This is the first question I’ve seen that asks what to do with excess energy…
From George Anderson, C387 Sunlife, Gulfport Florida
I am in the midst of some systems upgrades and improvements on my C387 and put this out to the group. I am definitely adding solar panels and Blue Sky MPPT controllers are my preference in part due to of all of their products I have purchase over the last two boats they have given not any problems, their customer service is great and they are made in the US in colorado.
The wind generator a Rutland 1200 delivers 3 phase AC ( an advantage in having the ability to run smaller gauge wire for the arch to the controller )and comes with their own MPPT controller which is capable of handling an additional Solar input as well as quiet ( one of my dock mates has one
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I’m sure many know this trick and issue but the boat next to mine didn’t so I thought I would post it.
The symptom started with their Xantrex Inverter having trouble starting. It would simply shut down as soon as it looked like it was beginning to start. The battery monitor on the panel really showed the problem – a DC voltage of 12.2 volts on fully charged batteries – not enough for the Xantrex to work. Though the problem was first recognized as the Xantrex not working, there would ultimately be other problems showing up as well with electronics not working or the engine not starting.
Using a digital volt meter, I could show him that the voltage from the battery terminals was 12.9 volts simply by putting the red lead on the positive terminal and the black on the negative terminal. What was not obvious to the captain
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Thought I’d share a scary experience. I was jarred awake just prior to 5 AM by our aft carbon monoxide detector alarming. There was an odd pungent smell, and even odder sound. The sound was kind of like a cross between crackling and chattering high pitch. I quickly vented the boat, and started looking for the source of the smell and sound. I eliminated an oil filled electric heater, and eventually isolated the sound to my battery compartment. I found the starboard MK Deka 8A4D AGM battery quite hot, gassing, with visible rapid bubbling in the caps. I immediately shut off the charger, vacated the boat and gave the batteries a couple hours to cool down before removing any cables fearing a spark.
It was very fortunate that I was on the boat, and able to interrupt a thermal run-away of the AGM battery. While AGM battery manufacturers
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When my original 40 amp Charles Charger quit working, I installed a Xantrex TrueCharge2 60 amp charger to better deal with my larger than original house battery bank. In the process of doing this, along with help from other members of the group, I realized that there was more to the process than I originally planned. Here is the resulting issue list that one should consider before getting into this project:
Upgrading the charger will probably mean upgrading the battery cables from the charger to the batteries. Mine were originally #4 but the 60 amp charger required fishing #1 cable. This makes a huge difference to the complexity and cost of the project and may have discouraged my installation of the larger charger in the first place.
Newer chargers require fishing a new wire for the battery temperature sensor. Compared to fishing larger electrical cable, this was nothing.
Expect the
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To check condition of any moderate-to-high current leads/connections, I like the measure-voltage-drop method. Eg: at battery terminal[s], put one vm lead on battery terminal itself & other lead on wire or connecting [crimped?] lug; do this while heavy charge/current is flowing. Any more than maybe 0.1 volt = time to fix/clean/tighten.
Can do same type of test over entire cable as long as you can rig a long [thin ok] voltmeter lead to charger, but you’d need to check allowable drop [maybe 3%?] to know what is acceptable.
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