getting ready to purchase any thoughts?

[NapaSojourner]

We are getting ready to purchase parts for my lithium upgrade… any thoughts from the hive mind?


3 Relion 8d Batteries for 900 amp hours replacing 3 8d Rolls batteries


Victron mutiplus II GX 12/3000 inverter/charger replacing victron charger and Xantrex 2000w inverter


6 victron 100/15 smart mppt solar controllers replacing Genasun GV10s

I am keeping the 6 100w solar panels for the moment, eventually I will be adding an additional 1.2-1.6 KW in solar when my new arch is done over the winter.

Lynx BMS victron

Cerbo GX and GX touch

I also don't really understand how the DC to DC charging is going to work yet still reading on that. At the moment I have just the two stock alternators on my volvo md20-30s. They will probably get upgraded as well over the winter but I think the solar is more important at this point.

I am trying to build a system that will support expansion, maybe DC air conditioners or induction cook top ect.

Am I overlooking anything obvious? Any components missing? I realize this is not an earth shattering design and pretty much follows the general lay out from Victron. Obviously this is a big spend and would like to get as much correct as possible on the first pass.



Thank you,

Christian
SV Sojourner
NAPA, CA

[sailingharry]

I assume you have a copy of the new ABYC standard (E-13)? The standard is pretty reasonable, and easy to comply with if building your own. Not so easy if using some brands of drop-in. Since the standard is in place, and insurance companies are anecdotally getting difficult with regard to Lithium, it would be good to read the standard and ensure your installation complies. It would not be unreasonable for insurance companies, at a later date, to insist on compliance with a standard in effect at the time of installation.



Really, it's an easy to understand standard with plain-english requirements. Although it points to E-11, the general AC/DC standard, which is massively more complex (not a dig -- general AC/DC is, well, massively more complex!).


If you don't have E-13 and E-11, PM me.


I have the MPII 3KW, and really like it.
I have 75/15 and Genasun GV10's, and like both. Not entirely sure how well the GV10 will play (they are "fixed" and so you have what they have. Mine are going away this winter with a solar upgrade, so won't be a consideration when I go LFP -- but I THINK their setpoints are compatible with LFP). Multiple controllers is a plus -- and you have it. Since you are buying controllers NOW, and have plans for an upgrade LATER, may be cost effective to consider what panels and mix you will have then. While multiple controllers is good, there may be a point of diminishing returns (6 15A controllers supports 1KW, if they were 30A controllers you could support your total ~2KW -- depending on layout.)

[BAD ORCA]

You can get three of these for half the price. They are using automotive grade A EVE cells. They can be charged and discharged at 1C continuous. Thats 900 amps continuous if you parallel three of them.

https://www.epochbatteries.com/produ...och-essentials

No affiliation. I have been following them for some time and just bought one myself. Thinking of adding a second one. Build quality is very high and they communicate with Victron devices, although i have not hooked my system up yet to play with any of this. Waiting for my new charger to arrive.

[wholybee]

Don't buy anything until you have a better understanding of how it will work. Draw it out on paper. Work though it and stuff like the DCDC should make sense. If you currently have an ACR or similar the DCDC serves the same purpose and is sometimes a direct wire-for-wire replacement.

Right of the bat, the Victron BMS will ONLY work with Victron batteries, and the Relion batteries are drop in, which means they have a built-in BMS and you don't need to buy one separate.

[NapaSojourner]

Relion does not make it very clear about the BMS built into their batteries. I missed that… I am going with Relion because of its reputation and I am receiving some good pricing.

So if the Relion built in BMS is adequate I will just need to add a Lynx Distributor?


The DC-DC I am a little confused on how it is currently wired in my boat and I am not sure if I will need one DC-DC converter or two. It is probably best to keep each engine battery isolated so that I don't end up with some sort of cascading failure to both engine batteries.. So leaning towards two.

The only other piece I need to figure out is the Galvanic isolator, currently i have one installed but I have no idea if it will be co
mpatible with the rest of the electronic upgrade sort of digging into these questions today.



Thank you

[hjohnson]

So if you’re not going to use a battery with a BMS that integrates with the victron Ecosystem, you’ll want a smartshunt to provide battery status to the system.

Furthermore, why 6 MPPTs? You may be able to get away with fewer. Also, to connect that many VE.Direct Devices to the system you’ll need a USB hub and a fistfull of ve.direct to USB adapters (plus 3 ve.direct cables for the Cerbo itself).

[Steve Xie]

If you plan to DIY system. Buying cells from LYP battery is a good choice.
https://lypbattery.com/
I have a 7ooAh Winston battery bank on my boat and it's the best thing I've ever done for my boat.

[CarlF]

Relion was a good early company but they really haven't kept up.

Among the drop-ins, I would look at Kilovault which has a longer warranty, can accept more charging amps, have bluetooth battery monitoring in each battery, and a built in heater (if you plan to go to cold areas). Pricing is normlly less than Relion. Many have been installed on cats. The YachtRigger in St. Petersburg is a dealer and can provide lots of advise specific to a Leopard installation. They'll have no trouble shipping to CA. I bought the KiloVaults for my L50 from them.

When putting in multiple drop-ins it's important to use equal length cables so that the batteries charge and discharge at the same rate (e.g. each battery is connected to a bus bar with plus and minus cables that are the same length)

To best meet fusing requirements install a BlueSea MBRF fuse on each battery positive terminal and then a Class T fuse where the cables come together.

If you are ever going to run air conditioning off the batteries use large cables - perhaps 2/0 cables to each battery and 4/0 cable back to the distribution panel.

It sounds like you plan to use a DC-DC charger to charge the lithium house bank from the start battery and charge the start battery from the engine alternator. This protects the alternator from a BMS shutdown. The only issue is that Victron DC-DC chargers only charges at 30 amps so your alternator will be doing almost nothing charging the lithium bank. There are ways that avoid this but it's a complicated subject. Someone like The YachtRigger could advise you and sell you all the bits and pieces you need for your plan.

You can't have two inverters unless they are synched to stay in-phase. Get rid of the Xantrex.

I would go to 4 batteries (1200AH) if you have space. This will let you get through a couple of cloudy days at anchor.

Hire an ABYC licensed electrician for a few hours to help on the installation and check it for safety. Many insurance companies will ask if a licensed electrician did the install and for his name.

[Nicholson58]

We replaced all AGMs last season with Blue Heron LiFePo. Sales guy Hank was extremely helpful and a great knowledge source. He researched my on board devices and found all of the necessary software upgrades, links, patch cords, dongles, protective items etc. and coached me through it all while I did the work in Trinidad. End of season he helped me set the system for hurricane storage on the hard.

hank@starboardlanding.com

Tell Hank Roxy sent you.

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by NapaSojourner

Relion does not make it very clear about the BMS built into their batteries. I missed that… I am going with Relion because of its reputation and I am receiving some good pricing.

So if the Relion built in BMS is adequate I will just need to add a Lynx Distributor?

Thank you

The thing about Relion is they are an inferior battery in terms of charge rate acceptance (BMS), size (overall geometry is large w=for what they are), and lack of bluetooth or heat blanket - compared to several other more competitively priced battery brands out there - Epoch - Kilovault - Battleborn - Dakota - to name a few.
They have amazing marketing (big margins for installers).... but that's really about it. You're typically paying a premium for an inferior product - we've actually swapped out a few Relion installs for batteries with higher charge rate acceptance for clients who've had issues with hitting the limits with solar and generator/alternator charge rates pushing through at the same time.

[NapaSojourner]

I was planning on staying with the 8D format. so three Relion’s give me 900ah if I were to go with Battelborn 810ah. from a cost perspective I would be at about 900$ more for the Battelborn. I imagine cost is a little nebulous as we all have our own sources and connections.

Warranty is 10 years for both 8 years of replacement for battelborn and 7 for Relion hp batteries. Their standard batteries only get 3 years of replacement.

As far as charge rate I can not find a spec on Relion's web page I did see a mention that the BMS will only allow 100 amps but battleborn lists charge rate as .5c so for their 270ah battery at .5c that would mean it could take 135amp’s. I am doing more research on this, As i feel I don't have a good grip on the subject yet.

Yes the Xantrex is going away.. As well as the Genasun charge controllers… I am doing a one to one replacement for the 6 charger controllers. I already have Genasun controllers but they are not rated for lithium. Given how easy it is to shade the panels on the cabin top I think the separate controllers are a good idea.

I am looking into other options besides Victron for the DC-DC converters but I may just go victron for stage one then upgrade them when I put Balamr alternators on.

Thank you all for your insights and lots to sort out for this project.

[The Yacht Rigger]

Originally Posted by NapaSojourner

I was planning on staying with the 8D format. so three Relion’s give me 900ah if I were to go with Battelborn 810ah. from a cost perspective I would be at about 900$ more for the Battelborn. I imagine cost is a little nebulous as we all have our own sources and connections.

Warranty is 10 years for both 8 years of replacement for battelborn and 7 for Relion hp batteries. Their standard batteries only get 3 years of replacement.

As far as charge rate I can not find a spec on Relion's web page I did see a mention that the BMS will only allow 100 amps but battleborn lists charge rate as .5c so for their 270ah battery at .5c that would mean it could take 135amp’s. I am doing more research on this, As i feel I don't have a good grip on the subject yet.

Yes the Xantrex is going away.. As well as the Genasun charge controllers… I am doing a one to one replacement for the 6 charger controllers. I already have Genasun controllers but they are not rated for lithium. Given how easy it is to shade the panels on the cabin top I think the separate controllers are a good idea.

I am looking into other options besides Victron for the DC-DC converters but I may just go victron for stage one then upgrade them when I put Balamr alternators on.

Thank you all for your insights and lots to sort out for this project.

Definitely check out Kilovault, and Epoch. Both have 300ah units that should fit well. The Epoch batteries can network with Victron components too, so that's really nice.

[The Yacht Rigger]

Also keep an eye on this forum for ads for a new external regulator for high output alternators that has some really amazing features and controls. Coming out in the next couple weeks.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by NapaSojourner

Yes the Xantrex is going away.. As well as the Genasun charge controllers… I am doing a one to one replacement for the 6 charger controllers. I already have Genasun controllers but they are not rated for lithium.

There is a bit of a mystique regarding Lithium and compatibility. I personally think it is over emphasized.


The LFP Genasun have a single voltage -- 14.2V. So they charge as hard as they can until they get to 14.2, and then hold it. Great.


The LA Genasun have 3 voltages. They "bulk" at 14.3. While it's not clear, it seems that once it hits 14.3, it then shifts to "absorption" at 14.1. After 2.5 hours, it drops to "Float" at 13.7. If at any time (overnight?) it drops below 12.5, it restarts in "Bulk/Absorption". Otherwise, it just resumes at "Float."


So how does this line up with LFP? The Relion web page indicates charging should be done at 14.2-14.6 -- the LA charger lines up pretty good with that. The 13.7 doesn't fit in their literature, but the fact is that holding an LFP at 13.7 is holding at nearly 100% SOC -- so there's no real downside (and maybe a bit of an upside, as LFP doesn't like 100% SOC). The "rebullk" (ie, fast-charge) that starts at 12.5 (or 3.1 V per Cell) is a bit of a downside -- that's pretty far down the SOC curve.


Any way you look at it, they won't be charging at anything near the cutoff voltage, so you don't need to worry about controlling them -- they will have dialed down to zero long before then.



My point is only that the Genasun are not "bad" in any way, and most importantly won't cause any damage to your batteries. They MAY not provide maximum charge rates -- maybe. At close to $1K in controller costs to upgrade to Victron, you may want to install the Lithium and see how they handle it.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by CarlF

When putting in multiple drop-ins it's important to use equal length cables so that the batteries charge and discharge at the same rate (e.g. each battery is connected to a bus bar with plus and minus cables that are the same length)

I fully understand the theoretical reasoning for this. But has anyone actually documented just how important this is in real life?


* In modest (say under 100A) total load, the voltage drop difference between a 10" 2/0 cable and a 20" 2/0 cable is unmeasurable, but the one with the longer cable will still provide some slightly reduced amount of power compared to the one with the longer cable.
* On the flip side, in modest charge, the one with the shortest cable (remember, it provided a few small percentages more power under load) will get some unmeasurably larger charge rate -- mitigating the larger discharge rate.
* But most importantly, for huge percentages of the day, the batteries are under extremely low load/charge rates (under 10A). In this situation, the batteries are "balancing" -- any battery that has a slightly lower voltage (ie, lower SOC) will be sucking power off the one with the slightly higher voltage.


We've heard this mantra for decades, from back in the days of FLA and then AGM and then LFP. And a rule like this has a nasty habit of forming and then never being validated.


Has anyone actually provided real world studies/data to support the importance of this? Or even provided real-world calculations (ie, the difference in voltage between 10" and 20" is 13, millivolts, so the amp difference is .25A, so when one battery is at 50% SOC, the other is at 50.5% SOC, but on recharge it doesn't equal out and one gets to 99.8% SOC and never balances out).