FYI you need a fuse near the power source on the 1/0.. even if there is a fuse near the inverter (or inside).. the purpose of the fuse near the power source is top protect the wire (prevent wire rubbing a hole and shorting unprotected)
There are fuses built into each of the two battery packs (200A T-Class Littlefuse JLLN-200). So if something catastrophic happened, like a chaffed-through dead short, those will pop.
(Sorry for the long post, I got carried away - an Electrical/Electronic engineer doing a similar job on my own yacht) A couple of notes on your heat shrink - 1) In a marine situation, get hold of the glue filled shrink tubing - not only does it shrink more than the cheaper option, but the glue makes it airtight and that really helps corrosion of the wire (tinned or not) where it connects to the lug (try and get 'blind' lugs / ferrules that don't expose the wire to air. Corrosion is then limited to the solid connector and visible on the outside. 2) Use a color code system for your heatshrink as this is often the only area you have full option on - heavy duty, multicore, and twin core cable rarely have many color options. For example, I have black for all earth as my house and engine systems are connected on the negative side. Then I have yellow for engine +12V, red is house +12v, and then I have white/blue/green for various multi-location systems such as navigation lights, interior lights. I have yet to add the red/yellow tubing you can get to indiicate 'unswitched house +12V ie battery connected, bilge, etc. 3) Flame is not the recommended way to shring heatshrink - many wire insulating plastics on smaller stuff are not thermal rated or flame retardant and will melt / burn with a lighter. Even the small butane torches are a bit better as they have a more directed flame (but still not great). When you can, I would highly recommend that you get hold of a small temperature controlled soldering station that includes a hot air gun - both temperature controlled and having adjustable tips and nozzles will make your life wiring up a boat so much easier (and they often have a 'cooldown' feature when not in your hand, meaning less risk. 4) If you cut the shrink tubing longer (6-8cm) you can use a Sharpie to write on them before shrinking them (without direct flame) and the writing stays and shrinks as well - small, neat, and right at the end.
Hi Adam, thanks for the post. 1. I'm using 3M resin-lined 3:1 shrink tubing. 2. I got this 1/0 for free, so I wasn't going to be picky about colours. For the proper build, I'll follow colour coding though. 3. I know, and said as much in the video. I used to have a hot-air reflow workstation, but I can't see myself getting another, given how precious space on the boat is. The hot-air gun I have serves the purpose, and post-conversion, I'll have two AC sources for redundancy. 4. I like using the Brother extra-adhesive labels with the IDs on flags, as it means I can pull the flag regardless of how the wire itself ends up getting mounted. That said, I know a lot of folks are happy with the direct-labelling on wires like you suggest.
@@TheDigitalMermaid Sorry if I was 'teaching you to suck eggs'. Your attention to detail and drive for best-practice is excellent - I've seen many professional Electricity industry systems built with far less quality.
@@user-Adam72 No worries at all, that's not how I took it. I know a lot of more recent viewers haven't seen the early videos where I talked about things like shrink tubing selection. Cheers. :)
A Color Code is already established (As an EE, you should know this), and it is for the cable insulation, not just the heat shrink. For DC, Yellow is negative, Red is positive. Black is discouraged as DC NEG to avoid confusion with AC HOT also being Black. Using Yellow for positive is going to confuse anyone who comes behind you, especially since you have it going to the engine. It will be assumed it is the ground to the engine. I had to rewire my boat when I went to a LFP house bank, and it is not hard to find marine cable in the basic code colors. The striped colors can be hard, nigh impossible to find so I stick with the basic code colors and label the cables.
Thanks for the video. You will be so happy when that engine and all its wires are removed. Whoever wired this boat before you bought it did a terrible job. I am looking forward to seeing your new wiring. From seeing all of your previous videos, I know it will be a far superior job.
Thanks! I am looking forward to the proper wiring work. I'd say it wasn't so much that the PO did a terribly job, as it was more that the PO did what was needed to keep things working, and nothing more. In any case, it certainly needed to go. :)
Hi Madie You might want to consider leaving “service length” loops on any of these cables so that if you have to remake or rerun cables you have spare. I have learnt this the expensive way…. Current connected did this on their multi-plus wiring video a while back.
Absolutely agree, and usually I do. With these big wires for this one trip home though, I didn't see the point. There's still enough slack though that if I really needed to, I could reterminate.
Loving the videos, and seeing the progression. A couple of comments, I saw you didn't (re)connect the Earth wire to the Multiplus case, I'm not sure the recommended connection for that model (my UK/EU multiplus II connects to the DC negaitve busbar, same with my MPPT), so you might wanna check the manual, and follow that, when you do the system properly. Same for the Quatro. Also, regarding cable lengths, don't get hung up on making positive and negative the same lengths on everything, there is no need. Length matching is only needed when connecting identical components (batteries, inverters etc) in parallel, to insure the volt drops are the same, and even then the negatives should be the same length as each other, and likewise with the positives. The only case I can think of where the negatives and positives need to be the same length, is when paralleling up batteries, with cables directly between each battery in a chain (not each to a busbar), and you then take positive off one end battery and negative off the other end, to ensure equal total current path for each battery. My batteries are connected like this. Otherwise generally best to make each positive wire and each negative wire only as long as it needs to be, to minimise the total voltage drop in each current loop, especially with large current draws. Keep up the good work :)
Aye, I saw the grounding tab and I should have connected it to the ground bus or engine block... I'll be sure to do that for the proper install during the conversion. :) You're right, the lengths of the +/- aren't as important, but my eye twitches when things aren't balanced. For parallel installs though, ya, lengths really need to match. If you recall the 6x 48v packs, I made a point to do that.
since you have access to the back of the wall, you might consider Tee Nuts aka T-Nuts. You drill a hole in the wall and then install the nut through the hole. They have a flange with teeth that dig into the wood and then you use a machine screw to secure whatever is being mounted. Given a relatively thin wall combined with the weight of the real multiplus, they would probably give a much more secure connection, especially if you use loctite on the screw.
I love those things. In this case though, they'd be seen on the inside of the cabin, so I'd rather try options that don't intrude into the cabin space. Still though, those t-nuts are excellent and I've used them several times.
Nice job on recabling! Glad to see proper ferrules coming in for HV cable! Little tip for heat gun replacement - get chef's torch lighter! It is so useful for making concetrated fire in conditions like these! I use it often for heat shrinking tubes, cigarette lighter will never do the job! Greetings from Greenland!
And with heat shrink! Far less sketch. My friend recently got me a nice zippo that would have worked a lot better, also. Greenland is still the first place I'd like to visit post-conversion! I'm hoping to make it to Nuuk for a short visit. :D
@@TheDigitalMermaid zippo would be good, but in any wind the heat is just blown away too quickly. You might want to try the chef's torch, useful in many conditions! Nuuk's indeed great, still the city not discovered by tourists, will probably change next year once runway's finished. If you're coming, give me a shout, I have some friends here, I'm soon off into another place for next adventure. My e-mail is easy to find... All the best and thanks for all the content, really appreaciate!
@@MilosHalan One of the things I'm most looking forward to once the boat is on the move will be meeting up with folks, so I'll certainly put the word out when I'm heading that way! ^_^
@@TheDigitalMermaid It doesn't say. I would still suggest that you check the Victron user manual for wire size recommendations. I don't know which Victron inverter you have but for a 3,000 w inverter I would suspect it is more like 2/0 or 4/0.
@@elmer665544 I choose wire guage using a voltage drop calculator, and aim for as much under 3% as I can. In this case, with the cables about 2m (6') long, at most, even at 200A, the voltage drop is 2.6%. So I think this is OK.
@@ahbushnell1 that is the rating for this particular welding cable. That being said, I only use it for a 2,000 w inverter charger and max current would be less than 200 amps. At max rated output the draw is about 156 amps on my system. My run is about 6 inches
As a retired Navy electronic tech. I would suggest you think about put a rubber glove on you none working hand. When boat rolls and you grab a metal rail/object you do not have current across you chest you are not on land the boat can be moved by fores you have control over but safety you do.
I assume the part that is breaking on the Victron inverter panel are the knockouts. You can always remove the knockouts and go to larger clamps or cable restraints in the future and then have a better grip on the panel. You can also get knockout reducers that sandwich from both sides and hold the clamp in the center but distribute the load to the larger hole in the panel. Another more difficult option, is to just remake the panel with some 14-16 gauge steel and a brake to bend the panel where needed and use the old cover as your template for laying out the hole positions and making the bends and then a simple step bit or knockout tool can make pretty decent work of making the holes.
@@johno186 they might, but it would need to be punched for the various ports/glands for the wires, also. Absolutely doable with enough time, but I wanted to avoid another job in the short time I had left before departure.
Hey, you made a self-charging system. You won't need shore power anymore unless you drain your accus faster than you can recharge them. Perpetuum mobile time! :D Loved the episode
@@TheDigitalMermaid sheesh i know u 2 were joking... who would be nuts to think free energy was a thing..... if u did the 3 letter agencies would come and BUMP u off cos it goes against the elites narrative where us common folk need to stay enslaved.
I am impressd off yours work you do on yours boat. I am going to put in an 280 12vdc Life4jon battery in my boat with one 12 volt Agm battery, to do litel test. I gave seen some widios off doing this but i think i will need some tyoe off an adapter . Best regards Stefan from Sweden. 🤗🤗
If I remember correctly (its been about 40 years) the reason for the odd cable colors from an MRI is due to the unusual voltage. If my memory is correct, each required nearly 200 amps of -2 volts. I had to design a burn in chamber for multiple units in the early 1980s, my best memory was melting a screwdriver because someone thought that switch should be on. We installed lockouts then.
You should get a 30 amp - 20 amp adapter so that whenever you need to disconnect from shore power AND shutdown, disconnect or have a critical failure, you can still have easy access to power with an extension cord. You can get them with either a single female plug or a multiple female plug distribution block.
Yup, I've seen them on other boats. Trick is, they're surprisingly expensive, and once the conversion is done, I'll have two AC sources (12v inverter and 48v inverter), so I'll have some redundancy.
@@TheDigitalMermaid ? Not sure what you are thinking about but the adapter cords can be found on Amazon for less than $20 and the multi-tap style for less than $25. We have to have a variety of these kinds of adapter cords for shore power because we can’t guarantee that we will always have access to a 50 amp connection. We actually have one that allows us to bond two 20 or 15 amp connections into a 50 amp connection, you just need to remember that you really only have 40 or 30 amps available which is why the Multiplus boost feature come in 😉
@@inmyimage1081 It was difficult to get shipments as I don't have an address in the US, so I generally relied on what I could find at brick and mortar stores. The most common one I could get to without a big hassle was West Marine, and the adapter I saw there was $70usd (www.westmarine.com/marinco-eel-pigtail-adapter-30a-125v-male-to-15a-125v-female-12998357.html). A bit much for me for a day.
@@TheDigitalMermaid That’s a crazy price. A lot of RV campgrounds will accept packages and Express envelopes for you and you pick them up at the office. If your dock office doesn’t allow this, then In the Amazon phone app go to Your Account -> Your Addresses -> Add a new pickup location and use one of the Amazon lockers or pickup counters inside a variety of businesses near you as a nearby location to pickup your package. Most Amazon Lockers have 24 hour access but counters are only during business hours since they are a walk-up service at their customer service counters. A few locker locations are inside a business so pay attention to the location in the app for the hours.
@@TheDigitalMermaid BTW, even though you now have a 12v inverter, when installing the 48v inverter you will still have to shutdown the 12v inverter unless you now don’t intend to provide a connection for 120v service from the 48v inverter now which would probably negate the need for it at all anymore…
@@TheDigitalMermaid Don't rush things, do it properly and stay safe! Think about what you need for a specific task and make sure you got everything before you start. We don't want to see or hear about any accidents here on your channel just because you were under time pressure.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia This is a fair concern... It's a little ironic; I'm editing the next video, and in it I mention off hand about taking risks, and how taking risks can make things take longer in the end. I even had a spare battery disconnect switch left over from the tear-out, so really I had no excuse. I guess I was letting myself get too stressed leading up to the departure date, something I need to watch for better. Thanks for the call-out... Comments like this will help me be more careful in the future (if only not to get called out again, haha.)
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I'm afraid it'll get worse in the videos leading up to the trip home, and then the trip home itself was just drama after drama. Well, better than a boring life I suppose. I'll be absolutely bouncing when I start on the actual conversion! ^_^
There's that "L" shaped bottom cover that the inverter wires screw into. Where it bends 90 degrees is perforated, so the bend is a bunch of small bits of metal. It's fracturing from metal fatigue, been bent too many times I guess.
HOWdy T-D-M, ... I arrived 19 hours "late" ... my friend from INGERSOLL, Ontario came down South & West for a visit & my agenda changed immediately 🙂 LOL ... your "DC" system is beginning to take shape NICELY ... on my Home-Front: my ... SPLIT-PHASE Growatt SPF 6000T DVM-MPV inverter LOST it's grip on REALITY !!! This morning - for no apparent reason - my inverter stopped accepting / recognizing my Solar Panels or any Solar INPUT (SCARY) I checked my Combiner-Box FUSES & Circuit Breaker = All = A-O.K. all four arrays were producing "DC" Electricity ( determined by the 250 volt "DC" MultiMeter ) I turned on the GRID-POWER bypass & it kicked in immediately since there was no apparent SOLAR Input 😞 ( the GRID had not been turned on in over a MONTH ) so ... I shut down my entire system ... / SOLAR / BATTERIES / INVERTER / Turned everything, sequentially, back "ON" & (AGAIN) for no apparent reason = everything was back to NORMAL MIXED Emotions = Yay !!! the solar is charging my BATTERIES DRATS = I have no CLUE as to what kicked my SOLAR PANELS out of the "charging" LOOP 😞 ... COOP the WiSeNhEiMeR from Richmond, INDIANA ...
At one point you were saying "If I had AC" or "To do this I need AC." Can't you just run a standard extension cable from the shore power pylon or an adapter from the heavy duty cable you unplugged? Then run your electric lights, heat gun, etc.
Another approach is to have two terminations on the incoming connection so that you also have an outlet for unswitched shore power directly inside the engine bay before it goes to the mutliplus or even before the breaker. Perhaps with a GFCI outlet for added safety and a neon to indicate if there is shore power incoming.
@@TheDigitalMermaid Oh thats my Bavaria 50 Cruiser 2007 packed with lithium and more to come. I will rename the boat to Mayhem and have this channel ready for a few clips to document my travels for friends and family. We babled a bit in teh past as you need to come visit when you come to south of Norway :) I really need to have a skål with you at one point. Keep it up, i really enjoy your honest way of going forward. Thanks
Before the lead-up to the trip, I was able to keep the videos within a week or so of real time. The trip prep generated a lot of content, and the prep and trip itself took away editing time. I'm trying to work through the back-log as quick as I can to get things caught back up. I'd like to be under a month from real-time, if not better again.
@@TheDigitalMermaid just mentioned it to make comments more relative.... no sense in commenting when the info is useless.... anyway keep plugging away at editing and no rush.... or push from me.
I hope you see this comment, but there's a fire hazard created with timber backing boards on electrical installations in boats, which will fail some survey and insurance requirements. It's a fair call, high amperage gizmos + a bit of marine corrosion means you'll fry something occasionally no matter how much caution you take.
The bulkheads are already wood though... Marine ply. That's been the case for most of the boats I've seen. Do you have any references I could look at, like ABYC or IEC that says what the backing boards should be?
@@TheDigitalMermaid It wasn't me personally, but I do remember bumping into on one of the facebook electric boat conversion groups. There's also a video from Delos which is meltdown in a timber cabinet that gave me the heebie-jeebies. If IT security includes "design the webserver/application presumng it will be hacked", then the boat equivalent would be "design high amperage switchboards presuming one of these gizmos will fry" ua-cam.com/video/IYRh85wzgbU/v-deo.html
@@ScottBarnett-x9d Absolutely, and that's why in the earlier series of videos I spent a rather silly amount of time playing with different flexible bus bars. A connection backing off is the single biggest risk of fire. As for wires themselves, I'm doing my best to ensure that all circuits are as close to 1% voltage drop as I can get (where ABYC requires
You bought an almost working boat, and made it more difficult for yourself, but adding complex systems on board. Why just not fix the current problems and run led-batteries on the trip home. Then change the your boat to electric motors and new batteries. It seams like complicating and make problems for yourself in head of times. Sorry, but I don’t understand your thought process.
Fair question. In this case, the boat was far from "almost working". Much of the wiring was perished (broke wires just by trying to trace them, for example). The existing lead acids were in terrible condition, and I had a significant capacity LFP bank and most of the hardware needed to make them work already. So I decided it was better to work on the 12v LFP system for this trip, as I'd need to figure it out in time anyway. Perhaps more important though was that I wanted to see, first hand, how the LFP would perform on the trip home. Nothing is quite as informative as a real world test.
@@TheDigitalMermaid Thanks for clearing this. You build complex systems and I was confused. I kind of know you got your boat home. And I can¨t wait to see the next progress. I am excited about your electric motor. I will keep following your progress. Good luck.
For people making videos of their installations, be aware that others are using your video as instructions on how to do something. If you are jury-rigging a fix out of necessity, please state so in unmissable terms. If you are using non-marine cable (The cable is this video has thick strands , marine cable is supposed to have fine strands.) and/or you are using the wrong colors (Green & Yellow is an AC Ground cable) just because it is cheap, also state that and tell your viewer what the correct colors are. If you don't know, please don't post a video at all.
I mention, often, that I am not an expert. I mention when I am using work around. Hell, the auto play video on my channel says that the whole purpose of my channel is to document the process of learning. I’m not going to feel responsible if someone ignores all that and makes a mistake. The idea that I shouldn’t make videos because of what others do is… wow. No, they’re adults, they can take responsibility for their own decisions and actions.
@@TheDigitalMermaid WOW. As I said, if you don't know what you are doing, you should not do HOW-TO videos. If, as you say, you want to 'Document your learning process', then do so. (Which DOES imply you are at least now knowledgeable about what you present.) State what you are trying to do, how you went about learning the CORRECT way to do it, and then show what you did. Even if you take non-best practice shortcuts, at least point them out CLEARLY and state what you would have done in a perfect world. Doing 'How to Jury-Rig something that can catch your boat on fire' videos does no one a service.
@@chriswolcott1692 If I had to state that for every project and in every video, my already long videos would be twice as long again. So no, I gave the context, if someone decides to blindly follow a video out of context then that's on them. This is my channel, these are my videos documenting my project, and I feel no obligation to water them down to suit the lowest common denominator.
@@TheDigitalMermaidIf I may suggest some things that may help... The best videos I've seen are those that are scripted or at least outlined. They are clearer and more to the point. Ad-libbed videos tend to be choppy, jerky, over long and never really come to a point. Edit your videos if you think they are already too long. As far as not wanting to speak a disclaimer in every video, then have a text segment that says PAUSE TO READ then whatever you want to say. Adds maybe 5 secs. People have not necessarily seen any of your other videos where you do mention it. You are in a position to help folks who are looking for good advice and some guidance. Take the time to do a good job and I would bet your channel would become even more popular.
I watch and enjoy all your videos. Thank you for posting! Some day when you have time, you might want to measure the amount of ripple voltage generated by your DC wires running into your inverter caused by voltage drop under high loads. This is why some people oversize their wire beyond the 3% standard.The Victron "Wiring Unlimited" document explains how ripple can damage an inverter over time and how to measure the amount of ripple. Here is the link. Just word search "ripple" in the document. www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/The_Wiring_Unlimited_book/43562-Wiring_Unlimited-pdf-en.pdf On the other hand, you may already know this. :-)
Thanks for watching! ^_^ I just read the section on ripple, this is really interesting, thank you for pointing me to this. I wonder how much it helps to be using LFP batteries, given they don't sag nearly as bad as lead acids... This might be a great video topic later. Also, youtube sometimes deletes comments with links in them. So if you can't see this reply (except from the notification email), that's probably why. Cheers!
Thanks Madi, great real world DIY vid. Learning heaps as I watch along.
Glad to hear, Vin! ^_^
FYI you need a fuse near the power source on the 1/0.. even if there is a fuse near the inverter (or inside).. the purpose of the fuse near the power source is top protect the wire (prevent wire rubbing a hole and shorting unprotected)
There are fuses built into each of the two battery packs (200A T-Class Littlefuse JLLN-200). So if something catastrophic happened, like a chaffed-through dead short, those will pop.
@TheDigitalMermaid I did think of that after I posted.. with that large cable it would take the battery protec... agreed
Standards. Who needs them when you got creativity😮
Problem, there's 16 standards. "I know, lets make a grand new unifying standard!" Problem, there's 17 standards.
Great Job, second guessing yourself is how you learn, and you learn well :) Masterful job.
Second guessing myself has saved my own arse countless times, haha! Thanks, Joe!
(Sorry for the long post, I got carried away - an Electrical/Electronic engineer doing a similar job on my own yacht)
A couple of notes on your heat shrink -
1) In a marine situation, get hold of the glue filled shrink tubing - not only does it shrink more than the cheaper option, but the glue makes it airtight and that really helps corrosion of the wire (tinned or not) where it connects to the lug (try and get 'blind' lugs / ferrules that don't expose the wire to air. Corrosion is then limited to the solid connector and visible on the outside.
2) Use a color code system for your heatshrink as this is often the only area you have full option on - heavy duty, multicore, and twin core cable rarely have many color options. For example, I have black for all earth as my house and engine systems are connected on the negative side. Then I have yellow for engine +12V, red is house +12v, and then I have white/blue/green for various multi-location systems such as navigation lights, interior lights. I have yet to add the red/yellow tubing you can get to indiicate 'unswitched house +12V ie battery connected, bilge, etc.
3) Flame is not the recommended way to shring heatshrink - many wire insulating plastics on smaller stuff are not thermal rated or flame retardant and will melt / burn with a lighter. Even the small butane torches are a bit better as they have a more directed flame (but still not great). When you can, I would highly recommend that you get hold of a small temperature controlled soldering station that includes a hot air gun - both temperature controlled and having adjustable tips and nozzles will make your life wiring up a boat so much easier (and they often have a 'cooldown' feature when not in your hand, meaning less risk.
4) If you cut the shrink tubing longer (6-8cm) you can use a Sharpie to write on them before shrinking them (without direct flame) and the writing stays and shrinks as well - small, neat, and right at the end.
Hi Adam, thanks for the post. 1. I'm using 3M resin-lined 3:1 shrink tubing. 2. I got this 1/0 for free, so I wasn't going to be picky about colours. For the proper build, I'll follow colour coding though. 3. I know, and said as much in the video. I used to have a hot-air reflow workstation, but I can't see myself getting another, given how precious space on the boat is. The hot-air gun I have serves the purpose, and post-conversion, I'll have two AC sources for redundancy. 4. I like using the Brother extra-adhesive labels with the IDs on flags, as it means I can pull the flag regardless of how the wire itself ends up getting mounted. That said, I know a lot of folks are happy with the direct-labelling on wires like you suggest.
@@TheDigitalMermaid Sorry if I was 'teaching you to suck eggs'. Your attention to detail and drive for best-practice is excellent - I've seen many professional Electricity industry systems built with far less quality.
@@user-Adam72 No worries at all, that's not how I took it. I know a lot of more recent viewers haven't seen the early videos where I talked about things like shrink tubing selection. Cheers. :)
A Color Code is already established (As an EE, you should know this), and it is for the cable insulation, not just the heat shrink. For DC, Yellow is negative, Red is positive. Black is discouraged as DC NEG to avoid confusion with AC HOT also being Black. Using Yellow for positive is going to confuse anyone who comes behind you, especially since you have it going to the engine. It will be assumed it is the ground to the engine.
I had to rewire my boat when I went to a LFP house bank, and it is not hard to find marine cable in the basic code colors. The striped colors can be hard, nigh impossible to find so I stick with the basic code colors and label the cables.
Great! Just when I wanted to relax after doing 4 hour polishing action on the hull of my boat, this video appeared. -:)
Thanks for the video. You will be so happy when that engine and all its wires are removed. Whoever wired this boat before you bought it did a terrible job.
I am looking forward to seeing your new wiring. From seeing all of your previous videos, I know it will be a far superior job.
Thanks! I am looking forward to the proper wiring work. I'd say it wasn't so much that the PO did a terribly job, as it was more that the PO did what was needed to keep things working, and nothing more. In any case, it certainly needed to go. :)
Hi Madie
You might want to consider leaving “service length” loops on any of these cables so that if you have to remake or rerun cables you have spare. I have learnt this the expensive way…. Current connected did this on their multi-plus wiring video a while back.
Absolutely agree, and usually I do. With these big wires for this one trip home though, I didn't see the point. There's still enough slack though that if I really needed to, I could reterminate.
I have been enjoyed, so thank you for delivering.
Little bit late, but the heavy duty wire cutters work great to score the insulation on one ought cable.
Oh, huh, I never even thought of trying that... Thanks!
@@TheDigitalMermaid Learned that installing inverters for a few years for solar panels.
I love those cutters, they work really well.
Loving the videos, and seeing the progression. A couple of comments, I saw you didn't (re)connect the Earth wire to the Multiplus case, I'm not sure the recommended connection for that model (my UK/EU multiplus II connects to the DC negaitve busbar, same with my MPPT), so you might wanna check the manual, and follow that, when you do the system properly. Same for the Quatro.
Also, regarding cable lengths, don't get hung up on making positive and negative the same lengths on everything, there is no need. Length matching is only needed when connecting identical components (batteries, inverters etc) in parallel, to insure the volt drops are the same, and even then the negatives should be the same length as each other, and likewise with the positives.
The only case I can think of where the negatives and positives need to be the same length, is when paralleling up batteries, with cables directly between each battery in a chain (not each to a busbar), and you then take positive off one end battery and negative off the other end, to ensure equal total current path for each battery. My batteries are connected like this.
Otherwise generally best to make each positive wire and each negative wire only as long as it needs to be, to minimise the total voltage drop in each current loop, especially with large current draws.
Keep up the good work :)
Also where you will be running quattros/multipluses in parallel and or split phase and 3 phase.
Aye, I saw the grounding tab and I should have connected it to the ground bus or engine block... I'll be sure to do that for the proper install during the conversion. :)
You're right, the lengths of the +/- aren't as important, but my eye twitches when things aren't balanced. For parallel installs though, ya, lengths really need to match. If you recall the 6x 48v packs, I made a point to do that.
since you have access to the back of the wall, you might consider Tee Nuts aka T-Nuts. You drill a hole in the wall and then install the nut through the hole. They have a flange with teeth that dig into the wood and then you use a machine screw to secure whatever is being mounted. Given a relatively thin wall combined with the weight of the real multiplus, they would probably give a much more secure connection, especially if you use loctite on the screw.
I love those things. In this case though, they'd be seen on the inside of the cabin, so I'd rather try options that don't intrude into the cabin space. Still though, those t-nuts are excellent and I've used them several times.
Nice job on recabling! Glad to see proper ferrules coming in for HV cable! Little tip for heat gun replacement - get chef's torch lighter! It is so useful for making concetrated fire in conditions like these! I use it often for heat shrinking tubes, cigarette lighter will never do the job!
Greetings from Greenland!
And with heat shrink! Far less sketch. My friend recently got me a nice zippo that would have worked a lot better, also. Greenland is still the first place I'd like to visit post-conversion! I'm hoping to make it to Nuuk for a short visit. :D
@@TheDigitalMermaid zippo would be good, but in any wind the heat is just blown away too quickly. You might want to try the chef's torch, useful in many conditions!
Nuuk's indeed great, still the city not discovered by tourists, will probably change next year once runway's finished. If you're coming, give me a shout, I have some friends here, I'm soon off into another place for next adventure. My e-mail is easy to find...
All the best and thanks for all the content, really appreaciate!
@@MilosHalan One of the things I'm most looking forward to once the boat is on the move will be meeting up with folks, so I'll certainly put the word out when I'm heading that way! ^_^
Awesome video as usual and keep up the great work Madi
Thanks, Holdenman. :)
Great job getting the multiples installed.
Let you know I got my bus home and been doing demo work. I’m just starting to upload my progress on UA-cam
Congrats! The demo is one of the more short-term satisfying parts, the rebuild takes longer but man when it's done... :)
FYI, my Windy Nation 1/0 welding cable says 285 amps max. That being said, you should check the Victron manual to see the cable size recommendation.
I wonder over what length?
@@TheDigitalMermaid It doesn't say. I would still suggest that you check the Victron user manual for wire size recommendations. I don't know which Victron inverter you have but for a 3,000 w inverter I would suspect it is more like 2/0 or 4/0.
@@elmer665544 I choose wire guage using a voltage drop calculator, and aim for as much under 3% as I can. In this case, with the cables about 2m (6') long, at most, even at 200A, the voltage drop is 2.6%. So I think this is OK.
285 Amps sounds high. 1/0 copper shows 125A to 170 depending on the cable grade.
@@ahbushnell1 that is the rating for this particular welding cable. That being said, I only use it for a 2,000 w inverter charger and max current would be less than 200 amps. At max rated output the draw is about 156 amps on my system. My run is about 6 inches
As a retired Navy electronic tech. I would suggest you think about put a rubber glove on you none working hand. When boat rolls and you grab a metal rail/object you do not have current across you chest you are not on land the boat can be moved by fores you have control over but safety you do.
I assume the part that is breaking on the Victron inverter panel are the knockouts. You can always remove the knockouts and go to larger clamps or cable restraints in the future and then have a better grip on the panel. You can also get knockout reducers that sandwich from both sides and hold the clamp in the center but distribute the load to the larger hole in the panel. Another more difficult option, is to just remake the panel with some 14-16 gauge steel and a brake to bend the panel where needed and use the old cover as your template for laying out the hole positions and making the bends and then a simple step bit or knockout tool can make pretty decent work of making the holes.
Nah, it's the bottom cover at the 90 degree bend. It flexes when opened/closed and it's breaking from, I assume, metal fatigue.
The marina maintenance guys may have a metal brake to shape a new cover for you.
@@johno186 they might, but it would need to be punched for the various ports/glands for the wires, also. Absolutely doable with enough time, but I wanted to avoid another job in the short time I had left before departure.
Hey, you made a self-charging system. You won't need shore power anymore unless you drain your accus faster than you can recharge them. Perpetuum mobile time! :D
Loved the episode
Haha! Thanks Keri :)
no such thing as ZERO POINT ENERGY!
@@OffGridAussiePrepper Heh, I'm pretty sure @KeritechElectronics was joking. :)
@@TheDigitalMermaid of course I was! :)
@@TheDigitalMermaid sheesh i know u 2 were joking... who would be nuts to think free energy was a thing..... if u did the 3 letter agencies would come and BUMP u off cos it goes against the elites narrative where us common folk need to stay enslaved.
I am impressd off yours work you do on yours boat. I am going to put in an 280 12vdc Life4jon battery in my boat with one 12 volt Agm battery, to do litel test. I gave seen some widios off doing this but i think i will need some tyoe off an adapter . Best regards Stefan from Sweden. 🤗🤗
Good luck with your test!
If I remember correctly (its been about 40 years) the reason for the odd cable colors from an MRI is due to the unusual voltage. If my memory is correct, each required nearly 200 amps of -2 volts. I had to design a burn in chamber for multiple units in the early 1980s, my best memory was melting a screwdriver because someone thought that switch should be on. We installed lockouts then.
Really?! Huh, that's neat, and weird.
Green and yellow is the colour code for ground/earth in Europe. Could have been a Siemens machine.
You should get a 30 amp - 20 amp adapter so that whenever you need to disconnect from shore power AND shutdown, disconnect or have a critical failure, you can still have easy access to power with an extension cord. You can get them with either a single female plug or a multiple female plug distribution block.
Yup, I've seen them on other boats. Trick is, they're surprisingly expensive, and once the conversion is done, I'll have two AC sources (12v inverter and 48v inverter), so I'll have some redundancy.
@@TheDigitalMermaid ? Not sure what you are thinking about but the adapter cords can be found on Amazon for less than $20 and the multi-tap style for less than $25. We have to have a variety of these kinds of adapter cords for shore power because we can’t guarantee that we will always have access to a 50 amp connection. We actually have one that allows us to bond two 20 or 15 amp connections into a 50 amp connection, you just need to remember that you really only have 40 or 30 amps available which is why the Multiplus boost feature come in 😉
@@inmyimage1081 It was difficult to get shipments as I don't have an address in the US, so I generally relied on what I could find at brick and mortar stores. The most common one I could get to without a big hassle was West Marine, and the adapter I saw there was $70usd (www.westmarine.com/marinco-eel-pigtail-adapter-30a-125v-male-to-15a-125v-female-12998357.html). A bit much for me for a day.
@@TheDigitalMermaid That’s a crazy price. A lot of RV campgrounds will accept packages and Express envelopes for you and you pick them up at the office.
If your dock office doesn’t allow this, then In the Amazon phone app go to Your Account -> Your Addresses -> Add a new pickup location and use one of the Amazon lockers or pickup counters inside a variety of businesses near you as a nearby location to pickup your package.
Most Amazon Lockers have 24 hour access but counters are only during business hours since they are a walk-up service at their customer service counters.
A few locker locations are inside a business so pay attention to the location in the app for the hours.
@@TheDigitalMermaid BTW, even though you now have a 12v inverter, when installing the 48v inverter you will still have to shutdown the 12v inverter unless you now don’t intend to provide a connection for 120v service from the 48v inverter now which would probably negate the need for it at all anymore…
No DC switch between battery and inverter? You should definitely have one for safety purposes!
To safe some more time, precharging for 2s is enough 😉
You're right, I should have had one. I let myself get lazy "because it's just for the trip home". *sigh*
@@TheDigitalMermaid Don't rush things, do it properly and stay safe! Think about what you need for a specific task and make sure you got everything before you start. We don't want to see or hear about any accidents here on your channel just because you were under time pressure.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia This is a fair concern... It's a little ironic; I'm editing the next video, and in it I mention off hand about taking risks, and how taking risks can make things take longer in the end. I even had a spare battery disconnect switch left over from the tear-out, so really I had no excuse. I guess I was letting myself get too stressed leading up to the departure date, something I need to watch for better. Thanks for the call-out... Comments like this will help me be more careful in the future (if only not to get called out again, haha.)
@@TheDigitalMermaid We're all looking after each other. Your stress comes over through the videos...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I'm afraid it'll get worse in the videos leading up to the trip home, and then the trip home itself was just drama after drama. Well, better than a boring life I suppose. I'll be absolutely bouncing when I start on the actual conversion! ^_^
Madie, What was trying to break on the multiplus?
There's that "L" shaped bottom cover that the inverter wires screw into. Where it bends 90 degrees is perforated, so the bend is a bunch of small bits of metal. It's fracturing from metal fatigue, been bent too many times I guess.
HOWdy T-D-M, ...
I arrived 19 hours "late" ...
my friend from INGERSOLL, Ontario came down South & West for a visit &
my agenda changed immediately 🙂 LOL
...
your "DC" system is beginning to take shape NICELY
...
on my Home-Front:
my ...
SPLIT-PHASE Growatt SPF 6000T DVM-MPV inverter LOST it's grip on REALITY !!!
This morning - for no apparent reason - my inverter stopped accepting / recognizing my Solar Panels or any Solar INPUT (SCARY)
I checked my Combiner-Box FUSES & Circuit Breaker = All = A-O.K.
all four arrays were producing "DC" Electricity ( determined by the 250 volt "DC" MultiMeter )
I turned on the GRID-POWER bypass & it kicked in immediately since there was no apparent SOLAR Input 😞 ( the GRID had not been turned on in over a MONTH )
so ... I shut down my entire system ... / SOLAR / BATTERIES / INVERTER /
Turned everything, sequentially, back "ON" & (AGAIN) for no apparent reason = everything was back to NORMAL
MIXED Emotions =
Yay !!! the solar is charging my BATTERIES
DRATS = I have no CLUE as to what kicked my SOLAR PANELS out of the "charging" LOOP 😞
...
COOP
the WiSeNhEiMeR from Richmond, INDIANA
...
At one point you were saying "If I had AC" or "To do this I need AC." Can't you just run a standard extension cable from the shore power pylon or an adapter from the heavy duty cable you unplugged? Then run your electric lights, heat gun, etc.
If I had one, yup. Unfortunately, I don't (and they're expensive).
@@TheDigitalMermaid The adapter, OMG, just looked them up. Doesn't the Pylon have a standard 15a plug as well? Admittedly I'm thinking RV pylons
@@johno186 nope, 30A twist locks only
Another approach is to have two terminations on the incoming connection so that you also have an outlet for unswitched shore power directly inside the engine bay before it goes to the mutliplus or even before the breaker. Perhaps with a GFCI outlet for added safety and a neon to indicate if there is shore power incoming.
Perfect is the enemy of good enough.
Yuuuuup
When i see the wiring in the little opening my hairs on the backside are standing up, haha.
It'll get better, soon! (Not perfect, spoiler, but better!)
Your colored tape trick is what electricians do for permanent instalations. I don't think you need to change the wire latter.
Oh that's good to know, thanks
Ferules good, solder bad. :)
Agreed, which is why I was happy to reterminate the cables. :)
💙
Thanks! What kind of boat is Mayhem?
@@TheDigitalMermaid Oh thats my Bavaria 50 Cruiser 2007 packed with lithium and more to come. I will rename the boat to Mayhem and have this channel ready for a few clips to document my travels for friends and family. We babled a bit in teh past as you need to come visit when you come to south of Norway :) I really need to have a skål with you at one point. Keep it up, i really enjoy your honest way of going forward. Thanks
@@SailingMayhem Looking forward to it! Norway is very much a key destination for me :)
If you make Digital Mermaid t-shirts, please consider putting "Oh balls!" on the back! :)
Haha! I think I'm still a bit small of a channel for merch. Fun idea though, maybe if the channel grows. ^_^
Its a bummer these vids were not more real time..... and I love how u cuss like I do.....
Before the lead-up to the trip, I was able to keep the videos within a week or so of real time. The trip prep generated a lot of content, and the prep and trip itself took away editing time. I'm trying to work through the back-log as quick as I can to get things caught back up. I'd like to be under a month from real-time, if not better again.
@@TheDigitalMermaid just mentioned it to make comments more relative.... no sense in commenting when the info is useless.... anyway keep plugging away at editing and no rush.... or push from me.
@@TheDigitalMermaid BTW I should have said u cussing sounds more entertaining then my version of cussing.
I hope you see this comment, but there's a fire hazard created with timber backing boards on electrical installations in boats, which will fail some survey and insurance requirements. It's a fair call, high amperage gizmos + a bit of marine corrosion means you'll fry something occasionally no matter how much caution you take.
The bulkheads are already wood though... Marine ply. That's been the case for most of the boats I've seen. Do you have any references I could look at, like ABYC or IEC that says what the backing boards should be?
@@TheDigitalMermaid It wasn't me personally, but I do remember bumping into on one of the facebook electric boat conversion groups. There's also a video from Delos which is meltdown in a timber cabinet that gave me the heebie-jeebies. If IT security includes "design the webserver/application presumng it will be hacked", then the boat equivalent would be "design high amperage switchboards presuming one of these gizmos will fry"
ua-cam.com/video/IYRh85wzgbU/v-deo.html
@@ScottBarnett-x9d Absolutely, and that's why in the earlier series of videos I spent a rather silly amount of time playing with different flexible bus bars. A connection backing off is the single biggest risk of fire. As for wires themselves, I'm doing my best to ensure that all circuits are as close to 1% voltage drop as I can get (where ABYC requires
You bought an almost working boat, and made it more difficult for yourself, but adding complex systems on board. Why just not fix the current problems and run led-batteries on the trip home. Then change the your boat to electric motors and new batteries. It seams like complicating and make problems for yourself in head of times. Sorry, but I don’t understand your thought process.
Fair question. In this case, the boat was far from "almost working". Much of the wiring was perished (broke wires just by trying to trace them, for example). The existing lead acids were in terrible condition, and I had a significant capacity LFP bank and most of the hardware needed to make them work already.
So I decided it was better to work on the 12v LFP system for this trip, as I'd need to figure it out in time anyway. Perhaps more important though was that I wanted to see, first hand, how the LFP would perform on the trip home. Nothing is quite as informative as a real world test.
@@TheDigitalMermaid Thanks for clearing this. You build complex systems and I was confused. I kind of know you got your boat home. And I can¨t wait to see the next progress. I am excited about your electric motor. I will keep following your progress. Good luck.
@@Thorupjens :D
For people making videos of their installations, be aware that others are using your video as instructions on how to do something. If you are jury-rigging a fix out of necessity, please state so in unmissable terms. If you are using non-marine cable (The cable is this video has thick strands , marine cable is supposed to have fine strands.) and/or you are using the wrong colors (Green & Yellow is an AC Ground cable) just because it is cheap, also state that and tell your viewer what the correct colors are. If you don't know, please don't post a video at all.
I mention, often, that I am not an expert. I mention when I am using work around. Hell, the auto play video on my channel says that the whole purpose of my channel is to document the process of learning. I’m not going to feel responsible if someone ignores all that and makes a mistake. The idea that I shouldn’t make videos because of what others do is… wow. No, they’re adults, they can take responsibility for their own decisions and actions.
@@TheDigitalMermaid WOW. As I said, if you don't know what you are doing, you should not do HOW-TO videos. If, as you say, you want to 'Document your learning process', then do so. (Which DOES imply you are at least now knowledgeable about what you present.) State what you are trying to do, how you went about learning the CORRECT way to do it, and then show what you did. Even if you take non-best practice shortcuts, at least point them out CLEARLY and state what you would have done in a perfect world. Doing 'How to Jury-Rig something that can catch your boat on fire' videos does no one a service.
@@chriswolcott1692 If I had to state that for every project and in every video, my already long videos would be twice as long again. So no, I gave the context, if someone decides to blindly follow a video out of context then that's on them. This is my channel, these are my videos documenting my project, and I feel no obligation to water them down to suit the lowest common denominator.
@@TheDigitalMermaidIf I may suggest some things that may help... The best videos I've seen are those that are scripted or at least outlined. They are clearer and more to the point. Ad-libbed videos tend to be choppy, jerky, over long and never really come to a point. Edit your videos if you think they are already too long. As far as not wanting to speak a disclaimer in every video, then have a text segment that says PAUSE TO READ then whatever you want to say. Adds maybe 5 secs. People have not necessarily seen any of your other videos where you do mention it. You are in a position to help folks who are looking for good advice and some guidance. Take the time to do a good job and I would bet your channel would become even more popular.
@@chriswolcott1692 I admire your confidence.
You do know the acronym for B.O.A.T is Bust Out Another Thousand.
Intimately know it, yes.
I watch and enjoy all your videos. Thank you for posting!
Some day when you have time, you might want to measure the amount of ripple voltage generated by your DC wires running into your inverter caused by voltage drop under high loads. This is why some people oversize their wire beyond the 3% standard.The Victron "Wiring Unlimited" document explains how ripple can damage an inverter over time and how to measure the amount of ripple. Here is the link. Just word search "ripple" in the document.
www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/The_Wiring_Unlimited_book/43562-Wiring_Unlimited-pdf-en.pdf
On the other hand, you may already know this. :-)
Thanks for watching! ^_^ I just read the section on ripple, this is really interesting, thank you for pointing me to this. I wonder how much it helps to be using LFP batteries, given they don't sag nearly as bad as lead acids... This might be a great video topic later. Also, youtube sometimes deletes comments with links in them. So if you can't see this reply (except from the notification email), that's probably why. Cheers!