Greetings All,
I've been doing quite a lot of reading around Lithium (LiFePO4 specifically) as it relates to boats and marine use. I feel pretty comfortable with how the technology differs from Lead Acid, the gotchas, design requirements, etc but I am hoping someone can offer a little guidance on charging and storage of LiFePO4 banks.
I have a smaller sailboat (new to me) that currently has a 460AH house bank (4 x 6v Golf Cart Batteries), they are in serviceable condition but some of the wiring on the boat is, shall we say, questionable. The battery charger also went out on me so I'm looking at installing a new charger at minimum, but may do a partial or full refit of the electrical system while I'm at it. The boat currently has ~300w of solar, and I'm looking to expand that to around 500-600w, also have a 2500w generator we can run if/when needed.
Lithium is attractive as I could get more total capacity, and a LOT more usable capacity, in about 1/2 the space - and since 2 of the 4 current batteries are not in a great location that is extremely attractive. The boat is kept at a marina w/ shore power, the vast majority of the time we're taking her out for either a day, or a 2-3 day cruise. Looking at probably two 280AH 12v packs in parallel for 560AH of Lithium if I went that route.
So the big question I have is, my understanding is LiFePO4 does much better if stored at lower charge values (50-60%?) being the boat will be sitting at the dock w/ solar and shore power the vast majority of the time, are there any options out there that would allow for the 'normal' profile to charge the batteries to say 50 or 60%, but with the option to change to a 'going out' profile that would increase that to 90-100% ?
For what it's worth I'm leaning towards installing Victron equipment (MultiPlus, MPPT Solar Controllers, Smart Shunt, Cerbo GX, etc) and the boat will have network connectivity at the marina. I've poked around in the Victron documents a little and just haven't been able to confirm if there is the ability to create profiles like that or not. It would be nice to just bring up the web portal on my phone the day before we're going out and switch from "storage" to "use" vs having to modify all the charging parameters manually every time. Certainly I could just leave the bank at 60% (~330AH) all the time (unless I know in advance we're gonna go out for like a week long trip) and still have more usable AH capacity than what I have now, but easily being able to swap back and forth would be ideal.
I'm not married to Victron (yet) if there's another solution that would offer that kind of functionality.
Thanks in advance for any help!
Matt
I've been doing quite a lot of reading around Lithium (LiFePO4 specifically) as it relates to boats and marine use. I feel pretty comfortable with how the technology differs from Lead Acid, the gotchas, design requirements, etc but I am hoping someone can offer a little guidance on charging and storage of LiFePO4 banks.
I have a smaller sailboat (new to me) that currently has a 460AH house bank (4 x 6v Golf Cart Batteries), they are in serviceable condition but some of the wiring on the boat is, shall we say, questionable. The battery charger also went out on me so I'm looking at installing a new charger at minimum, but may do a partial or full refit of the electrical system while I'm at it. The boat currently has ~300w of solar, and I'm looking to expand that to around 500-600w, also have a 2500w generator we can run if/when needed.
Lithium is attractive as I could get more total capacity, and a LOT more usable capacity, in about 1/2 the space - and since 2 of the 4 current batteries are not in a great location that is extremely attractive. The boat is kept at a marina w/ shore power, the vast majority of the time we're taking her out for either a day, or a 2-3 day cruise. Looking at probably two 280AH 12v packs in parallel for 560AH of Lithium if I went that route.
So the big question I have is, my understanding is LiFePO4 does much better if stored at lower charge values (50-60%?) being the boat will be sitting at the dock w/ solar and shore power the vast majority of the time, are there any options out there that would allow for the 'normal' profile to charge the batteries to say 50 or 60%, but with the option to change to a 'going out' profile that would increase that to 90-100% ?
For what it's worth I'm leaning towards installing Victron equipment (MultiPlus, MPPT Solar Controllers, Smart Shunt, Cerbo GX, etc) and the boat will have network connectivity at the marina. I've poked around in the Victron documents a little and just haven't been able to confirm if there is the ability to create profiles like that or not. It would be nice to just bring up the web portal on my phone the day before we're going out and switch from "storage" to "use" vs having to modify all the charging parameters manually every time. Certainly I could just leave the bank at 60% (~330AH) all the time (unless I know in advance we're gonna go out for like a week long trip) and still have more usable AH capacity than what I have now, but easily being able to swap back and forth would be ideal.
I'm not married to Victron (yet) if there's another solution that would offer that kind of functionality.
Thanks in advance for any help!
Matt