Elctrical Upgrades

The charging system was in critical condition. One of the chargers was dead, the other was dying. We had two batteries that were not getting charged and one overheating. We purchased new equipment and had an electrician do the install as we did not have time with all the other projects. The electrician was unfamiliar with the equipment it was not installed correctly, but good enough to get our batteries charged. Along our journey, we found our house batteries were not big enough to keep our systems stable while at anchor. We had little to no information as to the status of our batteries and were crossing our fingers, hoping it was all going well. After several anchorages of setting an alarm to wake up at 2am to make sure our refrigerator was still running, we started thinking of our options. We were just out of Florida when had enough. Grabbing some graph paper, we started making notes and a wish list. Victron had the better user interface and offered more features than what we thought we needed, so we decided on their products. After a month of planning and scribbling on paper, we contacted an electrical Engineer at MTI in Maryland and he agreed to sit down with us and look at our plans to make sure we had not missed anything. After a few suggestions, recommendations and guidance, we had our base plan. The diagram on this page shows where we are now. Information is running on the Raymarine Network driven through the Victron Cerbo GX.

Shore power grounds are split off to Galvanic Isolators for stray current leakage. With no room, a galvanic transformer could not be installed. Line two feeds to the panel for the air conditioners from both shore power and the generator.  Line one feeds to the inverter charger from shore power and from the generator. The inverter detects where power is coming from and switches between the two. The house batteries feed into the shunt which is connected to the distributor and then into the inverter. Should the inverter need a slight boost to compensate for a draw over 50amps, it will pull power from the batteries and if it is sustained, it will start the generator. The system will start and stop the generator automatically should the Cerbo GX programmed criteria be met. We do not have to wake up to check batteries or mess with the generator, it is all automatically controlled. The inverter keeps the generator battery trickled charged as well as the generator when it is running. The other batteries are charged through the Phoenix charger.

We had been turning the Phoenix off and letting the alternators charge the starting and thruster/windlass battery bank through Argofet isolators. With that configuration we could not see the status of those batteries. Through the Phoenix charger we can see all the battery data. We keep the Phoenix on all the times as the draw is minimal. We use the original house batteries as a bank to provide more power to the thruster and windlass. The external regulators allow us to see how the alternators are performing. With the ability to set them in generator mode to produce as much power as possible at lower rpms. The regulators are run in parallel to the batteries to maximize charging. The alternators are connected to the Lynx Distributor so the house batteries stay charged without having to run the generator while we are running the engines. With everything connecting into our MFD network, we can see all the data and control the Victron devices from the helm seat, keeping us more informed than a red battery light on the engine alert panel.