Signs of life test & Putting motor back in

With help from my friend Victor, got the Victron components wired up together and tested. All seems to be working fine.

We also got the motor re-mounted and connected to the shaft. There is a pretty significant wobble there so we’ll need to go through the alignment process.

Cleared out engine bay

In preparation for the new Victron batteries and other components, per plan, I took time to clear out the engine bay. Had to put in a piece of 2×4 to keep PSS bellows pressurized and avoid sinking the boat.

Time to move propulsion to Lithium

After a lot of thinking (and some $ saving) I’m finally ready to rip out my gel battery pack and jump to Lithium. The AGM batteries are now pretty old and lost quite a bit of capacity and power. The house battery is even older and can’t carry water pump and head flush well without severely dimming the lights.

The propulsion system setup I have now is something like this

I’ll keep the fuse, relay, and all the components of the motor but replace the rest with a Victron-based system so it will look something like this

This new setup gives me a lot of advantages:

  • More power to the engine
  • Bigger capacity/range – 300Ah vs. 182Ah
  • Less weight
  • Inverter
  • N2K interface / better software
  • Simpler system: house and engine off the same battery bank

Will be super fun to put this all in and configure it. Some of the components have already arrived. It’s a pain to get those giant new batteries onboard. Thanks to my dock neighbor Lauren who gave me a hand.