Comments on: Deception Pass

By: Kevin McLaughlin

Kevin McLaughlin — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 08:48:00 +0000

http://www.balqon.com/online-store/#!/12-Volt-5-kWhr/p/45284624/category=12286436 links to the 12 volt battery, which has integral bms
http://www.balqon.com/balqon-battery-cells/ These are the indidual cells, but to you will need to have a bms to maintain the charge balance between the cells. Tricky. They have a minimum order, a little bit more than I needed.

By: Kevin McLaughlin

Kevin McLaughlin — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 07:55:00 +0000

The leading US lithium battery maker is Genasun, they are the MIT commercial group. I am looking up my notes from last year on some promising Chinese lithiums using the safer phosphate chemistry, distributed from California, that I nearly bought but fitting them into a sailboat compartment was too difficult. More to follow.

By: Kevin McLaughlin

Kevin McLaughlin — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 07:45:00 +0000

In reply to Laura Domela. I have studied the battery chemistry issue pretty thoroughly. The typical shelf/service life of the current crop of chinese lithium batteries is six years. That is what the early adopters are reporting. The number of charge cycles is essentialy irrelevant. Improvement is on the upswing, but the other route is to buy US at a much greater cost. (The MIT produced battery). Heat exposure seems to be the problem amongst the Caribbean cruisers using the first generation of chinese lithiums. Warm climate, warm engine compartments, etc.

By: eheffa

eheffa — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 00:38:00 +0000

In reply to Laura Domela. Thank you. -evan

By: Laura Domela

Laura Domela — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 18:30:00 +0000

In reply to eheffa.

We got them from a very helpful company called…(Kevin’s looking it up now)…. https://www.emarineinc.com/.
Direct link to the Kyocera panels: https://www.emarineinc.com/Kyocera-260-Watt-Solar-Panel-Fixed-Frame-KU260-6MCA

By: eheffa

eheffa — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 17:58:00 +0000

May I ask where you got the 260W panels from?

-evan

By: Laura Domela

Laura Domela — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 17:49:00 +0000

In reply to Kevin McLaughlin. We are aware of the cost issues, but what have you heard about shelf life? From everything we know, lithiums last WAY longer than lead acid batteries....

By: Kevin McLaughlin

Kevin McLaughlin — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 06:29:00 +0000

In reply to Laura Domela. I looked at the lithium option very seriously, but I am sittting on the sidelines until some shelf life/ cost issues are resolved.

By: Laura Domela

Laura Domela — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 19:16:00 +0000

In reply to Kevin McLaughlin. Not yet, Kevin. We currently have four 6V 220ah AGMs and I think we're going to upgrade to 500 or 600ah of lithium. (!!!)

By: eheffa

eheffa — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 13:57:00 +0000

Very interesting.

We had to replace our 4 x 300 Amp/h 6V AGM
house batteries on our Nordic Tug 37, as they were worn out and ready for retirement. We replaced them with 4 x 260 Amp/h AGM’s thinking that that would be plenty of capacity but have found that it still isn’t quite enough reserve in the winter with the Wallas running all the time. We only want to get down to 50% draw at most. (This is
despite frugal use of power with all LED lighting etc.)

So we are adding another 2 of the same AGM’s to give us 6 x 260 Amp/h (6V) for ~ 390 Amp/h of real 12 V working capacity (50% of the 12V nominal capacity. That should help, but it does bug me a little to have all these obligatory loads like the furnace and fridge/freezer drawing us down and needing to run the generator daily.

Lithiums would be great but the price of admission is a little too daunting for my taste.

We installed solar on our Airstream once upon a time as well. It’s wonderful not needing a generator to stay charged & in action. (I tried to attach a link to our installation report (on Airforums) but Disqus flags that as spam. It’s off-topic anyways I guess.) We too bought all our parts from AM Solar. They are good to deal with. I would think that their panels would hold up well in a marine spray environment? Did your old panels show any signs of corrosion?

We really would prefer not to have run the generator every day & we
wouldn’t have to worry about too many trees shading the panels like with
the land-based trailer. My mechanic mentor feels that Solar is too expensive when you already have a good generator & diesel is so cheap (compared to the solar hardware outlay), but I would much rather only need to run that generator for an hour every other day than 3 hours a day to recharge.

Thanks for the nudge & the food for thought.

-evan