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Old 06-12-2024, 15:50   #1
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My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

As others have duly noted the subject has probably been done to death but here is my two cents worth on changing the house bank to Lithium.

My first comment would be to say that along with lots of reading on the subject as to how to wire up your setup and what components you need/want - it would be wise to check pricing in detail as well. Something I very much neglected and consequently blew my budget out of the water, so to speak. Foolishly I figured the cost of the Lithium Batteries and the cost of an Alternator regulator suitable would be the bulk of it. And they were of course the biggest items, but it ended up all the ancillary stuff that compounded the price.

I also failed to recognize that the system I envisaged and what I would end up with were two quite different things.

I already had a Victron Multiplus Compact 12/1600/70- 16 Inverter Charger that would handle a Lithium charging profile, a Victron MPPT 100/15 and a little 80 watt solar panel to keep battery topped up while on a swing mooring.

Quite by chance on another forum I got to know a marine electrician offering advice who I eventually worked together with on installing the system, and without whom I would have made a complete hash of. So my advice is seriously consider working with a professional installer. I usually do most of my own maintenance/upgrades on the boat - but in this case, though expensive - I'm glad I had a professional because the system is complicated - there being so many options modern equipment provides.


Here are the initial components to the system: I installed an Arco Zeus external regulator controller (the previous one had given up and is what prompted the whole exercise including the lithium change over), and a positive side shunt with slow blow fuse (actually a fuse designed for electric motor). And also an alternator protector which absorbs an energy spike/dump from the alternator if the Lithium batteries suddenly decide to not accept any charge.

With the Arco Zeus I have a couple of points which people may consider.

Given that in most installations the Zeus wiring harness will require either an extension to the battery harness or the alternator harness. As I'd chosen to mount the regulator near the alternator the battery harness needed extending by around 5 meters. It's a good thing that instead of just having terminals on the regulator they provide ready made looms for the alternator and batteries with appropriate connectors. This means on the regulator side one cannot connect the wrong wires to the wrong terminals. However once the extensions are made to the 14 wires comprising the battery harness unless you have 14 different coloured wires that match the original it's easy to mismatch the connections. This could easily have been checked by having a connector Pin to colour code diagram so that a continuity test would be easy to ensure correct correlation - however no such diagram existed. Once the wires are extended all the joints are insulated and so there is no means to check each wire is going to be used for the correct purpose.(My installer got back to Arco and has since been given this information which I hope becomes part of their documentation as an extra check)

As it turned out, after installation the regulator showed a fault - "internal sensor error" which meant the regulator would only operate in "Limp Mode" providing a very low amount of field current in order to limp home on severely limited charge output. As we had no clue as to its cause after all the checks we could make, Arco agreed to send out a completely new unit without hassle, to New Zealand at no charge and very promptly considering how far it had to come which I thought was excellent service. I'm not sure if this would have been the case had I not employed a professional installer. This is perhaps another reason to consider a professional who puts a lot of business their way and has a reputation as an installer to oversee that it is no fault in the installation process.

I was very impressed watching the app show how the regulator was doing a balancing act between alternator temperature, the engine revs and charging requirements of the Lithium batteries, getting nearly 70 amps charge at around 1100rpm, cutting back if the alt temp got too high. As our alternator is rated at 120 amps, but a Chinese built Bosch knock off, we decided to be conservative in the settings with a max temp of 80C and I think a max output of 80 amps (which is probably close to its max continuous duty cycle). Either way with the temp. control - the Zeus pampers your alternator - because those Lithiums can really gulp charge.

Here's another little point with the Zeus harness. The recommendation is to have a shunt for the alternator and for the battery. But why are the alternator shunt wires included in the battery harness rather than in the alt. harness? Anyone who wasn't focusing would perhaps have extended the battery harness, pulled it all through a conduit, threaded that all the way to the battery, only to find out those two wires go to the alternator shunt and probably didn't need extending anyway.

One more thing, and these are only minor in the grand scheme of things, but those putting in Lithium batteries, especially if Victron components are used which are common, will no doubt see the value of a Victron smart shunt for accuracy and communication of data. However as others have duly noted, using the smart shunt to communicate to the Arco Zeus means either putting the sense wires directly on the same terminals as the main cables, or tapping new threads in it for connection of the sense wires which is going to void the warranty on the shunt, and possibly affect accuracy. In our case I already had a negative side shunt near the batteries for my BEP battery monitor so I just added the Zeus sense wires to that which means I keep the little BEP monitor, the Zeus gets its info and all is sweet. The values of this shunt were a little different than the standard 500A/50mV, so the Zeus programming needs to reflect the actual shunt used which in my case was 450A/50mV. I also added the smart shunt in the same line, because we needed that information for the Victron Cerbo GX. The functions of the GX in our case were primarily to manage and prioritize the three charge inputs, (alternator, shore, solar) through DVCC, (Distributed Voltage and Current Control) and to communicate with our apps via wifi or bluetooth whichever it is.

On a side issue, when the system was up and running we noticed that with the engine running, the solar input (negligible),and shore power also charging, that the system prioritized the alternator and the Inverter/Charger was idle even though the max Current input was set a 150 Amps. So the alternator was putting out around 70 Amps, yet the Inverter Charger was idle. We are still wondering why the two main charging inputs weren't working together to get up to say around 130 Amps cumulatively, if any one has any clues for why it behaved that way we would be very interested in hearing from you.

As far as the other components go here they are: As already mentioned a Victron Cerbo GX, Victron Smart Shunt, Victron BMS and Victron Battery Disconnect to manage two 330 Amp Victron Lithium Batteries. I had only envisaged one 330 A at first but later went for two of them. Here's why. Our previous 4 6Volt deep cycle LA batteries connected in series/parallel gave us a nominal 464 Amp capacity, yet to keep within the 50% discharge parameters for battery cycle life, meant we had a working capacity of 232 Amps when the batteries were new. They were 9 years old and failing. Just one Lithium 330 Amp battery discharged to 80% which still gives a very reasonable number of charge cycles and battery life for a lithium, gave us more capacity than the previous setup. (264Ah compared to 232Ah).

Yet two things persuaded me to add another 330Ah battery. First was the added components necessary to control the system and give lots of available information both on the boat and from anywhere else in the world where internet connection was possible, meant a greater investment. When I realized where the cost was going, it seemed a waste of money to put all that effort and expense to manage just one battery. I know it doesn't sound like economic sense, but in for a penny in for a pound.

The other reason is that the one battery looked lonely in the battery box. Two of them fitted perfectly with still less weight and space requirements than the previous four.

And now I have a system with a capacity of 528 Ah with Victron Remote Management that also gives me new options for monitoring the bilge pump, tanks, location, other alarms, remote switching of anything like a fridge or freezer, intrusion alarm, camera or whatever your imagination/needs require just about.

Also important to consider is the sometimes bad press, sometimes accurate assessment of Lithium power, insurance, local standards requirements for installation. People are adopting "drop in" Lithium batteries as an option. But have they considered beyond the "cheap" option? Insurance? Legality? In New Zealand it appears that if we have shore power provision wired into the boat charging Lithium batteries - then there must be a warning lamp or alarm in the system for an over charge, or over temperature warning. I'm a bit hazy on this, but apparently it is a condition of installing Lithium batteries properly if your boat is to gain its mains power certificate of fitness.

I had no idea when embarking on the project that I'd need a BMS for the Lithium batteries. I considered the "drop in" option and decided I wanted batteries that not only had an internal BMS system, but had Bluetooth built in for communication as well. This led me to the Victron Lithium which are pricey but give that peace of mind. Knowing that they had the internal Battery Management System I gave no consideration for an external BMS until my installer pointed out that the built in BMS only managed what was happening between cells in the one battery and each as an individual battery, but no such management could be exercised over a lithium battery bank (two or more batteries). And therefore the external BMS became yet another "must have" in the system.

Another thing I hadn't reckoned on.

On occasion I'd had to use my house bank to combine with a flat starter battery to get the engine going. A combiner master switch existed between the house and starter main switches for this purpose. Simple.

Not so with Lithium batteries. Apparently with Lithums and a flat starter Lead Acid battery, such is the strength of the current available to flood the starter battery that things could get mighty hot and it wasn't a good idea.

I still like the idea of using if necessary the house bank to get started.

What to do?

If anyone has a better idea I'd like to hear it. But what I came up with is this. The House/Starter system, like most boats uses a common negative. So if the start battery goes flat, disconnect the Start battery negative, and then use the combiner switch to power all the things the Start battery would normally supply, with the House battery. This protects the Start battery or anything else from blowing up. When the engine has started, (if diesel), it requires no other electrical input. Don't use high engine revs until the House/Starter combiner switch is again opened, and the negative battery connection replaced on the Starter battery otherwise damage to the Start battery alternator may result. (I should have said we run two alternators dedicated House alternator, and Start alternator).

I may be too pessimistic, but I like to consider what to do before it happens. With all the monitoring equipment now working will I ever be in a situation where I'm unaware of a flat starter battery?

Another bonus of this new system is with regards to communication on the boat. I now have a router providing wifi, internet connectivity, all the Victron components are either using bluetooth or wifi, plus my older Raymarine electronics only worked using NMEA 0183 network. However to add functionality to the various components of battery management, we have installed an NMEA 2000 backbone linking the Arco Zeus and the rest, which means when we need to upgrade our navigation electronics the basic network is there and we can add in the Cortex AIS, all the Navigation stuff and all the information from the various systems can be observed on the modern Multifunction Displays such as B&G, Raymarine or what have you.

Sorry for the eclectic nature of this long and probably boring post, but have just remembered another issue encountered in the commissioning of the system. While the boat was on shore charge, I sat at home watching things on the VRM app. I decided to switch the Inverter/Charger off remotely which worked fine. But on return to the boat when adding in the Zeus and other things we couldn't then get the Inv/Chger working again. It would show some fault. Consult with other knowledgeable people and they seemed to have come across the issue before, but had not been able to reproduce it.

It appears that with the Multiplus C unit a dipswitch option needed changing. My installer Mathew Duckett read up on the manual and altered the offending dip switch - problem solved.

Good work Mathew!
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Old 06-12-2024, 19:18   #2
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

I couldn't read all that
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Old 06-12-2024, 20:18   #3
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

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I couldn't read all that
I read the first paragraph the rest was anecdotal white noise and problems with his chosen gear
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Old 06-12-2024, 20:49   #4
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

I'm sure somebody out there would love that detailed onfo, seriously, good job.
It did get harder to comprehend for me personally, I got lost. The gist of all that keeps me thinking to just be happy with my 800ah LA batteries & lots of solar, kiss.
Thanks!
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Old 06-12-2024, 22:12   #5
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

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Originally Posted by Windpilot View Post
I'm sure somebody out there would love that detailed onfo, seriously, good job.
It did get harder to comprehend for me personally, I got lost. The gist of all that keeps me thinking to just be happy with my 800ah LA batteries & lots of solar, kiss.
Thanks!
Seriously why not convert when the time comes it sounds like you are already 90% of the way.
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Old 06-12-2024, 22:47   #6
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

Here's an image of the components which I ended up with. The latest addition was the Touch 50 Display which is hardwired to the Cerbo GX the brains of the whole thing. I realized that bluetooth or wifi is all well and good when everything's working, but if you lose that capability only hardwiring will restore it. Prior to this I'd been using wifi on a tablet connected to VRM, the remote monitoring portal to keep tabs.
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Old 07-12-2024, 00:01   #7
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kerry1 View Post
Here's an image of the components which I ended up with. The latest addition was the Touch 50 Display which is hardwired to the Cerbo GX the brains of the whole thing. I realized that bluetooth or wifi is all well and good when everything's working, but if you lose that capability only hardwiring will restore it. Prior to this I'd been using wifi on a tablet connected to VRM, the remote monitoring portal to keep tabs.
Looks like a great install with external regulation.

Here's the simplest one when the alternator is under 100 amps and still internally regulated
And yes it includes a lead based start battery and a dc2dc
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Old 07-12-2024, 03:33   #8
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

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Looks like a great install with external regulation.

Here's the simplest one when the alternator is under 100 amps and still internally regulated
And yes it includes a lead based start battery and a dc2dc
So if I'm understanding the diagram correctly, you have three charging sources, (possibly 4 as the solar option is blank), the engine alternator the shore powered charger and the start battery which top up the starter and from then on through the DC To DC charger to the Lithium battery. If the internal Lithium BMS stops any charge because of high temp, or low temp, or over voltage, the shock of inertial spike from the alternator is simply absorbed by the LA start battery. All loads can be supplied if necessary by the flick of the rotary mainswitch from house to start battery.

As we still have a Lead Acid start battery and a dedicated alternator for it, I wonder if at some time I can use or modify your system for supplementing the Lithium charging because my main limitation now is a lack of bulk charge because my dedicated house alternator is light for the amount of current the Lithium batteries can take and the capacity of my bank.
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Old 07-12-2024, 08:05   #9
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

Thank you Kerry1.

Some real pearls here.

Unless you have taken a deep dive into installing a LFP, house bank, you might not appreciate this sort of detail….

In the event of a start bank failure, (Firefly LA) I have a stern thruster bank that can be paralleled in via an ACR, to supplement or substitute a starting charge.

- evan
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Old 07-12-2024, 13:26   #10
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

Thanks for that.

Yes it's detailed and would not have made much sense to me at all 4 months ago. It's a pretty steep learning curve when contemplating a Lithium install, and still learning. What is "white noise" to some, may be of interest and even useful to others. I certainly hope so.
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Old 07-12-2024, 17:15   #11
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

Great post Kerry. Given that you decided to use an external BMS (not exactly necessary, the Cerbo along with a SmartShunt would do all the system level monitoring that you need and the internal BMS take care of each individual battery, unless you want charge management or other external BMS features) you could have bought individual cells for a lot less money than the Victron batteries. It would be interesting to know which BMS you chose.

Regarding the Zeus, what does it need a battery harness for? Can it not get all the battery information it needs via CanBUS from the Cerbo? We have a cat and our engine alternators are 12m and 18m away from our house bank - no way do I want to run harnesses all that way!
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Old 07-12-2024, 18:21   #12
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kerry1 View Post
As others have duly noted the subject has probably been done to death but here is my two cents worth on changing the house bank to Lithium.

My first comment would be to say that along with lots of reading on the subject as to how to wire up your setup and what components you need/want - it would be wise to check pricing in detail as well. Something I very much neglected and consequently blew my budget out of the water, so to speak. Foolishly I figured the cost of the Lithium Batteries and the cost of an Alternator regulator suitable would be the bulk of it. And they were of course the biggest items, but it ended up all the ancillary stuff that compounded the price.

I also failed to recognize that the system I envisaged and what I would end up with were two quite different things.

I already had a Victron Multiplus Compact 12/1600/70- 16 Inverter Charger that would handle a Lithium charging profile, a Victron MPPT 100/15 and a little 80 watt solar panel to keep battery topped up while on a swing mooring.

Quite by chance on another forum I got to know a marine electrician offering advice who I eventually worked together with on installing the system, and without whom I would have made a complete hash of. So my advice is seriously consider working with a professional installer. I usually do most of my own maintenance/upgrades on the boat - but in this case, though expensive - I'm glad I had a professional because the system is complicated - there being so many options modern equipment provides.


Here are the initial components to the system: I installed an Arco Zeus external regulator controller (the previous one had given up and is what prompted the whole exercise including the lithium change over), and a positive side shunt with slow blow fuse (actually a fuse designed for electric motor). And also an alternator protector which absorbs an energy spike/dump from the alternator if the Lithium batteries suddenly decide to not accept any charge.

With the Arco Zeus I have a couple of points which people may consider.

Given that in most installations the Zeus wiring harness will require either an extension to the battery harness or the alternator harness. As I'd chosen to mount the regulator near the alternator the battery harness needed extending by around 5 meters. It's a good thing that instead of just having terminals on the regulator they provide ready made looms for the alternator and batteries with appropriate connectors. This means on the regulator side one cannot connect the wrong wires to the wrong terminals. However once the extensions are made to the 14 wires comprising the battery harness unless you have 14 different coloured wires that match the original it's easy to mismatch the connections. This could easily have been checked by having a connector Pin to colour code diagram so that a continuity test would be easy to ensure correct correlation - however no such diagram existed. Once the wires are extended all the joints are insulated and so there is no means to check each wire is going to be used for the correct purpose.(My installer got back to Arco and has since been given this information which I hope becomes part of their documentation as an extra check)

As it turned out, after installation the regulator showed a fault - "internal sensor error" which meant the regulator would only operate in "Limp Mode" providing a very low amount of field current in order to limp home on severely limited charge output. As we had no clue as to its cause after all the checks we could make, Arco agreed to send out a completely new unit without hassle, to New Zealand at no charge and very promptly considering how far it had to come which I thought was excellent service. I'm not sure if this would have been the case had I not employed a professional installer. This is perhaps another reason to consider a professional who puts a lot of business their way and has a reputation as an installer to oversee that it is no fault in the installation process.

I was very impressed watching the app show how the regulator was doing a balancing act between alternator temperature, the engine revs and charging requirements of the Lithium batteries, getting nearly 70 amps charge at around 1100rpm, cutting back if the alt temp got too high. As our alternator is rated at 120 amps, but a Chinese built Bosch knock off, we decided to be conservative in the settings with a max temp of 80C and I think a max output of 80 amps (which is probably close to its max continuous duty cycle). Either way with the temp. control - the Zeus pampers your alternator - because those Lithiums can really gulp charge.

Here's another little point with the Zeus harness. The recommendation is to have a shunt for the alternator and for the battery. But why are the alternator shunt wires included in the battery harness rather than in the alt. harness? Anyone who wasn't focusing would perhaps have extended the battery harness, pulled it all through a conduit, threaded that all the way to the battery, only to find out those two wires go to the alternator shunt and probably didn't need extending anyway.

One more thing, and these are only minor in the grand scheme of things, but those putting in Lithium batteries, especially if Victron components are used which are common, will no doubt see the value of a Victron smart shunt for accuracy and communication of data. However as others have duly noted, using the smart shunt to communicate to the Arco Zeus means either putting the sense wires directly on the same terminals as the main cables, or tapping new threads in it for connection of the sense wires which is going to void the warranty on the shunt, and possibly affect accuracy. In our case I already had a negative side shunt near the batteries for my BEP battery monitor so I just added the Zeus sense wires to that which means I keep the little BEP monitor, the Zeus gets its info and all is sweet. The values of this shunt were a little different than the standard 500A/50mV, so the Zeus programming needs to reflect the actual shunt used which in my case was 450A/50mV. I also added the smart shunt in the same line, because we needed that information for the Victron Cerbo GX. The functions of the GX in our case were primarily to manage and prioritize the three charge inputs, (alternator, shore, solar) through DVCC, (Distributed Voltage and Current Control) and to communicate with our apps via wifi or bluetooth whichever it is.

On a side issue, when the system was up and running we noticed that with the engine running, the solar input (negligible),and shore power also charging, that the system prioritized the alternator and the Inverter/Charger was idle even though the max Current input was set a 150 Amps. So the alternator was putting out around 70 Amps, yet the Inverter Charger was idle. We are still wondering why the two main charging inputs weren't working together to get up to say around 130 Amps cumulatively, if any one has any clues for why it behaved that way we would be very interested in hearing from you.

As far as the other components go here they are: As already mentioned a Victron Cerbo GX, Victron Smart Shunt, Victron BMS and Victron Battery Disconnect to manage two 330 Amp Victron Lithium Batteries. I had only envisaged one 330 A at first but later went for two of them. Here's why. Our previous 4 6Volt deep cycle LA batteries connected in series/parallel gave us a nominal 464 Amp capacity, yet to keep within the 50% discharge parameters for battery cycle life, meant we had a working capacity of 232 Amps when the batteries were new. They were 9 years old and failing. Just one Lithium 330 Amp battery discharged to 80% which still gives a very reasonable number of charge cycles and battery life for a lithium, gave us more capacity than the previous setup. (264Ah compared to 232Ah).

Yet two things persuaded me to add another 330Ah battery. First was the added components necessary to control the system and give lots of available information both on the boat and from anywhere else in the world where internet connection was possible, meant a greater investment. When I realized where the cost was going, it seemed a waste of money to put all that effort and expense to manage just one battery. I know it doesn't sound like economic sense, but in for a penny in for a pound.

The other reason is that the one battery looked lonely in the battery box. Two of them fitted perfectly with still less weight and space requirements than the previous four.

And now I have a system with a capacity of 528 Ah with Victron Remote Management that also gives me new options for monitoring the bilge pump, tanks, location, other alarms, remote switching of anything like a fridge or freezer, intrusion alarm, camera or whatever your imagination/needs require just about.

Also important to consider is the sometimes bad press, sometimes accurate assessment of Lithium power, insurance, local standards requirements for installation. People are adopting "drop in" Lithium batteries as an option. But have they considered beyond the "cheap" option? Insurance? Legality? In New Zealand it appears that if we have shore power provision wired into the boat charging Lithium batteries - then there must be a warning lamp or alarm in the system for an over charge, or over temperature warning. I'm a bit hazy on this, but apparently it is a condition of installing Lithium batteries properly if your boat is to gain its mains power certificate of fitness.

I had no idea when embarking on the project that I'd need a BMS for the Lithium batteries. I considered the "drop in" option and decided I wanted batteries that not only had an internal BMS system, but had Bluetooth built in for communication as well. This led me to the Victron Lithium which are pricey but give that peace of mind. Knowing that they had the internal Battery Management System I gave no consideration for an external BMS until my installer pointed out that the built in BMS only managed what was happening between cells in the one battery and each as an individual battery, but no such management could be exercised over a lithium battery bank (two or more batteries). And therefore the external BMS became yet another "must have" in the system.

Another thing I hadn't reckoned on.

On occasion I'd had to use my house bank to combine with a flat starter battery to get the engine going. A combiner master switch existed between the house and starter main switches for this purpose. Simple.

Not so with Lithium batteries. Apparently with Lithums and a flat starter Lead Acid battery, such is the strength of the current available to flood the starter battery that things could get mighty hot and it wasn't a good idea.

I still like the idea of using if necessary the house bank to get started.

What to do?

If anyone has a better idea I'd like to hear it. But what I came up with is this. The House/Starter system, like most boats uses a common negative. So if the start battery goes flat, disconnect the Start battery negative, and then use the combiner switch to power all the things the Start battery would normally supply, with the House battery. This protects the Start battery or anything else from blowing up. When the engine has started, (if diesel), it requires no other electrical input. Don't use high engine revs until the House/Starter combiner switch is again opened, and the negative battery connection replaced on the Starter battery otherwise damage to the Start battery alternator may result. (I should have said we run two alternators dedicated House alternator, and Start alternator).

I may be too pessimistic, but I like to consider what to do before it happens. With all the monitoring equipment now working will I ever be in a situation where I'm unaware of a flat starter battery?

Another bonus of this new system is with regards to communication on the boat. I now have a router providing wifi, internet connectivity, all the Victron components are either using bluetooth or wifi, plus my older Raymarine electronics only worked using NMEA 0183 network. However to add functionality to the various components of battery management, we have installed an NMEA 2000 backbone linking the Arco Zeus and the rest, which means when we need to upgrade our navigation electronics the basic network is there and we can add in the Cortex AIS, all the Navigation stuff and all the information from the various systems can be observed on the modern Multifunction Displays such as B&G, Raymarine or what have you.

Sorry for the eclectic nature of this long and probably boring post, but have just remembered another issue encountered in the commissioning of the system. While the boat was on shore charge, I sat at home watching things on the VRM app. I decided to switch the Inverter/Charger off remotely which worked fine. But on return to the boat when adding in the Zeus and other things we couldn't then get the Inv/Chger working again. It would show some fault. Consult with other knowledgeable people and they seemed to have come across the issue before, but had not been able to reproduce it.

It appears that with the Multiplus C unit a dipswitch option needed changing. My installer Mathew Duckett read up on the manual and altered the offending dip switch - problem solved.

Good work Mathew!
I have the same system on a Hinckley42. One thing that may help is that the victim controller has an extra port that can connect to the starting battery. This the Victron can charge the starting battery
This summer the engine alternator failed and the start battery drained. The Yanmar actually requires electric current for all the sensors. Once the start battery went out the engine stopped. The Zeus of course was running and charging the house batteries. Had this capable been installed I would never had known the alternator was bad
At my yard they are in fact taking off the engine alternator and relying totally on the Zeus
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Old 08-12-2024, 07:27   #13
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

OP: Excellent post! You and your installer have created an optimum system IMHO. One thing you did not mention: Are you aware of the Victron systems ability to prioritize wind or solar generation, if fitted, over shore power? Here is a short YT introduction:
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Old 09-12-2024, 03:37   #14
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CharlieJ View Post
OP: Excellent post! You and your installer have created an optimum system IMHO. One thing you did not mention: Are you aware of the Victron systems ability to prioritize wind or solar generation, if fitted, over shore power? Here is a short YT introduction:
Thank you.

Are you referring to DVCC?
We have had an issue with that. The House bank was down several percent, so we had solar going in, just a few watts, then we started the engine and the alternator through the Zeus was cranking out about 70 Amps, (Max Current for all inputs, was set at 150 Amps. Then we connected shore power and expected another 60 or so Amps from the Inverter/Charger, but it never kicked in like we expected. Is that because it the "Sustain" mode? I don't remember seeing that on the screen.

Thanks for your input.
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Old 10-12-2024, 02:53   #15
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Re: My Experience With Lithium Change Over.

Kerry1
Thank you for sharing. Changing over to LFP is for sure not a thing that should be done without gaining an understanding on how these still pretty new batteries are working and that they are vastly different from the lead things that there are 100 years+ of experience to fall back on.

Just nine months ago, a scientific paper was published that in depth explains aging characteristics vs. SOC and temperature, both cycle and calendar aging.

It aligns with earlier published papers and lectures from Prof Jeff Dahn about the same things for NMC batteries and of course the latest paper concentrating on LFP batteries is from his laboratory and shows that even this giant researcher has given advice regarding LFP batteries that now have to be slightly expanded and tweaked a bit.

Open source and available here:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/1...11/ad6cbd/meta

What I am trying to say is that it is first now that these batteries are starting to be better understood and perhaps not surprisingly since experience beats predictions and theory. Earlier claims of cycle and life expectancy in general are meeting reality and the divergence between theory and reality must be understood and adjusted in new designs and better operational practises.

That the battery and electronics industry has to produce both sellable products and give recommendations including sales pitches is just the way most industries work, after all the purpose with a company is to make money.

I guess your system ended up being both much more expensive to buy and very time-consuming to install.

It really does not matter what colour your boxes have or what brand they are flying but for sure they are very happy to sell you yet another thing and of course it should be interconnected with all their other boxes and preferably give you a lot of bells and whistles so it looks very advanced with graphs and very " detailed " information.

Part of the " premium " feel marketing strategy that goes into everything from kitchen appliances to cars and even air travel.
And why even the box the product is delivered in today must be designed and branded.

Enough about that, it is the present situation, and a bit sad that the industry seems to have forgotten about basics and chosen to adopt earlier products rather than a total redesign.

Let me start with your choice to double the capacity of your bank. That is coming from lead thinking.

LFP is something else and what is good thinking in lead is sometimes even counterproductive with LFP.
This doubled capacity compared with your needs will if not managed well lead to you running both your batteries at a higher SOC compared to your initial idea of just having one.

If your very complicated system can run both batteries in the range for instance 20-80% SOC with an occasional charge to 100% for cell balancing I think you will get the optimum expected life out of your investment and it is a good thing if you believe that the additional cost is offset in overall longer life and even something that will give you a lower unit-cost for the energy you cycle in the system.

If you have a situation where you will have both batteries almost always at 100% and occasionally down to 50% I think the opposite is true, you now have an oversized system resulting in a higher cost per cycled energy unit.

I think it is paramount to understand that the difference here is that you operate the same system in different ways and that this will affect the system long term.


I do not accuse anyone of deliberately misleading anyone, it is just the situation with installers and resellers going by what is recommended by the producers selling the new things and of course want us to buy their products.

Installers of course get some 30% kickback from recommending a certain product and system and this is a part of their business models for installers and producers.

The only really good solid information source not being academic articles and papers is the site Nordkyn.

https://nordkyndesign.com/charging-m...battery-banks/

Eric Bretscher must have put an enormous amount of work into understanding LFP batteries and writing such insightful articles.

Until the industry does the same there is only one way to navigate this jungle and it is to get as much knowledge as you possibly can or spend your small fortune on a new system that might be disappointing long term.

Only by understanding you can evaluate and verify that your chosen system can and will be able to do what you want as well as being sized in a smart way.
When that is said you must also be able to verify that the system will not do things you do not want and is negative to the service life and therefore long term costs.

Safety is another issue and it goes without saying that this parameter can never be overlooked, here it is a good thing to only choose very high-quality products, for instance, fuses that never ever will let you down. These only need to work once but then they must work!

I hope your system will serve you well for decades and a lot of happy sailing!
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