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ll right good morning good morning

everyone we had a bit of a

technical glitch to get started

jeff told us a great story about his

boat and we're gonna have to

redo another day yeah let's do that

another time all right let's dive right

in

so we're gonna dive in here we are

triangle mountain motors good morning

from victoria

uh let's see what's our question here um

this is a good question that we actually

did a video about recently jeff my

battery compartment has a fuel line

running through it

uh for electronic purposes would it make

the engine

is there a reason for spark proof fuses

here

yeah that's a really good question um

especially it depends what type of fuel

right we have to talk about there's

certain fuels that are

more likely to be combustible than

others

so gasoline is the one that we worry

about the most

and that's the one that doesn't take a

lot to ignite right diesel

you know hear the stories you can throw

a match a diesel and it won't start

that's why we

my understanding is you that's why some

of us have those glow plugs

increase the temperature so it's

actually hard to cause

diesel to catch on fire but gasoline we

know a lot easier

if your boat has gasoline sort of fuel

lines well first of all you've got to

make sure that none of your electrical

wiring is

following those fuel lines and i've seen

that on electrical audits so that's the

first thing is making sure your fuel

lines are completely running separate

paths than your electrical circuits

second if you've got gasoline on board

make sure that wherever that gasoline

especially where the gasoline fittings

are so any type of fittings right

between fuel filter and something else

it's rare that a hose will just simply

you know

have an opening but a fitting right a

hand off between one thing and another

between a fuel filter or fuel pump or

whatever it is

that's what we worry about so in those

compartments wherever you have

fittings on your uh pipes that are

feeding fuel to your engine make sure

that everything in those compartments

are ignition protected

and so the fusing should be ignition

protected you don't want the fuse to

blow and cause

a spark which causes an explosion so

that's a great question

uh really i to be honest too many of us

just sort of discount a gasoline engine

room and

don't take it as seriously as we should

nothing wrong with have a

gasoline-powered boat a lot of us do

but when we do we should take extra

precaution to make sure that we don't

have a kaboom

on our boats so great question all right

we have another question here from

mark can i use a lithium battery as a

starter battery

well mark uh we don't recommend

using a lithium battery as a starting

battery i think it's definitely doable

there are reasons why we don't

do it that way we'll have lithium for

house

and then we'll have an agm battery for

engine start

and then we'll probably put in a battery

isolator between the alternator

and the both batteries the agm and the

lithium

the alternator will chronically under

charge

the starting battery but we'll fix that

either with a solar controller

or a battery charger that is just

connected to the agm battery so

when doing lithium there's definitely

arguments for having a lithium

battery bank for your house and then

having a flooded

or agm lead acid battery for your engine

start or even thrusters

so divide and conquer um when you're

doing lithium

he has sort of a second part question he

has a five kilowatt generator

can it fully power a 3000 watt 120 amp

inverter charger

the answer is absolutely yes uh no doubt

five kilowatts is tons of power

and a 3 000 watt inverter charger with a

120 amp

charger is going to draw about i'd say

probably 23 25 amps

at ac and your generator your 5 kilowatt

generator can probably

output probably 40 amps continuous no

problem

so yeah you can definitely run that

large charger as part of the inverter

charger from that generator

giving an example i had a boat owner

that we just did a testimonial for he

had a 5 kilowatt generator and we were

charging

350 amps 350 amps at 12 volts dc

from a 5 kilowatt generator he had

basically we had put on board

three uh inverter chargers in parallel

well actually

two chargers that are 100 amp each and

one inverter charger that's 150 amp

so we were able to do that off kill 5

kilowatt so 120 is no problem

no problem at all all right question

from victor

hey jeff uh is an engine room a suitable

place to mount an

mppt controller on a typical sailboat

that's a good question uh victor um you

know

sailboat engine rooms are really quite

an inhospitable place

um if we could shrink ourselves down and

actually be in that space when

the engine is running we would be

bashing the door to get out

why would we do that is it's because

it's insanely hot in those spaces

there is no engine room on a sailboat

not the little sailboats that most of us

have

of course i bet you know 100 footer

would have an engine room but most of us

the cell bulldogs don't have a real

engine room

and that engine room is too small and

there's not enough air

uh you know especially not air itself

for breathing but

exchange of air to cool down that space

an mppt controller is a piece of

electronics

like an external regulator for an

alternator i would avoid

putting those in the really confined

space of a of a sailboat engine room

and i would do that because just

sometimes that space can get

really smoking hot and it's hard on the

electronics so

try if you can to find another place and

do not put it in that tiny little engine

room

don't do it all right do we have some

people joining us from france

maybe a good morning

hi chris writes i honestly wish i had

found your channel before buying the

used boat

i had a bunch of electrical

modifications

and i'm absolutely not comfortable on it

so thank you

uh here's a good question can you put an

alternator regulator on an older

alternator or should i upgrade

the alternator oh that's a great

question um

it's funny yesterday we had feedback

from a youtube

um subscriber telling me to maybe

flush out a little bit more the details

on an external regulator with an

alternator

so first of all let's remember this um

all of us in our cars in our boats all

of us have

regulators on our alternators it's

absolutely essential an alternator

without a regulator

is incomplete it won't work so all of us

have the regulators and the job of the

regulator is

to basically control the voltage right

so that we never overcharge

a battery that is connected to the

alternator and generally that outputs

about 14

4 out on a 12-volt battery double that

for uh 24 and some boats have 32 volt

um you know starters alternators again

separate

but let's for you know comparison let's

call it 12.

so you've got an in every alternator has

a regulator

you can definitely definitely have bring

an alternator to an x

to an alternator shop and have them

remove the internal regulator

and give you what's called an external

field so they'll show you a post on the

alter you'll say okay you want to

connect your

external field to that and that's where

then you bring in an external regulator

and the external regulator drives the

alternator via this

field post it's a little bit like the

way i think about it is the way that we

drive our cars

think about the actuator for the gas

pedal

right we're moving the pedal maybe an

inch

right and by moving that pedal an inch

we go from zero

to full speed right and so the external

regulator does the same thing on the

alternator by applying what's called a

field voltage on that post

it drives the alternator from zero

output to max output

and the job of the external regulator is

to do a better job of the internal

regulator because it's way more money

and it can do a three-stage charging so

in short

you can absolutely get an old alternator

modified to be external field by

removing the internal regulator

and installing an external regulator

on it and we've got a whole section by

the way on our website just on that

topic i've got

conversations just on that and don't

forget for some of you that are geeking

out and want more

subscribe to our channel to hear more

about those things all right

all right has a good question here adam

says i learned a lot and couldn't have

done most of it without you so thank you

jeff

all right thank you um the owner before

me put in a

non-marine inverter in my sailboat

sailboat

are there pitfalls with this oh

yes yes yes absolutely um

non-marine inverters

will actually most of them will do

what's called

a ground to neutral tie always

in the inverter which by the way is

catastrophic on a boat

because unlike the non-marine world

our boats if you ever do a ground

to ac neutral tie

you are one step away from death and

electrocution

the other thing that you would need to

be a complete perfect disaster

would be reverse polarity so if you have

reverse polarity on your boat which

could happen when you plug in the marina

so that's where the ground and the new

where the hot and the neutral are

inverted so now your hot's not hot but

the neutral is hot

and if you do a ground tie ac neutral

ground tie

then basically since your your neutral

is hot and it shouldn't be because

that's reverse polarity

and you did a ground tie between your

neutral and your ground

now your engine block is 120 or 220

uh you're literally pumping into the

water 120 or 220 volts

your sink is energized your chain plates

are energized your keel whatever bonding

part

bonding system of your boat all of it is

energized and this is actually how

people die

especially in fresh water or marinas

that are saltwater with a fresh water

layer

so yes a non-marine inverter

needs to get out of your boat as soon as

humanly possible

there is no justification to having an

inverter that does an ac neutral to

ground tie and get that thing out of

your boat yeah so that was a good

question adam all the way from sweden oh

thank you

and now we have a question uh brad from

seattle

what is your take on direct dc

generators

good and or bad yeah

it's a great question um and they're

becoming more and more popular right

so the concept is if you're going to

create power

why go through the route of an ac

generator

assuming you don't have one on board

right so i'm assuming you have a choice

because a lot of us as power boarders

are going to have already a generator on

board and we're not advocating here that

you change your ac generator to dc

that's not the point

given a choice now you're designing a

boat you don't have a generator should

you do an ac generator or a dc

generator it's a valid question if

you're not running a larger large ac

loads on your boat you don't have a

garbage compactor you don't have an ac

water maker you don't have a lot of

these large

ac loads maybe no air conditioning why

would you create

a form of energy alternating current

when you're really not using it and

you're just going to retake that energy

and convert it back to dc via

chargers why not skip the middleman

great question and a lot of people

absolutely especially boats that are

inverted based boats right where all the

ac loads can run through an inverter

it does make sense to have a high output

dc

generator that's outputting 200 250 300

amps at 12 volts to recharge a battery

bank that can take it you need a battery

bank that can take it

and have that power just go directly

from generator battery without having to

go through

a charger so i don't think it's crazy at

all to go with a dc

generator the challenge is most of us

already have generators on our boats the

ones that

are going to have one already do so it's

it's a question that applies

only to very few of us that actually are

contemplating generators and don't have

one

but yes absolutely worth considering all

right

uh franklin would like to know what is

the cheapest

ais transponder or what do you recommend

yeah so i don't frankly good questions i

don't ever

as a philosophy i don't know if i got

that from my dad um

but i don't ever i figure that the least

expensive

is probably one of the worst values uh

sort of the way i look at those

questions i tell people you know wendy's

is probably the cheapest meal you can

buy here in canada

but it's by far not the best value right

you you can go

spend a couple more dollars on your meal

and not have to spend four for a meal

and you'll get way better value if you

spend a few more dollars

so least expensive is not always the

best it was in the rural

world of ais so ais stands for automatic

identification systems it's a way for

ship to ship or ship to shore to

communicate with one another without

actually having

anybody in the middle right so it's

actually made point to point

um i would recommend if you were budget

conscious so not the cheapest but let's

use the word budget conscious and a lot

of voters are absolutely everyone is to

be honest even the billionaires are

budget conscious

i would recommend as a starting point

the amtrak

um in terms of what you get for what you

pay

it's probably unbelievable value now

there are products out there like vesper

that are actually more money but there

are more features

i think both products have about the

same value you're just going to have a

no-frills product it's probably the

amtrak

and then if you want to have more sort

of features and it makes sense

look at what vesper gives you and you

can consider vesper

vespers from new zealand amtrak i

believe is from the uk

both great products both different price

points but i would say comparable value

good value yeah so we have a question

here 39 foot sailboat

replacing the old battery with fireflies

is there a consideration with the

alternator

yeah well good question so whenever

you're changing your batteries period

whenever you're doing

anything on your boat absolutely the

the way that this boater is thinking

about is like what are the implications

what should i worry about we should

always do that you know assuming that

something's just gonna work it's gonna

lead you down a path of a lot of

disappointment

so when you're putting fireflies on your

boat or a new battery bank

um there's different rules so first of

all the question would be do we have

another charger on board or not like are

you going to be going offshore and just

sailing and the only means of recharging

your battery

is strictly strictly running an

alternator that's a completely different

scenario than a weekend warrior

that has an alternator but also has a

battery charger

and the battery charger is going to take

care of the boat the whole week and the

alternator is just to maintain batteries

so

it really depends on what we're doing

with the boat hence why it's never

easy so let's run a scenario where most

of us

for example do have a battery charger uh

on this instance 39 foot boat we've got

an alternator so what i would do

is the good news is an alternator with

an internal regulator outputs about

14 for and luckily the firefly actually

wants that

as a charging voltage not the whole time

but that's what the absorption and bulk

voltage will be

so good news the alternator stock

alternators output what the firefly want

now it's not going to be perfect and if

that was the only thing you had was just

an alternator then i would recommend

installing an external regulator on that

alternator

right to make sure that that alternator

is smarter and recharges the battery

faster

and the other thing if the alternator

was the only device on your boat

then i would make sure that the

alternator can charge the battery bank

at a

minimum of 20 percent of its capacity as

a charge rate

so for instance on that boat if they had

four group 31 batteries

they're about 116 amp hours each 110 so

let's call it 440 amp hours

at 12 volts your charge rate should be

20

of 440. so 20 of 440 is 88 amps

88 amps should be the minimum charge

rate so your alternator should be about

probably about 120 at least

with an external regulator and then you

can hit about 90 amp as a charge rate

so that's what you would do if you only

had an alternator now if you've got a

charger and you're using your alternate

only to go to a destination but

eventually you'll get back

then it's okay you know the alternator

will do what it can

and make sure that your charger is at

least 20

of the battery capacity as a charge rate

so you should have a large charger or a

large inverter charger

right that can pump at least 90 amps and

generally you're going to do that with a

2000 watt inverter charger right that

has 2000 watt of inverter 100 amp of

charger

or you can even go bigger but that's how

you would make sure that your battery

bank is charged at the right rate of

charge

and you can do it with an alternator or

even better an external regulator on a

higher output alternator

all right here we have a question from

linda

in seattle she's doing a complete

electrical refit and she was basing it

on firefly batteries

but she's thinking now maybe lithium

all right so pros and cons you know

there's there is no such thing

as a perfect solution for everyone if

there would be we would have found it

right we're all we're all trying to

crack this sort of puzzle

right so the first news is there is no

such thing on a boat as a perfect

solution

regardless even if you include take away

money

even if you had a billion dollars to

spend on your boat you had a million

you have a hundred thousand you have ten

thousand all of us

are making compromises every choice has

pros and cons and there is

very very very rarely a perfect device

so generally the reasons for lithium why

people would consider lithium is going

to be space

right lithium comes in a smaller battery

size for the same amount

of energy density so that won't be one

thing you want a larger battery bank

but you don't have space for it lithium

is perfect

jeff another thing i'm worried about

weight i don't have that much weight i

need to have more energy

but i don't want to carry that much lead

i'd like to have

higher energy density again lithium is

perfect

another one jeff i don't want my voltage

to sag i want to have i'm running loads

that

really have a hard time as the voltage

sags that we would find through lead

acid because as lead acid batteries

get lower and lower on the discharge

their voltage drops but lithium doesn't

do that it's

it's always steady and then it crashes

so that's another thing too some people

say

my loads are too sensitive and i want my

voltage to always be steady another one

too is

lithium would be jeff i'm going to be

going offshore and i'm planning to go

offshore for five to ten years and i'm

going to be using my boat every day

all the time so how do you do that well

lithium is a really good contender why

because you get the cycles

all right that's that's pretty good

another thing too with lithium is its

ability to basically take whatever you

throw at it

so if you have a large inverter a large

generator and you can put

multiple chargers you could dump easily

a crazy amount of amperage

pretty much everything you can throw at

it the battery will start so they would

actually reduce your generator run time

now all those things are great right all

of them but they do come at a cost

and not all of us need those

requirements and that's what i always

emphasize

we don't have to copy it's not because

someone wears a gold change that you

have to wear a gold chain right

maybe that person likes gold and you

like platinum it's

it's important not to compare too much

because all of us

have preferences and all of us have

different

requirements and so if those things

make sense to you but do you really need

that are you going to be going after are

you going to make use of those 5

000 cycles that's like 5 000 days on the

water are you going to make use of that

do you have the ability to recharge

those batteries at three times capacity

do you need do you have no space on

board and you need so much more

batteries

not all of us need those requirements

and so then it makes sense that some of

us still chew

lead acid like for example agm or

firefly agm lead acid

as a means to say well you know what

yeah they're great but i don't

need that and i'll spend some of my

disposable

project money on something else so we've

got some articles about that again

subscribe if you haven't done so check

out our website i've got

lots of articles and tech talks and

everything else we've got over

1300 web pages just on information on

all these different topics so great

question

and there's no simple answer yeah all

right this is sort of the same

ill jeff you mentioned that the internal

regulator on the inverter

limits the output to prevent overcharged

batteries

would that limited output prevent

lithium batteries from overheating the

alternator

yeah so now i'm not sure if i heard the

question right are we talking about an

alternator or an inverter charger sounds

like he said you mentioned that the

internal regulator on the inverter

limits but it should be the

probably the alternative yeah so first

of all let's talk about those two

concepts and by the way they're

interchanged all the time so um

alternators only function and it's

confusing because alternating

alternating current

right like it is confusing an alternator

only outputs power only when the engine

is turning that's it

shore power could never exist so an

alternator outputs power

when the engine is rotating that's how

that works all right an inverter charger

the charger function of the inverter

charger only works whenever it receives

alternating current from either a

generator

or short power so an inverter charger um

is basically going to act very much like

an alternator

when they're running right so the

alternator runs when the engine runs the

inverter charger

i.e the charger function of it runs

whenever it senses

shore power or generator both of those

devices when they're now enabled from

their different sort of power source

both of them are going to be outputting

based on voltages

right it's all voltage regulated right

they're doing both of that

a lithium battery for most of them

especially the budget ones

are not communicating back to the

alternator or not communicating

back with the inverter charger they're

simply at one point

going to say the bms is going to say

enough pasta

spanish mean i can't do it can't do it

anymore i'm shutting down

and what that's going to happen is

they're going to actually disconnect the

battery

period and that's where it gets

complicated

what happens when the bms decides that

it's being overcharged

and the budget lithium batteries don't

communicate they just protect

right there's no communication port

there's no can bus they're not talking

to other things

they're just saying at one point they

just go that's it enough and they pull

off not only charging

but also lows so that's the challenge

with putting a lithium battery on our

boats is well how do you have something

that maybe at one point is going to say

no more

well that's where it gets complicated

and agm batteries come in what are you

doing with those loads can you run those

off another battery if the lithium

battery decides to protect itself

and that's the challenge with lithium

you know a drop-in replacement is a

dream

it's it's a fallacy there's no such

thing as easy on a boat

if someone tells you something is easy

on a boat just give it time

you'll find out there is nothing easy on

a boat and lithium isn't easy it

has great advantages but it also like

everything else has its pitfalls

and it's not to say lithium's not great

it's just like everything else

everything is nuanced there's good and

there's bad

so that's basically uh both the

alternator and the inverter charger will

not protect the lithium battery from

overcharging even though it might be a

lithium charge profile

absolutely but at one point if it's too

much and the lithium is full and it's

full

the battery will actually disconnect

itself from the charging and the loads

and what's going to happen when that

happens

that's what worries all of us or should

yeah

all right we're going to change

directions because i think this is a

really good question

uh triangle mountain motors wants to

stop putting multiple screws in his boat

and wants to know some of your thoughts

on wire

management is there a product you

recommend yeah that's a great question

uh wire management putting screws on

boats is true it's hard

any hole in a boat it's hard doesn't

matter where it is

it's on a bulkhead for you know if it's

a deck it's even harder

you know there are companies out there

that sell uh

these sort of mounts that can actually

be affixed glued

with epoxy to different surfaces

obviously the surface has to be prepped

and everything and there's both builders

that do that they're actually

gluing mounts that in turn you can

actually

zip tie cables to so that's a good one

on my boat i did you know i don't like

screws

to be put anywhere but the flip side is

i do it you know i have mounts

everywhere on my boat like all

everywhere like i went

nuts i'm supporting the wires every

eight inches

six inches it looks like a lunar shuttle

you know i love it

you know there's no shave everything is

in a bundle it's neat if it's not

organized i notice it right away you

know i'm a functioning ocd

you know as my staff and my team would

remind me like i'm a little bit

obsessive

so rao wire routing on your boat is

important

because remember chaos is natural and

order isn't

so the reason why you do that is you

prevent shave right it's orderly so that

when you look at stuff you can actually

obviously notice something that's out of

place that's what you want

and you can either glue those well

mounts right and the companies i think

it's actually

we buy them it's w-e-l-d

weld so whiskey echo lima delta

and they make a really good product

offering of various things that you can

glue to a hall

so that would be one way to avoid doing

putting fasteners or screws

in your boat so great question all right

here's an interesting one jeff can i use

solar

during the day to run the inverter and

heat hot water

yeah so you in short

you can but you're missing an element

on boats we actually power

our inverters from batteries not from

solar so because we actually have

batteries so the solar would actually

come in to the battery bank

and that's how it is on my boat and

that's how it is on all the boats that

we do right

large solar array whatever it is it

doesn't matter solar array recharge the

battery bank

inverter running power from the battery

bank so solar is going in

inverters pulling out inverter creates

power

right from the battery and outputs to

run ac loads now

running a hot water heater from a

battery bank

is technically doable but let's put into

context that a hot

water like a a hot water tank

or hot or water heater is going to draw

like probably about

15 amps at 120.

that's a massive load right and it's not

going to do that for two minutes like a

microwave it's going to do that for like

30 minutes or 40 minutes

40 minutes of running a 15 amp at 120

load

is massive massive

it's like giving a black amex to me when

i was a 12 year old in new york city

watch me spend it would be crazy

right and nobody can afford it so how

many both have i had

wired a water tank or water heater

connected to an inverter connected to

battery bank

i think i've done less than five in my

whole lifetime because the battery banks

have to be huge

huge battery banks to be able to sustain

that load so yes

technically absolutely feasible but the

logistics of putting a large solar array

a huge battery bank huge inverter to do

that

is going to cost a serious

fortune and that's why it never happens

yeah or it does happen but it's very

rare

all right we have a question from

christian i understand the minimum

charge rate for batteries

but what do i do if an anchor for

extended sailing and the batteries can

only be charged at 10 amps or so

does this damage the batteries over time

and the answer is yes

it does and you do what you can in life

right you don't do what you want you do

what you can

so when we're boating and we're in an

anchorage and we have a limited we don't

have a high

uh charge charging source right because

we don't we're not connected to shore

power we're not running an

engine well how are you going to do that

how are you going to minimum meet that

minimum charge rate well you're

not and that's okay you know it's it's

not to say it's the end of the world

but your battery life of course is not

going to be the same if it's chronically

undercharged

especially if you have an agm battery or

even a lead acid battery but by the way

agm

and lead acid are the same you have

flooded lead acid agm lead acid firefly

lead acid gel led acid they're all lead

acid batteries

it depends what the electrolyte how it

is

to be at an anchorage for extended

periods of time for imagine a year two

years three years

that's why cruisers would have to

actually equalize their battery a lot

more than people that get to connect

back to shore power

so you do what you can um and it's not

that means your battery life won't be as

good as you hoped

but that's okay you're out cruising

you're in the middle of nowhere

you're you know life is great yeah so

you might have to change your batteries

more frequently than if you were

connected to the dock

but hey you're on the water living in

paradise so it's okay

we have lots of people saying don't

forget to like and subscribe

so thank you yeah thank you thank you

thanks for the reminder missy um

here's an interesting question jeff i

would like to replace my propane

galley stove with an electric unit

what should i consider for this project

oh that's a great question

by the way this is a common uh challenge

that

new boat builders are facing they're

installing

uh barbecues on the aft deck that are

electric

they're installing electric stove tops

like for example

boston whaler is common a lot of those

conquests have no propane down below no

propane barbecue

the whole boat is electric and you can

buy that boat with a generator

or you can choose to have that boat not

buy a generator which a lot of boaters

here in british columbia will do because

we're not running air conditioning so a

generator is not

necessary and what they're going to do

is they're actually going to put a large

battery bank on board

and then they're going to have a good

size inverter so at least 3000 watt but

it's not just the inverters that's

important we're talking about a

significant battery bank like we're

talking at 12 volts it's got to be at

least 400

600 amp hours right so that would be

four or six

batteries like four golf cart batteries

agm or

six of them or six fireflies four

fireflies that sort of battery bank on a

30 foot 35 foot boat

running an inverter and then the

inverter would actually power

uh the stove top that's electric and it

would also maybe potentially

power a barbecue at the back but the

biggest problem there

is the battery bank and the other

challenge too lastly is it's one thing

to do this once but then what happens

when the battery bank is discharged

how do you recharge that battery bank

without a generator

to run the inverted charger well then

you would potentially do that

with solar or having high output

alternators

on the boat um so that when you are

underway you're making up for the time

that you

were using that power so it's

challenging to certainly run

large ac loads um on battery banks not

because you just need the battery bank

to be big but you also need to find a

way to recharge it

so great question and it's a common one

we face that all the time

with new boat builders all right

we have a question from phil he says i

have dual

shore power inputs that combine to a 50

amp

shore power outlet i'd like extra

protection for my electrical system

will i need two isolation transformers

or just one well

yeah so good question um if your shore

power receptacle on your boat is

50 amp right it's 50 amp so it depends

do you have

two shore powers that are 30 amps on the

boat or a single 50 on the boat

if you have 230 amps on the boat then

you need

two isolation transformers or two

galvanic isolators

if you have a single 50 then you need

only one isolation transformer

and only one galvanic layer and i'm when

i say one

i don't mean you need both you need one

of either galvanic isolators are more

budget conscious right they're about two

three hundred dollars u.s probably

around there for a 30 amp

gavin geisler but even better than that

is an isolation transformer

big boats for example you know some

boats that are 60 70 feet

80 feet to me that's big you know uh

those boats actually will have literally

a short an isolation transformer on both

50 amps

they're going to be one of the bow one

on the stern because generally the 50

amps or maybe one more

forward and one more aft and both of

those ac outlets are going to have

a 50 amp isolation transformer as well

all right victor says should all

through-hull

fittings be bonded none of our

bronze fittings are bonded despite

coming from a reputable builder

yeah bonding is almost like religion

um it's incredible how opinionated

people are on the topic and um

it gets it's almost yeah it's it's

there's a lot of uh contradiction

so now mind you this is you're asking me

so this is clearly my opinion and i'm

not

i'm not trying to offend because as soon

as i'm going to say my opinion

i know some people are not going to like

it i

researched this topic and after

my own conclusion of researching this

topic and having done a few votes

is that yes we do believe that you

should be bonding

all metal through halls on a boat

i've done that on my own boat now if you

have marlin

at through halls you don't need to do

that but if you have metal through halls

on your boat

we strongly suggest that you create a

bot that they should all be bonded i.e

they should all be the same potential

and that bonded system should be

connected to your dc negative at one

single point

remember one thing that they talk a lot

about with boating is

ground loops so when you're doing any

circuits on the grounding system on a

boat

make sure there's only one path from any

one point think about a leaf on a tree

to a end point on a root of a tree

there's only one path

between that leaf and that single point

and on a root

there is no multiple paths the the sap

only has one path from that leaf all the

way to that end point of that route

so when you're thinking about a anything

related to dc negatives grounding

there can ever ever ever ever be only

one path

and yeah absolutely i would uh bond uh

the through halls on a boat and actually

most builders do

and we're talking about an incredible

expense

to bond uh these boats that are 40 50

power boats

the expense to bond all of those

underwater fittings

is incredibly enormous and if the big

boat builders are doing it and these are

not small line items this didn't cost

them 500

or a thousand this must have cost them

ten thousand dollars in the build or

even more

to actually do that if they went through

that expense

trust me it's worth it so i would

jeff cote here would recommend bonding

through hulls

on a boat absolutely all right i have a

question here um

maybe you can clarify a little bit uh

jeff i'd like to ask can i charge a

battery bank by

solar panel through battery posts that

feed energy to my panel

yeah so let's back up so

actually it's a good question by the way

there's no such thing

it's great i'm glad because some of us

are thinking oh that's obvious well

enough actually you know what i've

answered enough questions long enough to

know

nothing is obvious and i remember when i

started

all my questions were unanswered and all

of them didn't make sense because what

i'm trying to do is i'm trying to

understand the concepts

right once you understand the concepts

then magic happens

so you've got a solar array right at the

top

that solar array is going to be

connected to the batteries but there

needs to be something in between

you need a brain you need something that

decides

when it's time to charge that battery

and when it's time not to charge that

battery because remember that battery

might be full

and it might be sunny and it's in the

summer and it's sunny every day and it's

blue skies and the battery is

no loads on it and eventually it will be

full how do you prevent a battery that's

full from

being overcharged when it's sunny well

you have to have a device in between and

that is a controller and you can either

have a pwm controller or an mppt

controller

we're big fans of mppt just because

they're more efficient and i can also do

a better charging curve

and some of them like victron you can

actually customize which i love

and i can give the batteries exactly

what they need so the question is yes

you can connect your solar

to your batteries to a battery post but

in between the two

you have to have a solar controller and

that's what is going to make sure that

your batteries don't ever get

overcharged but at the same time get

charged

with solar hey we have just a comment

here from drew

hi drew uh just says uh thanks for

confirmation rebonding just had a system

installed several years ago and i really

wasn't sure it was all necessary

totally necessary i would have done it

and it's hard i did it on my boat it

wasn't easy

all right uh let's see hello from lisbon

hey eric

thank you for this great information uh

is it possible to install an inverter

for

220 volt and 110 volt ac

output yeah it is the question is can

you have a single inverter

that does both 220 loads and 120 yes

now you're not in the land of these

anymore uh we just did a bavaria

r40 um where we've done that

so it is absolutely absolutely possible

you're gonna need what's called an auto

transformer on the output

so victron has a product suite that does

that you can actually have

220 in with basically running both eight

120 loads and 220 loads on the output

um it is possible but it's not something

that's plug-and-play so

definitely doable not super easy

but some boats require it because some

boats are actually have both 220 and 120

loads and you want the inverter to do

both

so not crazy so yeah definitely doable

all right ray asked rather than

installing external regulators on our

alternators to deal with lithium

can we install dc to dc chargers

from our start battery and eliminate the

battery isolator

yeah you can so what you're suggesting

there is having the alternator

um be directly connected and only

connected to the starter battery which

most of us have

and then literally having the house

battery which is lithium

only charge via dc to dc charging

converters

the challenges and it's not that it

can't be done is that they generally top

out about at about 30 amps

so if you've got a battery bank

and you've got a 200 amp alternator on

that

engine well that's a lot of dc to dc

charging converters

that are going to have to be connected

between your engine battery and your

lithium house battery so definitely

doable the challenge is that the lithium

needs the most amount of power

and you're charging an engine battery

and then you're taking that and

you're converting it to lithium so it's

the throughput

so that's why a battery isolator you're

not saving money by doing it that way

it's just a different way of doing it a

battery isolator

you don't have to have an external

regulator to have a battery isolated

either

right you can actually have an

alternator output to a battery isolator

that would output both to the lithium

and the agm starter battery

and you can do that and that would

prevent the alternator ever being

disconnected from

the battery which would never happen

because you have a battery isolator

that's connected to agm battery

so it's tricky and i'm not sure that's

the easiest way

and we rarely see that setup unless you

have a small lithium battery and it

doesn't really need a big charge

all right jeff i have a question from

rick's repairs he says

do i need an inline fuse near the

battery if my

inverter has fuses built in oh

absolutely yeah no shortcuts in life i

love it that you're asking by the way no

harm in asking

no because um you got to protect the

line right

so remember think about in our homes in

commercial right the reason why we have

these uh breaker boxes they're not in

one place because it happens to be

convenient

it's not the reason the reason is that

it's actually the start of the circuit

so you need to have every single

connection connected to a battery

and the only exception adby sees a

starter motor and on mine it's mine is

even

fuse but that's the only exception of

the code is that only a starter motor

doesn't have to be fused other than that

everything has to be fused an inverter

charger is going to be probably

connected

that's 2 000 watt maybe 2 watt which is

pretty big 4 odd is the size of my thumb

right i mean it's significant it's it's

probably a centimeter in diameter

with the cable insulation so you

absolutely need to have a fuse

at the start of the circuit from the

batteries to the inverter

regardless of if the inverter has a fuse

or not because the wire

also needs to be protected so great

question thanks for asking all right

werner wants to know

excuse me jeff would your company design

the electrical system

uh or put together a professional

drawing for a 52 foot

blue water boat built in slovenia do you

do remote

yeah we do so we're doing about now

probably about

500 design engagements a year

which sounds crazy so we do this all the

time so both builders or yourself as a

voter a lot of you want to have some on

your court to me it was like i'm

imagining how hard it was for me when i

was doing this on my own and i was like

where am i going to have my questions

answered

and i was doing what you're doing going

on forums reading stuff reading

everything youtube all of it i'm just

trying to get well let me try to get

those answers but sometimes

some of us want to have somebody in a

corner we might have come up with an

idea pretty far

but we want to go okay how about you

help me figure it out be my sounding

board doesn't make sense

pros and cons and absolutely we have

actually a whole section on our website

just on that

you can reach us and we actually do

everything fixed price packages

so everything is known up front it

starts with a consultation and then

after that you know exactly what

different packages you can have

depending on the information you're

looking for so actually that's

a big part of our business is actually

doing design for both builders

and for do-it-yourselfers absolutely

yeah so we're having lots of questions

about

electric um motors and electric engines

i'm trying to get through all of them

and

have sort of one summary question but

here's one hello jeff

is there a way to monitor a 36 volt

trolling motor battery bank um

[Music]

yeah actually victron's battery monitors

have a high input range voltage

so you could actually have a victron bmv

battery monitor voltage bmv

bravo mic victor and

their input voltage is huge so you

absolutely can monitor a 48 volt

36 volt put a bmv and put the 7 112

7 1 2 and that's bluetooth so you don't

even need

and then now victron even has even

better they have a smart shot you don't

even have a monitor everything is just a

little box a little black box and then

it outputs their phone

so the victron smart chun will do that

too so yeah

absolutely one of my favorite talk

topics of course is solar so here's a

good question from

jonathan how would i rig a couple of

solar panels mounted on the big

boat to switch between charging a house

bank and a small bank on my dinghy

oh yeah that's starting to get creative

um well you could put a source selector

right so you could put a switch that

actually goes from

you know output instead of actually

having normally source selector switches

are battery one battery two to an output

but you could actually use the output

you know the common post go to battery

one or battery two

so you actually bring the solar to your

common and then go to one or two

the only thing that's really essential

is that you cannot disconnect solar

panels whenever they're outputting right

like you should not stop a vacuum from

running from yanking the cord out of the

wall

because you can actually have sparking

so you would need to make sure that you

change sources

and that you always have a make before

break meaning that

as you go from battery one to battery

two that both batteries are always

connected

even as you connect so it would actually

go from one to both

to two so it's always important to have

a make

before break battery switch to do that

doable

rare i've never seen it but yes

something that i thought about and it's

doable

all right hayden says on a smaller boat

with an outboard

engine and no metal below the water line

what is the best way to ground the

battery

yeah that's a tough question because you

know if you don't have

no underwater metals some people are

actually going to have grounding plates

um

otherwise you're what's calling your

floating dc system right so your

dc between your positive and your

negative posts is a voltage differential

right clearly you put a multimeter one

is

you know the difference between the two

on a 12-volt battery is going to be

about 12 volts

but that doesn't make the dc negative

ground

what makes ground is actually a

connection to ground which is what

you're looking for

some of them are going to actually have

grounding plates just so that they can

have a common reference point

so effectively they're putting a piece

of metal in the water and they're using

that piece of metal to connect

the boat so that their dc negative is

actually grounded

and that's how you would do it pretty

rare most of the boats that i deal with

don't have this sort of scenario but

it's a i hear about it on the internet

quite a lot and i think that's how you

would do it

by the way if if you have a boat with

that i'd like to hear how you do it uh

because it's actually not that common

and i'd like to get more input on how

it's done

out in the field so thanks great

question uh just a follow-up question on

your schematics what software do you use

so we use microsoft vizio uh old school

i used to work in network and telecom um

and that's what we used in the telecom

world doing

uh lan networks in the internet so we

were using microsoft visio so that's

what's familiar but i bet there's

probably really cool tools out there

that are much easier to use but we use

microsoft video is what we do we have a

license

and we have a bunch of our technicians

that have that license again

other people that have tools on drawing

or doing conceptual schematics please

uh post what you're using i'd be curious

to see because i'm always looking to

maybe do things better

great question all right uh jeff hello

from sweden

installing a new diesel in my minor 29

with 12 volt system the motor has a 150

amp generator

do i really need that big yeah so

um we would call that an alternator um

but get the point 150 amp it depends now

first of all remember an alternator when

it's rated

all of that is what i call sort of like

it's hopeful okay

so an alternator the first thing you got

to realize is that's a actually the

cold rated output so as soon as it

becomes hot you derate by 15

so you take your 150 d rated by 15 15

right that's significant that's about 22

amps so now you've got 150

down to 130. now your internal regulator

an internal regulator is overly cautious

right because it's not that smart

so then you de-rate probably by another

two-thirds so now your 120 or

130 is now two-thirds of that so now

you're at 80.

okay now you remember you were 150 now

you're 80. now your output

of your engine is a function of its

rotation so at low rpm you're not

outputting 80 you're outputting maybe

only 20 or 30.

and you're not going to most likely

going to be wide open throttle at you

know

let's say 31 or 3200 rpm on a diesel

engine

when you're motoring so you take all

those

all those and you start from 150 and

then you end up being about

probably about 75 apps maybe depending

also on the voltage drop

right that's what you're going to get as

an output and

75 amps would be for a flooded lead acid

battery

you don't ever want to charge them more

than 20 percent so

you know your you can have a reasonable

size battery bank with that probably

about a 400 amp hour battery bank

would be well charged with an 80 amp

effective alternator output so it

doesn't look

it sounds like an overkill but it

actually isn't because of all the

derating that happened from a

theoretical alternate output

to a reality alternating output

all right we have a question from doug

do i need a two bank

charger for a two battery house bank

uh oh that's a great question doug no

the answer is no you don't need that

so when we talk about and i use this

term constantly

battery or battery bank remember even

even a 12 volt battery is actually made

of 12

of six different batteries right each a

lead acid

battery is actually a two point volt 2.1

volt

cell so that's why you see a 12 12-volt

battery has six

battery caps so that's six batteries in

series to make a 12-volt battery

and that's why a golf cart battery is

six volts is only three of those battery

cells

so those battery when we buy a six volt

12 volt battery we're actually buying

a series of batteries wired in series

together to make 6 or 12 volts

so all right so if you've got 6 or 12 so

that's one thing what about putting

battery banks in parallel what about

going

to 12 volt batteries or having five 12

volt i did a boat we had 28

12 volt batteries in parallel that would

be called a bank and when it's a bank

you only need one charger lead only one

charger lead to do

that bank you don't need to have a

charger lead on each battery of a bank

you only need one lead going to a bank

so on my boat for example i have six

firefly batteries

wired in parallel because i've got a 12

volt boat so

those six batteries are wired as a bank

and that bank gets one charger lead and

one charger lead

only great question and they're looking

for your

recommendations again this week like

they did a couple weeks ago

uh what's your opinion on the waterproof

connectors used in the automotive

industry

waterproof connectors in the automotive

industry

um i don't even know what those are

because i live in the marine world

we use uh definitely

connections i wouldn't call them

waterproof

they're never meant to go beneath the

water but they're

they're heat shrink terminals so what

that means is that

once you remove a portion of the

insulation of the wire

and we have videos by the way just on

this topic uh 30 minute views on how to

do an electrical connection

we remove the insulation we crimp a

connector and then we apply heat to

basically have that connection be sealed

it's not waterproof but it's to remove

any potential of corrosion on the wire

itself over time because as we know a

marine environment is a pretty harsh

environment

and corrosion at connectors cause

voltage drop

and sources of heat so um

i've never i'm not sure about waterproof

connectors we use heat shrink terminals

on

all of our jobs because i believe that

time is the most valuable thing in life

even more than money

and i figure if i'm going to do

something on your boat or my boat i want

to do it

once and i don't want to have to do it

again not in my lifetime

so that's why we use heat shrink

terminals uh on all our connections

um on boats another one here is

liquid tape have you heard of liquid

tape like

amp super seal yeah

i've heard of that i've never used that

again we

we buy a heat shrink a dual wall heat

shrink for the lugs so

any cable above basically around eight

and i know i i speak in american in that

way because it's just

america's just south of us and i mean

they influence everything

so from a number eight gauge wire to a

four ought wire

um we use basically

lugs right so they're like they're metal

and we'll crimp them

on the wire and then we'll apply a

two two inches so about maybe about four

centimeters five centimeters of heat

shrink

that's going to be shrunk down to make

sure that that lug is completely

sealed onto the wire or the insulation

on the the jacket of the wire and that's

how we do it so i've never used liquid

tape

and i don't like liquid stuff because

it's messy and

i like again ocd i like my whole

workspace to be as clean

as humanly possible because it's just

the way that i

am here's just a comment hi jeff thanks

for sharing all of your knowledge i've

learned so much from your videos

coming from cape horn in chile really

oh god i would love to go to chile one

day what is the s

um question dc generator to feed

48 volt lithium battery bank

yeah i don't know if they actually make

a dc generator as 48 volts

maybe there's nothing wrong with that

again nothing wrong

the only question is that dc generator

cannot be disconnected when it's

outputting remember right it can't

so there needs to be a way to actually

tell the generator

stop charging the lithium battery bank

you you cannot

absolutely not disconnect a dc generator

suddenly from the only load

that is there which is the lithium

battery bank suddenly

you can't disconnect the battery from

the generator you have to

tell the generator stop outputting so

what i would do is get a more

sophisticated

lithium battery with a bms that can

communicate and

do relays and say hey by the way i'm

getting charged

i want to disconnect something a little

bit more sophisticated in the signaling

and in the integration as opposed to a

lithium battery that just says when i

have enough

i'm just going to shut down and you

figure out what happens

so probably doable i'm just not i've

never seen a generator it's 48 volts and

again if anybody has

please you know we're all learning here

right i'm learning too so if any one of

you know a 48 volt generator

dc please uh chime in

all right we're coming to the close

we've got about four or five minutes

left i know there were a lot of

questions today some good questions

uh that we didn't get to so please visit

our website

at pysystems.ca we have lots of

contact forms there to ask your

questions

and they're good questions so we'll

share them again on our next live stream

um let's see what do we have here uh

jeff

is there a fire hazard concern with lipo

batteries

yeah so uh that's a lithium battery for

the rest of us

uh lithium

ferrous iron i don't know what it is i

can spell

it out at the lifepo4

um yes there is

and that's the job of the bms the bms is

there to protect the battery

battery management system on a lithium

battery

um and yeah absolutely there's been fire

hazards and that's the thing that

causes a lot of fear in a lot of us

because on a boat you just can't walk

away from your boat

and if there's an electrical fire and a

battery it would be pretty

end of the world sort of situation so

that's why all

a lot of us that are technical have

hesitations with lithium because we

worry about

things that's our job to worry right and

so

make sure you choose a battery

manufacturer that has a reputable

history of making good bmss that make

the battery

safe and that they've got a hell of a

track record and not causing fires

so absolutely very important and that's

the job of the bms to prevent those

fires from

when the batteries are overcharging yeah

all right this has been a very popular

topic so i'm going to ask

all right let's do it yeah can you

explain the purpose of a dc

circuit grounded to seawater through the

engine block

yeah wow okay

so we do this in our homes um

when we get shore power not sure about

when we get lines coming in from

a substation we there's there might be

three lines coming in a hot and neutral

and a ground let's say

there's actually going to be a stake at

every one of our residences every one of

our commercial buildings every

single place is going to put a stake in

the ground and they're going to do

basically a ground tie

the ground's coming from the substation

but we're also grounding because what we

want to have is everything be at the

same potential

so in life sometimes when you're inter

and we are on boats going from dc

to ac everything has to be a common

reference point

right and the common reference point is

ground

so when we talk about a 12 volt battery

a battery in itself is not grounded

it's not at zero it's a voltage

differential same thing with shore power

it's a voltage differential it's a

difference between 120 and zero

220 and zero right but what is zero

if it's just a battery it's not grounded

and so you want everything to be

grounded to have the same common

reference point

right so that when you talk from dc to

ac you're not

actually having voltage differentials

between

what should be common and that's why

it's called common grounds

and it's really useful for bonding uh

it's really useful for safety right

because you want the shortest path

on an ac system to go back to the water

and for dc

you don't want to have floating ground

you want everything to be at zero

and the way to do that is to do it for

most of us is via the engine block and

that's how that's done

by the way i could do a two-hour video

on grounds it's insane

i'm working on it and for some of you

you're going to totally be king out with

me and for others you'll be like no

that's it jeff i'm tapped out i can't i

can't i'm going

i got something else to do but yeah good

question uh here's just a recommendation

for a topic in the future how about a

discussion

uh on espar heat do you uh what does it

say here i hear your dealers for that

now is that correct

yeah so we acquired a company uh called

roton industries

uh that's been in the business for 45

years uh

it was a big big big big deal for me uh

to bring this company on board with

pacific yacht system

and yes uh we sell a crazy amount of

heaters uh

s bar heaters out of germany uh both

forced air and hydronic and that's

actually a big part of our business

is actually both selling these heaters

to other businesses that get them

installed

because here in the pacific northwest

it's never too hot or rarely too hot and

often it's

just a little cold enough that you

wouldn't mind having a little bit of

heat

and a hydronic heating system is a good

way to

create heat from a diesel source you can

do it also from kerosene but diesel

and then you can keep the cabin warm so

for example that's why i can boat in the

winter time

even when it's only maybe five degrees

outside or zero i'll have a diesel

heater keeping via hydronic

keeping the whole boat warm even though

outside

is relatively very cold and we we're

still not connected to shore power

and or don't have a generator running so

yeah i'm not crazy

maybe we'll do something about that next

time good suggestion

all right we're gonna take one more

question uh i'm purchasing a yacht

originally built

in europe so it uses 230 and 50.

i'm converting to 240 and 60.

will the current refrigerator and

freezer need to be replaced

most likely yes uh

the voltage is not the issue right

because your boat was 220 before now

it's going to be 240 the voltage is fine

the challenge is most appliances most

ac appliances are very specific

in their frequency requirements so they

are literally going to say i need 50 220

i need 60 220 and very few of them

very few of them can actually work at

both 50 and 60.

an exception to that would be a battery

charger battery chargers are actually

good to take a huge input voltage range

like from 80 volts to 250

and from 50 hertz to 60 hertz so a

battery charger could actually run off

of both

most of them do 60 and 50 hertz but most

ac appliances including a hot water tank

right we've got boats coming from europe

all the time we're changing the heating

elements

within the hot water heater we're

changing the microwave we're changing

all these ac

appliances so that they can actually run

your inverter most likely won't so if

you have an

inverter it's either built for 50 or 60

that's going to be changed if there was

one on board

so yeah you've got to look at every

single ac appliance

and please don't hope you've got to go

through it you've got to make sure that

it's actually able to run

at 60 hertz because some appliances are

specifically made to only run off

50 hertz even though they're both the

same voltage there is a difference

between 50 and 60 hertz

absolutely good question all right i

said that was the end but we're going to

do one bonus question

all right bonus round good good question

that we haven't had before

all right um when bundling wires neatly

together

are there any issues with a 12 volt wire

next to 120 volt wire

yeah there is in an ideal world believe

it or not the code says

that ac wiring should not run parallel

to dc wiring

okay now that's easier said than done in

most of our boats

and in an ideal way you would actually

want to run them actually perpendicular

to each other

so on my boat i actually went through

the hassle of doing that i actually have

ac wiring running separate and i have dc

wiring running separate

now i'm a super geek right i'm chasing

perfection all the time

so yes given a choice run your ac wiring

completely separate from your dc wiring

and if they have to intersect run them

perpendicular

or even better you see this on ships you

see these wiring trays and you heat

these wires

going mixing right so yes you should in

an ideal world have your dc and your ac

separated but think about it in a lot of

boats those come together in

some places you just try to as much as

possible as of

to avoid them having being in the same

bundle

yeah so great question actually it's

hard to do though

easy to ask for but really hard to do

all right all right thank you everyone

for joining us this has been a lot of

fun any last words jeff before we sign

off

i want to thank everyone for joining me

honestly this is one of the most

energizing things i can do in a week

i love it um this is awesome thanks

everyone for being here

uh it's super cool uh further questions

you know where you can find us make sure

if you're asking questions and you're

wondering keep them

concise the longer the question the more

it becomes a consultation so

short and precise questions i can hammer

out

if it's going to take me 20 minutes to

read your question 20 minute for an

answer

the likelihood of being able to answer

considering i work 100 hours a week is

very

low i'm just going to be honest keep

your questions short and then if it's

short to the point

i'll answer them as fast as i can and

don't forget to subscribe

thanks everyone for watching

and uh safe boating all right

have a great afternoon evening wherever

you are in the world

thanks for watching ciao bye

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