Tag: propulsion

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Finished wiring DC circuit

With help from my friend Viktar, the final motor wiring and remaining DC components were connected and tested. Batter charger / inverter is in place, 48V to 12V circuit for main DC panel is in place, batteries are charging, motor is hooked up. Was finally able to remove the last remaining old battery – house. Now the boat is 100% on the Victron Lithium-based system.

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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.