Inverter

[impi]

Pleasure Tomtom - just remember - you will want an inverter charger - not just an inverter.
Cheers.

[impi]

Originally Posted by Vasco

The downside of this is that if the inverter is shot you get no ac in the boat. After six months cruising I finally tied up to a dock in the boatyard. Unfortunately my inverter was fried in Nassau so I could not use shore power. Couldn't even run my trusty Honda as the ac has to go through the fried inverter. At least I didn't need hot water it was 96 degrees yesterday in Fernandina Beach. Too hot to do boat work.

This is why I have two Victron inverter chargers. If one goes down then you can exclude it from the system by switching to 'stand alone mode' which then only runs through the running inverter. Over and above this, I have an inline bypass switch over, so if both inverters were fried (very unlikely I believe) then you can exclude them entirely and shore power would be a direct feed.
This was why I decided not to go with the powerful new quatro versions, which could pretty much give similar results in one unit - I wanted the flexibilty of having two units (one as backup to the other but at the same time being able to work together).

[btrayfors]

impi,

Sounds like you did your homework well. Congratulations!

Your pic of the "Blue Screen" shows a 14A DC draw. That's a little more than my boat draws, on average and, of course, is much less than the 20-hour rate for your 970AH battery bank.

Referring to the graph in post #11 above, and assuming your average DC draw is on the order of 20 amps, that's about enough to deplete the batteries over 50 or more hours.

This means that in reality you have at least 20% more available battery power than the 970AH....say, as much as 1164AH overall, or about half that or 582AH as usable power (not drawing your batteries below 50% state-of-charge).

Nice setup. Wish I had that much house battery power and charging power (for my 675AH house battery bank I only have 102A from the Victron MultiPlus, 100A from the Balmar alternator; no solar or wind, though I do have an AC generator to power the Victron).

Cheers,

Bill

[four winds]

On other forums I'm on, I usually comment on this subject. Here it's not needed since it's covered well be several people.

At least I assume they are human.

[impi]

Originally Posted by btrayfors

impi,

Sounds like you did your homework well. Congratulations!

Your pic of the "Blue Screen" shows a 14A DC draw. That's a little more than my boat draws, on average and, of course, is much less than the 20-hour rate for your 970AH battery bank.

Referring to the graph in post #11 above, and assuming your average DC draw is on the order of 20 amps, that's about enough to deplete the batteries over 50 or more hours.

This means that in reality you have at least 20% more available battery power than the 970AH....say, as much as 1164AH overall, or about half that or 582AH as usable power (not drawing your batteries below 50% state-of-charge).

Nice setup. Wish I had that much house battery power and charging power (for my 675AH house battery bank I only have 102A from the Victron MultiPlus, 100A from the Balmar alternator; no solar or wind, though I do have an AC generator to power the Victron).

Cheers,

Bill

Thanks Bill - I must honestly admit that I am a total novice at all this, but I have been fortunate to have spoken to friends who sailed around the globe twice as a family with children. Also, I have been fortunate to tap into the knowledge this forum provides and also Kent from Just Catamarans has shared a huge amount of his knowledge with me - amazing how small the world is as he sits in Florida and shares info with me in Africa.
I was adamant to do this cheaply but after doing my research realised that one has to do this right and it may set the cash-flow back a bit but in the long run it pays off. I also spoke to guys who did it differently, and ended up chucking out their systems only to start again - so .... Thanks to them I have dine it this way and am impressed.
The picture I showed, probably isn't reflective of what my vessel does on average .....
I find that if we live comfortably in the boat, lights burning, music playing etc. Etc. Then we burn about 280 - 300 amps per day. This includes our 2 fridges and deep freeze on 24/7.
We have deep cycle Gel batteries (exide) - I think they are fine whilst a lot of friends tell me they prefer the agm mastervolt batteries ..... I have no idea but got mine as an optional extra with the boat.
The solar panels excite me.
Thanks for the reply - I can see you are more technical than me so thanks for sharing.

[btrayfors]

300AH per day divided by 24 hours = 12.5 Amps average draw! So, in reality, you've got a much bigger reserve :-)

Gels are fine, and in some ways are to be preferred over AGMs, IMHO.

We've seen and heard reports of catastrophic failures of AGMs due to poor construction techniques and other factors. They certainly don't yield the number of cycles you can get out of good flooded batteries.

With gels, you've just got to be careful to: keep them fully charged as often as you can; and watch the charging voltage carefully. They won't take the high-voltage charging abuse that flooded and AGMs will. But if you take care of them, they'll last longer than either flooded or AGMs. I have two gelled golf-cart batteries in my basement right now which are 14 years old. One of them tests almost like new, the second only about 20% depleted capacity from new. They spent their first 10 years on a sailboat, then 2 years in battery tests here, and have been just sitting with occasional charging for the past 2 years.

Bill

[impi]

Just for interest sake I run this unit (see photo) together with my bluepower panel.
It is just nice to see the LEDs from a distance which display lights to let one know at a glance what state the charge system / electrical circuit the boat is in. On the left, the LEDs would indicate inverter modes, overload etc depending on led that is lit. On the right side we have mains mode (shore power or genset) so at a glance one can see if drawing from batteries or shore power, if charge system is in Bulk, Absorption or float.
Of course this is really handy to manage the system on board. Eg. When batteries are down the charge system runs in bulk so it is worth running an engine or genset to charge if at sea. However when the led indicates we are moving toward float mode, then the demand from the batteries in terms of charging amps is little, so it is a waste running engines or gensets to 'trickle charge'.
By looming at these LEDs and checking what Amps my batteries are allowing to enter, I know when to switch off engines and allow the solar panels to handle the float (trickle charge) cycle of the charging cycle.
It really makes the whole battery management system easy and efficient with as little energy (and diesel) expended as possible.

[CharlieJ]

Regarding the possibility of a failed I/C precluding bringing power aboard: install a bypass switch that will bypass around the failed I/C. Or, the poor man's option, simply connect the AC-In to the AC-Out with a three gang (120VAC) terminal block while the I/C is being repaired.

Charlie

[tangle]

I bought my boat a year ago and it has a xantrex freedom 40 in it that had 2 agm 105ah connected to it. The former owner had installed this and dedicated it to the fridge - a full house size fridge with icemaker and water on the double door-type fridge! It has not yet worked. I have determined that the batteries seem to have been allowed to be in a dischared state so long that they wont hold a charge. - as a rookie inverter owner I had no idea shore power would ruin an inverter but previous posts here said the unit I have should have been able to recognize shore power and isolate itself from harm? The system also has a switch/breaker with a sign next to it that says "do not have switch on while connected to shore power". I think it has been run alot while on sp.- it seems to run ok but now I have to get batteries for it. The battery guy is suggesting golf cart batteries instead of agm`s. My question is can the inverter deliver the power needed to run the fridge? A fridge compressor takes a decent surge to start up...y/n?

[atoll]

Originally Posted by tangle

I bought my boat a year ago and it has a xantrex freedom 40 in it that had 2 agm 105ah connected to it. The former owner had installed this and dedicated it to the fridge - a full house size fridge with icemaker and water on the double door-type fridge! It has not yet worked. I have determined that the batteries seem to have been allowed to be in a dischared state so long that they wont hold a charge. - as a rookie inverter owner I had no idea shore power would ruin an inverter but previous posts here said the unit I have should have been able to recognize shore power and isolate itself from harm? The system also has a switch/breaker with a sign next to it that says "do not have switch on while connected to shore power". I think it has been run alot while on sp.- it seems to run ok but now I have to get batteries for it. The battery guy is suggesting golf cart batteries instead of agm`s. My question is can the inverter deliver the power needed to run the fridge? A fridge compressor takes a decent surge to start up...y/n?

check the rated wattage on the back of the fridge,most are surprisingly low

[motion30]

There is a low cost option xantrex makes a 1800 w stand alone inverter it is a pass tru inverter and is self switching Mine has worked great for 4 years but...seeing how it is a xantrex I bought it at west marine and bought the wm warrenty ha ha

[Mark Johnson]

For heating shower water while at sea or anchored out, IMO... simple is always best.

We use a 2.5 gallon black plastic garden sprayer, with a dish washing "thumb actuated" nozzle on the end of the hose. We set it in the sun in the afternoon, and at about sundown, we each get a nice "perfectly warm" shower, including washing hair! If used while sitting on a boat cushion in the cockpit footwell, it minimizes water waste and moisture below decks. It is also very cheep, reliable, and can last 20 years!

When it rains while anchored out, we let the dinghy fill up, jug it, and it becomes the water supply for future cockpit showers.

We've found that it's is a wonderful way to solve the showering problem.

M.

[motion30]

I have accidently turned the hotwater heater on tru the inverter You could the volts drop on my 500amp battery bank, quickly that is a no go