Merged LiFeYPO4 1000Ah Winston prismatic cells and all electric galley...

[hellosailor]

When we refer to "alternators" bear in mind there may be a hundred different designs and a thousand different versions of them out there. One of the classic 12v marine books (12 Bible?) actually shows dozens of configurations for folks who are planning to convert to external regulators.

Most of us think we understand alternators and that they're all the same. Not so. And very few folks have actually READ the technical specs on their own alternator. WHo would think that a shiny new rebuilt alternator was a time bomb, simply because the last thing most shops do is spray it all with shiny silver paint. And if just one coat of that paint gets on the diodes...that's enough to make them overheat and die, regardless of temperature protections, in any alternator. (Delco taught me that years ago.)

So when you take an alternator that is design for one SLI battery, which typically never is below 90% SOC and is designed for a 20%C absorbtion rate, and you replace it with at least 4x more Li-whatever battery that can and will absorb at 2C or higher, cycling to 50% SOC or more...sure, the damned alternator will be running considerably in excess of normal power. In excess of normal intermittent operating temperatures.

And, since electronics like that lose 1/2 their life for every 10 degree rise in operating temperature? Yeah, temperature protection or not they are either going to throttle back to zilch, or die in fairly short times.

Which is the difference between most of us and educated engineers, who sometimes know these things and actually DESIGN the damned overpriced systems that properly use them.

No magic here. Just surprises for the unwary.

[CatNewBee]

Thats true. I can only refer to my on the 40hp Yanmar. They are fine with my LFP bank as they were with the FLA.

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Poppycock. Most do so, just not well.

Perhaps some vehicle you have looked at does not allow for modification?

But on 99.99% of boats, the existing alternator can be adapted and fitted with an external voltage regulator that offers temp protection.


> I do not use engines much, especially not for charging, so really not interested in complete solutions but need to be able to charge in emergency.

In other words, you don't want to spend the money.

> One way to do it, is simply finding revs at which alternator produces roughly 50 % ~ 40A.

Actually lowering rpm can make overheating worse, since the alt's fan is more effective at higher rpm.

The key is reducing the amps demanded by the loads.

A DCDC / B2B charger does that, without changing the alt setup.

> Else manually switch off alternator to house battery charging

Yes, either isolate the LFP from the alt

or stop the alt charging via a kill circuit on the VR field current.

Either can easily be automated based on temp

thanks for your comments. My usage pattern is different to cnb. Observed solar for a while and convinced myself that 360 W solar can be only charging source for our boat. I have 400ah but only use overnite on average 30AH. My agenda for introducing lithium is to not be forced into generator charging during cloudy periods. Large buffer 400 AH should make this happen. And if sun will be out 1 day in a week, I should get away without charging as solars produce 200 AH on average sunny day. On passages, consumption increases to 150 AH per 24 hours and solars may produce very little due to sails. That is when I expect to be forced into generator charging every 2 days or so, which aligns nicely with water making regime where i use generator as well. So, alternator to charge start batteries and engine electricity needs, is all i need.

Except if generator fails and no sunny days , then i have to have some plan B how to do it with alternators. And it looks to me that current ones will be good enough until i do not ask for too much juice.

[CatNewBee]

You should be fine with that capacity when just keeping your system as-is without going all electric in the galley. Even daily watermaker running for one hour would be possible on solar only. (~70Ah)

[john61ct]

I was just correcting your "alts don't have temp protection"

Yes, if alt is second tier backup maybe not worth spending money on.

Or do it via B2B charger, no need to modify the engine / alt setup.

For people where the alt is primary they will be more motivated to spend money optimizing that part of their setup.

[rom]

Originally Posted by arsenelupiga

thanks for your comments. My usage pattern is different to cnb. Observed solar for a while and convinced myself that 360 W solar can be only charging source for our boat. I have 400ah but only use overnite on average 30AH

30Ah on a L400 overnight really ? I believe I am averaging 200Ah. What fridge do you have ??

[CatNewBee]

My 400S2 has 3 fridges (one of them is a top-loader freezer, one fridge with freezer compartment in the galley and one fridge outside in the cockpit), they draw over 200Ah per day too, all set to max cooling.

[CatNewBee]

I was asked several times to post a picture of the solar arc aft, so here it is:

[CatNewBee]

nice video about Winston LiFeYPO4 batteries...

https://youtube.com/watch?v=rE49I6kesMg

[CatNewBee]

Our galley is now almost complete, we removed the microwave - we do not use at all - we will use the compartment as storage, also we added a KitchenAid, ice maker, FoodSaver vacuum sealer and and an ice cream / yogurt maker to our on-board gadget list. We have placed wireless thermometers in all fridges / freezer and a central display to monitor the temperatures there.

The 12V fridge with freezer compartment in the galley will probably be replaced by a larger 220V residential frost-free fridge only unit. The camping thing gets a lot of ice inside and needs frequent maintenance, also it is not very good isolated.

Now I am also thinking about the entertainment on board. There is little space for a decent size monitor in front of the sitting area, I am thinking about fitting a roll-down screen behind the Galley over-head compartments, mounting a small almost invisible sound bar below them and a small Full-HD projector on the ceiling near the mast pole for watching movies at anchor in home cinema style.

We'll see.

[arsenelupiga]

Originally Posted by rom

30Ah on a L400 overnight really ? I believe I am averaging 200Ah. What fridge do you have ??

have one standard fridge set on medium. 30AH is for anchoring night. Sailing night is different - around 120 AH.

[SailFastTri]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

Our galley is now almost complete, we removed the microwave - we do not use at all - we will use the compartment as storage, also we added a KitchenAid, ice maker, FoodSaver vacuum sealer and and an ice cream / yogurt maker to our on-board gadget list. We have placed wireless thermometers in all fridges / freezer and a central display to monitor the temperatures there.

The 12V fridge with freezer compartment in the galley will probably be replaced by a larger 220V residential frost-free fridge only unit. The camping thing gets a lot of ice inside and needs frequent maintenance, also it is not very good isolated.

Now I am also thinking about the entertainment on board. There is little space for a decent size monitor in front of the sitting area, I am thinking about fitting a roll-down screen behind the Galley over-head compartments, mounting a small almost invisible sound bar below them and a small Full-HD projector on the ceiling near the mast pole for watching movies at anchor in home cinema style.

We'll see.

I think you'd be well-served to compare the power-consumption of an adequate projector to that of an LED screen. Also, the sharpness/contrast of the projector will never come close.



Trying not to question why you'd want all this and that on a boat, as I try to keep my power budget down and the boat light -- my iPad is perfectly adequate for my wife and I to watch movies aboard. If you need all this stuff why leave the dock?

[john61ct]

His boat his choice, pretty petty to disparage others' design goals.

[bluenomads]

Love the idea of the projector CNB.
SFT is probably entirely correct about quality etc.
I just think SFT are totally wrong to state their weirdness, foibles, and strangeness as if you should partake of them as well! Does it matter that the LED TVs are better? To most people it doesn't matter one bit compared to a) the size of the projected images, b) being comfortable in YOUR boat watching whatever you want in what looks good to you.
Power consumption is also a good point which, one can only presume, CNB would have thought of (as most boat owners do!) especially given the list of others electrical goodies on the list.
Keep posting CNB, and those who think an iPad is all that's needed to watch movies can continue to do so in the warm happiness they feel. Not that even the thought of an iPad would upset some traditionalist/minimalists. Good on them all! I'm fine with hearing how you work and (getting back on the topic) how the batteries and systems support it.

[CatNewBee]

Hallo everybody,

I wonder why this thread was closed. Winston prismatic cells and all electric galley

Well my solution is already in place and discussed in large, but it is a evolving project, new gear is added and testing is posted, so here is part two.

Anyway. Regarding the LED projector for the on-board entertainment system: In general, you are right, projectors do draw much more power than a LED TV set, but power does not matter much for our set up, it is there inxs.

Originally Posted by bluenomads

Love the idea of the projector CNB.
SFT is probably entirely correct about quality etc.
I just think SFT are totally wrong to state their weirdness, foibles, and strangeness as if you should partake of them as well! Does it matter that the LED TVs are better? To most people it doesn't matter one bit compared to a) the size of the projected images, b) being comfortable in YOUR boat watching whatever you want in what looks good to you.
Power consumption is also a good point which, one can only presume, CNB would have thought of (as most boat owners do!) especially given the list of others electrical goodies on the list.
Keep posting CNB, and those who think an iPad is all that's needed to watch movies can continue to do so in the warm happiness they feel. Not that even the thought of an iPad would upset some traditionalist/minimalists. Good on them all! I'm fine with hearing how you work and (getting back on the topic) how the batteries and systems support it.

We have tablets and a PC on board, and they all can stream media content, the media files will be on a NAS with several TB storage. The whole thing will run only on demand and store our content we produce and also all our movies, music, e-books, audio-books, podcasts, satellite imagery from Google earth for the remote locations we want to visit, software packages, tools, electronic charts not needed at the moment and user manuals as backup device, we use the KODI media player for accessing the Audio / Video libraries via WiFi or LAN, there are clients for Windows PC, MAC, RasPi, Linux, Android. We will simply copy a e-book or audio book to our handheld device to enjoy it, without the need of large storage there for the whole library, also copy some CD we want to listen to on a stick for the audio player, changing the content from time to time

The user manuals for the boat will be stored permanently on every tablet too and synced to the "private cloud" on the NAS, so always accessible.

The main reason why we are thinking about a projector is simply the size of the screen, a 43" LED TV is very bulky and heavy, we do not have the space for it, given the fact it will not be used most of the time we are sailing and will obstruct the beautiful view outside. They need to be fixed somewhere to not fly around in high seas too, so must be stationary.

A canvas screen can be hidden and tiny and can be easily pop up if we feel like movie night. Also there are palm size projectors with 1080p resolution, they are not very bright, but because of the screen size (it is quite small - 120x60cm) - and the distance (also a few meters) you do not need a too powerful projector unit either. I agree, the picture quality of a modern QHD screen is superior to any projector, but our movie collection is old, most DVD movies and a few BR, so it is SD / HD resolution.

Of course we can watch movies on any screen and will, but it is more fun to put down the table and snuggle on the couch at a bigger screen - especially if the weather outside is terrible.

We do not care about the power consumption for this, this thing is not used daily - maybe once a week or once a month - and is not running 24x7, also allows to entertain a larger crowd.

We will not have TV on board, there is a DVB-T antenna on the top of the mast, but no satellite dish - when going around the world it simply does not makes sense. If we would cruise only around Europe, a dish may be useful to receive Astra and Hotbird and have thousands of programs available - but the services in other regions are very different and most are encrypted in contrast to Europe. We could use a DVB-T USB stick to receive terrestrial signals and also use it as SDR to receive SSB / HAM etc., but this are projects if I feel bored and need some new tech challenges - I guess maintenance of the boat and enjoying the travels will keep me away from that urge for a long time.