and charge it off the main charger. Which would get you back to one of the earlier discussions about multiple banks and parallel/series.
Quite a few of the ones that I checked out were configured to charge up to three banks at a time from shore power.

Have you considered the possibility of using 7 of the 2 volt cells in series? by my calculations that would put you at about 14.7 VDC or about 22% higher than the normal voltage, this seems to be less than the high voltage limits on most of the equipment that I have looked at (~16 VDC). It would also reduce the current required to do anything, until the first cell went bad, at which point you would be back to the 12 VDC configuration, after you jumpered it out of the circuit. My experience is in large generation, where the big motors are designed for 6,900 VAC 3 phase, but we ran them at about 7,400 VAC or so, and the motors for the 4,160 system were run on about 4,700 VAC. Now I admit that both of these voltage ranges result in about 5 - 10% higher than design, but the motors ran 24/7 for years, and we ran the plant for at about 30 years that way.

Perhaps someone can show why this is a really bad idea, or at least it will keep the discussion going.

BTW, I am really interested in this discussion on the 2 volt cells for my next boat, not the one I have now, and if the 7 cell system is a good idea, I might incorporate that in it.

[deckofficer]

Originally Posted by Tx J

Quote:
Originally Posted by Capt Hugh Wilde
I have just found a web site for a company in California selling Lithium Batteries at a very good price.
It is Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturing
Does anybody know anything about them and are they real?
Or is it just a nice website and a scam?




Looked over the Balqon website, one of the worst websites I've ever come across.
Products portrayed with no links or further explication, pdf docs with corrupted downloads (never got one, mult tries), lots of BS technojargon with little actual detail, weird overall layout and internal linkages, page download misfires (to be fair, might just be server traffic overloads).

I looked all over for info/description on the mysterious 'battery management system/BMS' which some of the battery pages mentioned as being advisable to have, and implied was supplied by Balqon: nada. Yes, other mfg's products can charge and maintain Li-x batteries, but Balqon mentions their own unit, so where is it?

Totally cr@p corporate projection, would be real hard to trust them with simple CC info; no sale here, sorry.

It is your choice to pay more for a web site that you like.
Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturer

[Capt Hugh Wilde]

Originally Posted by deckofficer

It is your choice to pay more for a web site that you like.
Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturer

What is your history with these batteries and what are you using for a BMS with them?

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by deckofficer

It is your choice to pay more for a web site that you like.
Balqon Electric Vehicle Manufacturer

Bingo!

While I'll admit they are not the most efficient company I have dealt with, and a little bit on the flaky side, they;

*Shipped when they said they would

*Answered the phones and answered emails.

*Spoke directly with the CEO on numerous occasions.

Keep in mind they don't stock all the cells in the US and shipping lead times can vary but the pricing is pretty good... Selling individual battery cells is a small part of their business but the pricing is quite good.

If you can ship to a business or freight facility it will help keep the crate shipping costs down. The cells are extremely well packed for shipping in a wooden crate with lots of foam padding.