New lithium system at CAID

After 5 years of planning and implementig I can finally say the new lithium system at Caid is finally ready. Below are photos of the Lifepo4 installation on our SWAN 431 S/Y CAID. It is designed and implemented to meet and partly exceed the European ISO and American ABYC standards (there's one extra safety layer) on lithiums on boats.

PIC1 is the new main electrical panel of the boat. The Victron display is attached to a Victron Cerbo GX and gathers in real time all electrical information and also other information such as temperatures, tank status, etc. The battery management panel turns on the boat's main power using the motorized BEP switches in the battery compartment and selects the energy source as main battery, backup battery or lead acid battery only. The lead battery is there to take care of load dump in emergency cut off.

In PIC2 are the the installations I made behind the electrical panel.

In PIC3 is the battery pack, yellow is the Winston cells (13.3 VDC / 440AH) and green is the backup battery pack (160AH). At the top you can see the grey communications and internet junction box (described in another post). At the front bottom you can see the fuses and below them the motorized red-button battery switches. To their right are the blue Victron MPPT controllers for the various solar cells and to their right are the yellow-button BlueSea solenoids (500A emergency switches) on the charge and drain sides. For example, if the battery overcharges despite all auxiliary measures, the BMS will open the bipolar CHARGE solenoid. In this case, the consumption side remains active and the cruise can continue. If a really serious fault occurs then the BMS will disconnect the whole boat completely. However, no faults of any kind have occurred in 5 years so I consider the system to be reliable. For example, I can use a 2kw water cooker with batteries via an inverter. The batteries are usually fully charged after half an hour of use after a typical one night stay at anchor. The engine is a new 50hp BETA with a 180A Balmar charger with programmable voltage regulator.

I'm happy to answer any questions if needed!

Main 12VDC panel

Behind the main panel

Lifepo4 batteries, fuses and battery switches

Thank you for posting this great instalement. It re-energizes our own lithium project again with renewed enthusiasm. We are close to making the decision especially for reasons of a faster charge capacity rate. We mostly rely on solar power to charge as liveaboard in the tropics on our 431. We also need more sollar pannels, we lost some.

Your installation looks to make the optimum use of the space.in the aft cabin and so neatly manageable. And the new switch panel....wonderful modernized. The cabling,...... like a dream. It is really inspiring to us to also do some serious redesign instead of more organic growth, although all worked good or the last 7+ years.

We could also build a battery box and management situation in the aftcabin after some re aranging. Another option would be in the existing battery box in the salon, under the floor. We could go to 400 or max 600amp that is more then enough and easier to instal. Downside cooller in cold climate and lower to the water line (just like our bateries are now).

You encouraged questions, so we have some

1 What was your main reason to choose the aft cabin, just to have it all in one place? We thought so too but we could also think it would be easier to use the battery box under the main cabinfloor, asuming this was the oriignal place.

2 You speek of an extra ABYC safety measure, is this the extra battey switches per battery?

3 You build a backup bank.Is this because of remotly managebility or other reasons too besides the obvious 'backup' 

4 You speak of emergency cut off and a lead battery to take care of the load dump. I looked at a lot of Victron instalation ideas but not encoutered that option. Do I miss something? 

Maybe we have some more questions in the future, if we choose litium.

Again,what an awsome improvement and piece of installation art, very Impressive.

Greetings,

Martin and Henny

Snow 431#3

Dear martin & Henny,

we are very interested in following your project, so, please keep us posted with info and photos!

I have installed 3x 200Ah LifePo4 (Victron) batteries onboard 47/069 Vanessa, so I have occupied just one of the old original three GRP boxes (the other one as are now perfect storage for spare parts etc.), and doubled the alternator (I have an old Balmar 165 Ah and a new Bosch 100 Ah, working in parallel, with an external regulator, so, complete redundancy if one of the two alternator, for any reason, stop working).

On top of charging my batteries very quickly with engine/alternators is that even solar panels (I have two "flying" solar panels, 180 W each, which I put on deck when anchored) are more efficient than they were with lead batteries, so, when I am at anchor and with my  two solar panels on deck, I have all the energy I need to have two refrigerator working 24/7, and at sunset my batteries are  still fully charged. Not bad!

Looking forward to hearing from you about your new project!

matteo (47/069 Vanessa)

Hi, after a few requests, I'm going to explain a little bit about the logic and components of our lithium system.

Below is a picture of the structure of the system, I have created it mainly for my own use with my own description methods. It is a logical architecture diagram in nature, describing the system's operation at the top level. The operation of the individual subsystems is described in their own separate figures, whose names I have marked here in red. For ease of reading, I have drawn all the devices in the picture approximately as they appear in nature.

Despite my ICT background, I did not implement the system control as bus-based, relying instead on analogue control, which is easier to analyse and almost all switches and relays can also be controlled manually if necessary. Although the system has worked very reliably I know that sometimes I have to solve a busy problem with it when I am wet, cold and tired! When the sun is shining there are usually no problems.

The right hand side of the picture shows the rules (effectively the cell voltage limits) that the BMS or some other system uses to control the system. The red and black thick lines represent cables of 50..90mm2 and the thinner ones represent cables of less than 50mm2. The grey lines represent various types of control cables with detailed wiring etc. described in their own separate diagrams.

Hi Martin & Henny, sorry for my late reply. Been busy.

1. The LA-batteries were originally installed at the same place at the aft cabin where the new lifepo4 ones are now. I suppose this location was chosen by Nautor as our 431:s became nose heavy according to the late Professor. It propably happened because the laminators at Nautor did not strictly follow the S&S instructions but added as much fibreglass mat as they thought necessary to strenghten the entire hull of the boat enough. Quite typical finnish thinking at that time, why follow the instructions as *WE* know it better.

2. Yes, the extra battery switches and also those 100A Victron Battery Protects for the different circuits (AlwaysOn, Switched and also for the Lewmar 54 Electric  genoa winches, not shown in this pic). There's also more protection at the lower level subsystems.

3. Yes, the backup bank is simply for the backup. Never been in use and I will install newer and smaller cells to replace the current green ones as they fit very tightly. But it is good to have and the extra cost is minimal.

4. Yes, the load dump is not described in the Victron litterature - perhaps they are sure it'll never happen with their architecture, which is among the best solutions available. (BTW I've read that Victron is not using the state of the art Winston cells anymore but much cheaper CALB ones in their LFP batteries).

At the CruisersForum there's a lot talk about how to handle the load dump properly. I've also installed the Sterling Alternator Protector and could leave the LA out totally or replace it with a small dropin LFP. According the rules (ABYC and ISO) it its not a good practice to connect different battery chemistries together. But the risk in the current system is minimal as the state of the LA is also controlled by the system all the time and I planned to replace the LA always after 2..3 Years of use. I've not decided how to proceed with this matter.

I'm happy to answer more questions. Have a nice cruise there!

Hi Ilmari and Matteo,

Thank you both for sharing your electrical installations in detail. Once we make our refits, we will share back. With photos.

BTW, our 431, has additional lead embedded in the floor of the aft cabin, glassed in, next to the Neco autopilot. Apparently, she was nose down too, I hope because of many extra layers of glass :-)

Now we are again a bit nose down, but that is of the many meters of anchor chain. We do bring the anchor inside when sailing long-distance, you can see the bow laying higher in the water.