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Old 23-06-2020, 17:06   #31
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

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Originally Posted by rocks View Post
Hi CaptainRivet

In the end we used 11s x 13p. We have a finishing voltage of 28.2v. Keeping the voltage below 2.56v per string we have found that we do not need to use the balancers, going higher the strings soon become unbalanced.
The monitoring equipment used is a Plasmatronics PL80, Selectronics inverter and Openplotter for remote data.

The lead batteries 800 ah could not keep up with the heavy inverter loads, watermaker or dive compressor when we had clouds. The voltage would drop down shutting the inverter off. The LTO’s drop by 0.75v at most.
The lowest I have seen the LTO bank is 24.7v overnight.

Removed the old solar panels from the boat, replacing them with half cell panels giving 2800 watts system.
Had 2 x 10kva genset which where removed from the boat, as have not used them for about a year. Fitted 300 amp 24 volt alternator to each motor for charging when under way. Charge the battery at max of 350 amps cruising at 7 knots until full charge (have to up grade the cables fuses etc). At 350 amps of charge the battery and connections are at room temperature.

The LTO's mass is about half of the lead batteries, but take up the same space.
We do all our cooking by induction and microwave. Run the watermaker at midday for about 30 minutes making ~100 lts. Can also fill 4 dive bottles all using inverter.
Thank you for all the info.
That is a real monster LTO. Sure lead 800AH is just 160AH you can use versus now you can use 450 AH so triple amount.
No wonder thst lead can keep up with what you state you use them for, all shortterm heavy loads of 300-400 ampere about 10-15min, poison for lead but perfect for LTO.
More important charging is quick so 2800W of solar or 350A alternator makes it from empty to full in about 90min.

What kind of boat do you have to fit 2800W of solar? Seems like 800AH lead was by far too less for what you need.

My plan is a bit different. I will use 110AH of LTO 2P6S 55Ah cells as 12V starter, bow truster (needs 600A) and windlass battery.
They are all 2-3year new 12V gear and i need a battery that deal with this high loads shorterm.
I have just a 40ft mono, so no spsce for a 500Ah lto but i want/need 700AH house min. So house will be 3 Tesla battery modules.
They are also longterm very good batteries, and here on smallest footpeint as much AH is needed. One modul is 6.7kwh so 3 are 20kwh. Like this even a week operating without recharging is possible. Have no windvsne but 2 autopilots...no high loads here besides cooking with 3kw stove or oven. But even that is on 24v less then 1C for one module.
Safety no problem, Reengineed them with a master tesla technician and what i operate them the only issue need to be taken care is overcharging. Most likely never be close as my 1500W solar need long to charge 3 module. Tesla don't care if they are at 20 or 80% or somewhere in between for a long time...
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Old 27-10-2020, 12:32   #32
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

See this thread Post #6 and following

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post2979199
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Old 27-10-2020, 13:09   #33
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

Well the LTO cells Will tested were worn out rebadged 40AH cells. These cells had already 20000 cycles with 5 till 10C charge in korean public transport buses. And for that they performed well. The charge efficiency is close to 99% and was measured wrong by Will as he stated himself in his forum. Good in boating charge them to 15,5V, due to voltage drop on the cables you have 15V at your devices which every 12V device will tolerate. Victron Quattro inverter works down to 9.8V and up to 17V in 12V mode if setup like this so you can get all out of the cells if you need to. 2nd they are perfect to work with high loads like induction cooking via inverter and big bowtrusters... A 40AH lto 12V with 6 cells starts the V8 with 6.3l of a friend like a charm when even down to 9V, the voltage drop of the battery is 0.2V when pulling 400A out of a 40AH battery for 5 min straight. Do this with your 40Ah lifepo4 and you shorted its life by 25% min.

The ability to discharge LTO to 0% and loose 300 of its 30000cycle but otherwise wirk fine, no fire hazard and simply drop in anf forget maked them even a good house bank.
520AH cost 3000Euro shipped to Europe which is even cheaper then drop in lifepo4, they are 1000 per 100AH. But 30000 compared to 3000-5000 cycles max of lifepo4. Only downside to lifepo4 is the weight which is about 30% lighter the Lead.
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Old 27-10-2020, 16:28   #34
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...Sf62BbtpeSU3FV

Check this, test for HEV shows roundtrip efficency of LTO of 95-97% and not 85% as lead acids like Will said. He corrected that later in his forum.
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Old 04-11-2020, 14:52   #35
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

Having had the LTO on the boat for 18 months this may have been the best improvement we have add too the boat. The wife forgets that we are running off batteries and runs the microwave and kettle at the same time. At 3200 watts the volt drop is 0.2 to 0.3 (do that with lead acid batteries).

Have also replaced the SLA starting batteries with LTO and Supercaps with a total weight of 10kg each. Will see how they perform, they start the diesel motors faster than SLA batteries.

I have one set of 12 volt Li batteries left, which will replace with LTO next sailing season.

Why use LTO and not Li batteries on a boat

No need for BMS

Can charged from alternator without extra equipment.

Can use just about any battery charger.

They can be loaded at 10c of battery size.

They can be charged at 10c of battery size.

Can be discharged to 0v with little harm to battery (low volts should be 1.8v / cell)
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Old 04-11-2020, 16:25   #36
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

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Having had the LTO on the boat for 18 months this may have been the best improvement we have add too the boat. The wife forgets that we are running off batteries and runs the microwave and kettle at the same time. At 3200 watts the volt drop is 0.2 to 0.3 (do that with lead acid batteries).

Have also replaced the SLA starting batteries with LTO and Supercaps with a total weight of 10kg each. Will see how they perform, they start the diesel motors faster than SLA batteries.

I have one set of 12 volt Li batteries left, which will replace with LTO next sailing season.

Why use LTO and not Li batteries on a boat

No need for BMS

Can charged from alternator without extra equipment.

Can use just about any battery charger.

They can be loaded at 10c of battery size.

They can be charged at 10c of battery size.

Can be discharged to 0v with little harm to battery (low volts should be 1.8v / cell)
How big is your LTO bank? Did you use the 40AH yinglong cell? Do you use 12V, so 6 cells in series or 24V with 11 in series?

Interesting, you said charge with standard alternator...LTO have even less resistance then Lifepo4 and therefor puts even more load on the alternator.
Means more stress for the Alternator. How low do you discharge your bank? How big is your alternator?
How do you solve the high voltage cut off while your alternator is running when bank is full? Eg you need to still motor another 6h but bank is totally full.
Assume you don't have a wind gen, otherwise same problem as with the alternator... If load is switched off while charging you get a high voltage spike and min. kill your diodes in the regulator/charger. Exactly for this i keep my lead acid starter and the victron smart charger switches to lead when the LTO bank switches off while wind gen or alternator is running and providing the dump load needed.

Due to the austrian NPO titan one who build LTO banks for off grid solar houses with the yinglong LTOs since 5 years, they said you need a BMS when your bank consists of more then 30 cells, which is a 12V with 200AH bank. I got my cells from them, still lying in Portugal because i cannot find anyone shipping them to Canaries.
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Old 04-11-2020, 19:32   #37
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

The battery bank is 540 amps @ 24 volts. We charge to 28.2 volts. On most days the volts drops to about 25.3 volts.
The alternators are 300 amps each. Only charge at total max 250 amps from alternators, they are setup to start charging at about 1100 rpm .The Battery bank always is loaded with air con, navgear ,kitchen, laptops, fridgers and freezers etc. As the battery reaches 28.2 volt the alternators are putting out very little amps.
The starting batteries only are used for starting no other loads.

At max of 28.2 volts I am 2.6 volts under the max volts and the low volts are control by the inverter and solar regulator so no need for BMS. My max load is about 4000 watts, the batteries can handle over 10x that load no need for a BMS.
I do have balances for each string but only need to use them when charging over 28.4 volts that’s why only charging to 28.2 volts
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Old 05-11-2020, 15:08   #38
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

There you've done it - I'm getting interested in LTO.

Any suggestions for a source shipping to a US destination?

One thing that is interesting with the huge cycle count - THis suggests that battery aging effects are minimal in the "typical" cruising case. A year of full discharges is only 365 cycles.

Anyway, you could buy a smallish bank and add more cells as needed.

I might just have to pick up 6 for the windlass to start with.
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Old 05-11-2020, 15:25   #39
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

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Originally Posted by evm1024 View Post
There you've done it - I'm getting interested in LTO.

Any suggestions for a source shipping to a US destination?

One thing that is interesting with the huge cycle count - THis suggests that battery aging effects are minimal in the "typical" cruising case. A year of full discharges is only 365 cycles.

Anyway, you could buy a smallish bank and add more cells as needed.

I might just have to pick up 6 for the windlass to start with.
Perfect for windlass. These yinglong cells are mainly used in public transport busses in korea, they get charged with massive amperes in the 5000-7000A range (which is 5 to 7C for the banks these buses carry) during the 3 min they stop at each bus stop.
Cruising cycles and loads are piece of cake for them.
But look at my comments to rocks installation.
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Old 05-11-2020, 15:56   #40
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

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The battery bank is 540 amps @ 24 volts. We charge to 28.2 volts. On most days the volts drops to about 25.3 volts.
The alternators are 300 amps each. Only charge at total max 250 amps from alternators, they are setup to start charging at about 1100 rpm .The Battery bank always is loaded with air con, navgear ,kitchen, laptops, fridgers and freezers etc. As the battery reaches 28.2 volt the alternators are putting out very little amps.
The starting batteries only are used for starting no other loads.

At max of 28.2 volts I am 2.6 volts under the max volts and the low volts are control by the inverter and solar regulator so no need for BMS. My max load is about 4000 watts, the batteries can handle over 10x that load no need for a BMS.
I do have balances for each string but only need to use them when charging over 28.4 volts that’s why only charging to 28.2 volts
Thank you for these details.
Your 300A alternators are heavy duty ones, they can run 60-80% of that a long time. With 250A charge one has to do 125A of 300A capacity ,which is 40%...piece of cake for this ones.

An average mono sailing boat alternator is somewhere between 50 and 100A and not heavy duty, if they can do 40% which is 20 - 40A constant on 1500-1800 RPM then you are lucky...
Connecting this one without an regulator will fry it soon. Well the alt should be just backup, much better is main solar and backup use a portable gasoline genny like thw honda 20i and charge via the shore power charger. Much more efficient.
Don't forget that a 120A Balmar heavy duty with external regulator will easyly eat - 7 till 10hp (compared to a 70A standard) from your engine which is mostly just enough power and raise diesel consumption significantly. I keep my standard 60A and use the victron smart charger which limits it between 20 and 30A and switches to the starter lead if LTOs are full to protect it. Just not to waste this energy when i need to motor anyhow. This need 2-3hp and no raise in diesel consumption. Main source is solar, then wind gen, then portable zipper 2000W genny (semipermanent installed connected to a 25l outboard fuel tank which gives it around 50-60h running without refueling) and only then alternator via engine. Well i only need to run the genny an hour when its 3 days totally cloudy and no wind. Never the engine till now.

A tip: when your batteries are 95% full and you have enough solar time left, I run the water boiler heater via a timer that switches it automatically off after 90min, then my 40l tank is to max hot from 20 degrees water. Like this i use this energy, always have full batteries and on most days a full hot water tank in the evening or next morning.
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Old 07-11-2020, 02:02   #41
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Re: LTO Battery as the perfect starter/bowtruster battery

I have the solar reg (pl80) setup to switch the hot water on when the volts reach 28.2 volts for 5 min, than it switches the hot water on for 2 hrs. We have 90lt hot water tank. We get to full charge about 11 am.
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