Upgrading the batteries - pt i

 Fixing the broken switch - pt II of the battery upgrade.

While tightening the nut holding the new +ve cable ring terminal to the #2 connection on the back of the Battery Selector Switch, I over torqued it and this crack happened. A few choice Expletive Deletives crossed my lips. 

As soon as I realized my screw up, I researched for a replacement switch. WM had them locally for over $110 plus tax, or Amazon had them, prime, free shipping the day after the 4th of July, $42. Buy Now!

The new switch is due to arrive tomorrow, July 5th.

It's an easy replacement. Switch to OFF, disconnect the 3 battery +vs. disconnect the cable from the +ve Fused bus bar and the +ve to the system. I'll slide a 3" piece of heat shrink over the ends of any live cables.

Remove the switch, insert the new switch, remake the connections and switch the battery bank to On (#1)

Ok, however, I am still finishing off the upgrade to the battery system, from 3 x 100Ah LiFePo4 batteries to 5 x 100Ah LiFePo4 batteries - all the same brand and model.

I'll change out the cables so that they match the design above.

The 4/0AWG cables are matched for the +ve and -ve lengths to ensure equal charging and discharging from all batteries.

The new Switches ( Yep, I accidently ordered 2 ) arrived today. If feel a lot better tomorrow ( Sunday ) I'll complete the wiring per the diagram above.

• Make up a 20.5" Positive cable and 20.5" Negative cable.
• Turn the system off
• Remove the old 4 Way switch and install the new one.
• Connect the New -ve cable and the new +ve cable.
• Torque everything down.
• Turn the system back on
• Turn the Solar Charger back on.

The two battery banks do need to be equalized by leaving them all connected in parallel for about 12 hours, That means leaving the boat without power for 12 hours  - scary.  Working out how to do that.

The biggest concern is leaving the boat without Bilge pump power. I could just put a regular Lead Acid battery connected to the bilge power circuit breaker overnight.  I'll look at doing that. 

Felt worse today, Sunday, :( rotten cold - Yuk ), no plans till Tuesday, work day. But if I feel better tomorrow, I'll do some of the boat work.

Feeling much better, we're heading down to the boat this morning.

Peggy was not feeling so great, she took on my cold. So down to the boat alone.

step one was to make up the new 4/0 AWG cables for the original battery bank terminal blocks and the 4 way switch then it was time to turn the power off to install them. So no AC and no Fans - I should have charged up the cordless fans!

Not me, but an image to show how it felt working beneath the cabin seating to get this work done.

It took some coaxing, but got it done. I did have to disconnect the -ve cable at the Shunt in order to pull the cable out near the battery end such that I could complete the crimping of the ring terminal at that end.

It took a total of 3 hours on a Sunny South Florida afternoon with no wind and in the cramped quarters. My shirt was a mop, jeans too.

By 6pm I had everything done that was planned for the day and turned the power back on. The cables to the second set of LiFePo4 batteries were still disconnected.

By 13:00 next day, the batteries were fully charged so now is the time to balance the two battery banks.

I'm expecting a delivery this afternoon, if that arrives soon, I'll still have time to nip down to the boat and connect up the new batteries and test that part of the system.

Life event got in the way of finishing the job yesterday, but today I was able to get this job done and install the new Vent Cowls - see this link 

Ok, back to finishing this project.

The two new Chins 100Ah 12 Volt LiFePo4 batteries are installed and wired into the system.

I was able to install the fuse block cable covers.

The thin Red and Yellow cables are 1/0AWG cables, that thick cable is a 4/0 AWG cable that connects from the fused terminal block to the #1 position on the 4 way battery selector switch.

The black strap ties the new batteries down. There's a small storage space on the side of the battery bay, I'll empty that and install a bulkhead at the end of the bay.

After completing the wiring from the new batteries, I checked the torque settings for all of the terminal bolts & nuts then put the terminal block covers in place. The cover for the -ve block would not fit as the screws need to be about 1/4" longer and I did not have them on the boat. Surprise !  I'll go to ACE Hardware on Monday to get them. The cover is sitting on one of the batteries right now ( lower right of the photo )

Time to test. I first check the 5 battery BMS' and  I had tested the voltage difference between the new batteries and the old, less than 0.1 volt. Good start.

Next I switch the battery selector switch from #1 to #2, gave the system a couple of minutes for the Victron Touch 50 to come back to life and checked out the state of the system. Everything was working but now running off of the two new LiFePo4 batteries. All good so far.

Next I switched for #2 to #1 & #2, so now the boat was using the full 5 batteries. Again, all good.

Using my Tablet, I connected to the Victron system and updated the Battery Capacity from 300Ah to 500Ah.

With everything setup, next test was to see if the system would run our Air Conditioning. We can check that off! We ran it for over an hour and the system was only down to 85% and that was with the AC running 100%. Looking good so far.

While the AC was running in order for us to test the full battery bank, I completed the install of the new Cowls - now the boat looks good too!

This job is complete although I do plan on upgrading the wires that connect to the Victron system from 1/0 AWG to 4/0AWG,. As mentioned previously, the system is fused down to 300Amps, so I'm not worried about the cables, the system never gets close to 300A.

Ok, cross this one off until the winter when we'll replace those cables.

After all of this, we actually stowed all of the tools and packed up the left over bits from the project.

Now to plan some sailing.

See you on the water.