Sailboat Upgrade: Yanmar, Balmar, Renogy, Noco Lithium

[goldenstate]

Offered for general interest:

I recently (before I appreciated the value of this forum) waded through the process of upgrading the power system on my 1990 Ericson 32 sailboat. I swapped out my inherited lead acid batteries for lithium ones and am in the process of adding the solar system component. I think there is value in thinking of the entire system as an ecosystem as opposed to individual components. Much of what I learned in the process was gleaned from Jeff Cote of Pacific Yacht Systems and Rodd "MaineSail" / Compass Marine / MarineHowTo Collins.

I write about my efforts at triple dub sailboatrefit dot com.

Forensic Analysis

System Design Factors

Product Selections

Installation Costs

 

[svsagres]

Nicely done. I’m doing something similar in concept on our Ericson 27, but with a DIY LiFePO4 battery (& REC BMS), a Wakespeed regulator, and everything else victron. That said, we’ll have 460AHr for our house battery and a 2000W Victron inverter/charger.

 

[willo]

Ok this is getting silly. Ericson 46 here.
My house pack is 915Ah 24v LifePO4. I'm using orion BMS to talk CANBUS to my victron gear all integrated with a Cerbo GX. Next upgrade is to move from 12v alt to a 24v alt with a WS500. Quattro 5000 inverter charger, 3x MPPTs, 24/12-70A DC-DC for powering house systems and a 24/12-30A DC-DC charger to top up my 12v start/windlass batteries.

 

[Shinebox]

Ok this is getting silly. Ericson 46 here.
My house pack is 915Ah 24v LifePO4. I'm using orion BMS to talk CANBUS to my victron gear all integrated with a Cerbo GX. Next upgrade is to move from 12v alt to a 24v alt with a WS500. Quattro 5000 inverter charger, 3x MPPTs, 24/12-70A DC-DC for powering house systems and a 24/12-30A DC-DC charger to top up my 12v start/windlass batteries.

That’s an insane bank. Mine is 540ah @12v and I have one 100watt panel. No issues with capacity on a 48’ S&S custom sailboat.

 

[willo]

It provides a nice power budget for A/C, Scuba tank fills, electric cooking and all my nerd stuff. (Seriously I've seen my wife go from hating life to really enjoying her time with a little air conditioning!)

 

[Shinebox]

Lots of stuff! Are you living aboard?

 

[willo]

Setting it up for WFB - Work from Boat so I can bop back and forth and take advantage of remote work!

Back to the topic at hand... 50ah batteries are really small. I'm guessing that you're going from 100Ah lead acid? Be aware that most LifePO4 batteries are rated for 1C - so max charge/discharge rate on those is probably 50 Amps. I'll leave it to you to go look at specs on those cells.