Victron Inverter/Charger

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Renegde_Sailor

What I recommend when you do this, is that you go to a 2 panel configuration for your DC, one which has the main for your shore power and a built in ELCI, and a couple of breakers to power outlets on the boat that will not be powered from the inverter, as well as things like your water heater.

The reason for this is, say you have your boat at a marina and it is winter, you are running an electric heater and a dehumidifier to keep the boat dried out.

If the power grid drops and you have not done this, the heaters and dehumidifier won't take long to absolutely flatten your battery bank, it will be dead within 1-2 hours, and with that your bilge pumps etc will stop working.

I wired my setup as a similar sub-panel setup to account for loads I want to transfer to inverter power vs things I never want to run from the inverter. To account for the winter scenario (all of my outlets are on the inverter), I switch the inverter to "charger only" mode when the boat is in winter storage. That way the Multiplus powers up as a charger and passes power through, but when the boat is disconnected from shore power, the unit just turns off instead of switching to inverting mode.

[smac999]

Originally Posted by Renegde_Sailor

What I recommend when you do this, is that you go to a 2 panel configuration for your DC, one which has the main for your shore power and a built in ELCI, and a couple of breakers to power outlets on the boat that will not be powered from the inverter, as well as things like your water heater.

The reason for this is, say you have your boat at a marina and it is winter, you are running an electric heater and a dehumidifier to keep the boat dried out.

If the power grid drops and you have not done this, the heaters and dehumidifier won't take long to absolutely flatten your battery bank, it will be dead within 1-2 hours, and with that your bilge pumps etc will stop working.


That is no bueno:

This is why the inverter must be put to charger only when leaving the boat. This is standard procedure for any Inverter charger.

With a 30a shore cord you want all power going through the unit. And make use of Ac1 and Ac2 out. So the shore power limit and assist can work correctly.

[Renegde_Sailor]

Originally Posted by smac999

This is why the inverter must be put to charger only when leaving the boat. This is standard procedure for any Inverter charger.

Is it a good idea yes, but it isn't mission critical if you have your system set up right.



I do a few things to ensure this, such as setting up my computer so as that it will sleep after 10 minutes of inactivity in order to save on batteries etc, auto shut offs on the TV, and that has worked very well for me.



Honestly my biggest complaint right now is the complete lack of solar output I am getting being at 48° north, I produced a whopping 12 watts yesterday!

It will put out a kilowatt in the summer.

Originally Posted by smac999

With a 30a shore cord you want all power going through the unit. And make use of Ac1 and Ac2 out. So the shore power limit and assist can work correctly.

This is absolutely correct. The input should come directly from the ELCI to the Inverter, then back to the buss for the shore power only circuits.

[Renegde_Sailor]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

I wired my setup as a similar sub-panel setup to account for loads I want to transfer to inverter power vs things I never want to run from the inverter. To account for the winter scenario (all of my outlets are on the inverter), I switch the inverter to "charger only" mode when the boat is in winter storage. That way the Multiplus powers up as a charger and passes power through, but when the boat is disconnected from shore power, the unit just turns off instead of switching to inverting mode.

And that does work perfectly well, and is a good idea, when storing the boat, for myself I live on the boat, so she is never really in storage mode.



But you are right, switching to charge only will mitigate this, I do however have a couple of loads, such as my computer and my NAS which need to not just suddenly lose power, most boat owners do not have these issues of critical loads to worry about.

[HudosonForce50]

That is a wealth of great information! Thank you!

[smac999]

Originally Posted by Renegde_Sailor

Is it a good idea yes, but it isn't mission critical if you have your system set up right.

the 1000's of boats in my city right now are sitting in marina slip for 6 months winter storage with 2-3 portable electric heaters running from outlets.

so yes it needs to be turned off or you'll have dead batteries in 3 hours if the boat or marina loses power.

[Renegde_Sailor]

Originally Posted by smac999

the 1000's of boats in my city right now are sitting in marina slip for 6 months winter storage with 2-3 portable electric heaters running from outlets.

so yes it needs to be turned off or you'll have dead batteries in 3 hours if the boat or marina loses power.

I guess you missed my long detailed post about having outlets wired up to shore power but not the inverter for this very reason.

[hjohnson]

Originally Posted by Renegde_Sailor

I guess you missed my long detailed post about having outlets wired up to shore power but not the inverter for this very reason.

Yeah, but no need for that if you kick the inverter into "Charger Only" mode. Right now, if shore power dies (someone kicks my shorepower cable, which has happened) then outlets just go dead. Keeps my AC power system nice and simple, and means that when I'm actually using the boat I don't have outlets that are dead.

[Grith]

Hi I have gone a totally different route to solve the inverter, battery, charger, solar controller problem.
I have added an EcoFlow Delta Max 168amp portable lithium power bank to my yachts standard 210 amp AGM starter and house battery bank.
This gives me a 2400w ( boost to 3000w ) start up surge 4800w sine wave inverter, very high computer controlled charger (80 percent charge in under one hour), a solar controller capable of accepting up to 100v (with a 13 amp limit) and the whole package is in a neat portable box weighing 22kgs.
I installed it in an under settee box and plugging it into my shore power system and leading a regular power board and multiple 12v outlet out into an accessible place in the yacht.
It creates an ability to have the equivalent of shore power whilst out cruising.
We cook via induction, have compressor fridge/freezer and also have an occasional use electric storage hot water service.
My main 400w solar panel system is also plugged into it with just a one additional small panel for maintenance charge into the agm bank.
The whole unit also remote switching controls and remote monitors via a phone app meaning and wifi meaning when leaving the yacht I can still monitor and control power use by my phone.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by hjohnson

Yeah, but no need for that if you kick the inverter into "Charger Only" mode. Right now, if shore power dies (someone kicks my shorepower cable, which has happened) then outlets just go dead. Keeps my AC power system nice and simple, and means that when I'm actually using the boat I don't have outlets that are dead.

The split outlets approach (some on inverter, some not) would have an advantage if you have some loads you want to keep running if something kicks shore power (such as if you have a 120v fridge running off the inverter). If there are no such loads, then either approach works fine.

[Grith]

In response to the power outage and split loads issues with my solution of the EcoFlow powerbank it has a pass through ability when connected to shore power and moves into uninterrupted power supply mode when the shore power is disconnected.
As the whole thing can be remotely monitored and remote switched virtually all eventualities can be dealt with.
It also prioritises solar input over ac input lowering ac usage when there is any sun available.
Below is the phone screen showing input/output and some of the remote control switches.

[hjohnson]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

The split outlets approach (some on inverter, some not) would have an advantage if you have some loads you want to keep running if something kicks shore power (such as if you have a 120v fridge running off the inverter). If there are no such loads, then either approach works fine.

Everything critical, when I’m not aboard, is on the DC bus.

What I’m actually looking for, though, is rugged outlets that I can control via node red. I’d like to be able to turn on my hot water tank before showing up at the marina, turn heating on or off remotely.

This would also solve the issue with the power outage as I could configure the flows to load shed the heavy drains in case of power outage, or if battery drops below a threshold out some such.

[Shanachie]

Originally Posted by Renegde_Sailor

I am currently running a 12v/3000w/120v unit, I have a 30A shore power cord, this unit is capable of handling 50A, and I have it limiting the current to 30.

Right now I am running 400ah of Renogy GEL cell batteries, and they are ok, a bit hard to charge, and it does take a while with my 120A alternator, I will be switching up to Lithium, and will probably stick with Renogy, as for $3000 I can get 600ah of lithium in the form-factor of 3X 8D's. ..

I am running a 120A alternator, and personally, I am finding it is insufficient to get the job done, I will be upgrading to a Balmar 175A as soon as I am able, and this will be before going to the Lithium.

That is a hell of a lot of charging power for a 400 amp-hour battery bank. You'll get more bang for your buck with lithium, but, with FLA or gel, you are using only a fraction of the charging power that you paid for.


Batteries have an acceptance rate and, as the state of charge goes up, the rate of charge goes down. You might be frustrated with the gel batteries because you're only using 10 or 20 amps of that 120-amp charging capacity.


I have a 320 amp-hour battery bank with 320 watts of solar on a Victron MPPT controller. On a perfect day, that might provide 20 amps an hour of charge to the bank when it's depleted.



When I'm cruising, I might get 12 or 15 amps an hour from the panels in the morning. But, by early afternoon, the rate of charge is down to a couple of amps an hour if the refrigerator compressor is not on.


If I had a 120-amp Balmar, it would not improve my situation at all. I'm not enough of an electrical engineer to do the math, but there is no way my battery bank would ever accept 120 amps an hour of charge.

[ccanupii]

Look, there is some good info here and some bad info here. I just designed my Victron upgrade and then met with a victron specialist. I had some wrong information and I some right information, the consultation got me on the right track. I am by no means a victron specialist but there are many nuances and settings that go beyond what is here.

The multi-plus does not have a transfer switch, the quattro does. The charger/inverter is not what is generator friendly, it's the cerbo gx. You don't have to switch back and forth to inverter and charge only. You can set it up so that the cerbo auto starts the genset to charge the batteries and then auto shut off. The quattro has more auto detect settings.

So if you want to use victron, do your research. Of you don't understand how to set it up, ask the victron forum or a marine electrician who installs victron. It looks simple, but it is not.

If you have some specific question pm me and I can share what I have.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by ccanupii

The multi-plus does not have a transfer switch, the quattro does.

That is not true at all. The difference is that the Multiplus transfer switch only has 1 external AC input (so it switches the output between AC in and inverter power). The Quattro has 2 AC inputs, so it switches between AC1, AC2, and inverter. An inverter without a transfer switch wouldn't do AC passthrough.

That means the Quattro can be used with both shore and generator input without an external transfer switch, while the Multiplus can't.