Over the past month, Magnus has been working on upgrading our electrical system. It started last year when he ordered a new lithium battery bank, which didn’t arrive until April. In the meantime he has been collecting Battery Management System (BMS) devices, DC/DC devices and tools to manage the wiring in preparation for the installation. So now our house bank of batteries is 400 Ah instead of 160 Ah, which we hope will be enough when coupled with charge from our solar panels and the hyrdogenerator.
The prior house bank is in perfectly good condition, so we have moved it over to replace the batteries for the furling system. There were 200 Ah lead batteries there before, so with 160 Ah Lithium we actually have more charge available, since they can be used to a lower level of capacity than the lead batteries can be used.
Additionally, we now have a dedicated start battery (Lead) which is used only to start the engine. Previously, the engine started from the house bank. So what is all that electricity for? First and foremost it is to keep our navigational equipment running – the chart plotters, radios, radar, auto pilot, lights etc. that we use while on a passage. After that we have comfort items that need to be charged – think refrigerator, cell phones and the like. Not to be forgotten are the big consumers – our new watermaker, our washing machine and even a little induction hotplate that we will try out when we have a lot of power in the batteries. We will be testing all of them individually to see how much power they draw, so we know what we can safely use.
It helps to have an electrical engineer onboard!