Batteries, Batteries
and More Batteries
You will remember that I have been complaining about my
batteries ever since we left the States. Four years ago when I was having
similar problems, I decided that I would spend whatever it took to solve the
problem. I was told that Lifeline batteries
were the top of the line, that they had a five year warranty and that they
usually lasted much longer than that. I bought two of them for my inverter bank
and a year later bought two for my house bank. Fast forward three-and-a-half
years. Our inverter batteries are now producing at about 60% of the capacity
they produced when they were new. I have to crank up and run the generator twice
a day for about 2-3 hours in order to keep our food cold, our phones
charged and our computers on-line. I
contacted Lifeline to ask them what I
should do. Their tech rep told me that it appeared I had a “minor sulfation
issue” – that’s right he considered a drop in 40% of the batteries’ capacity a
“minor sulfation issue.” Isn’t that like telling someone whose boat is sinking
due to a huge hole in the hull that he has a “minor fiberglass issue?” or a guy
who has been decapitated that he has a “minor neck wound?” Or a
guy who has suffered a massive coronary that he has a “minor cardiac issue?”
“Minor sulfation issue” my patootie! Needless to say I was not particularly
impressed with Lifeline batteries or
with the technical support offered by the company.
So, I contacted several friends who are especially
knowledgeable about these things and have boats similar to ours. I asked them
three questions: (1) How many amp-hours they had in their battery banks, (2)
How many battery banks they had on their boats and (3) What kind of batteries
they used, golf cart or big 8-D batteries. (NOTE: An ampere hour
(abbreviated Ah, or sometimes amp hour) is the amount of energy
charge in a battery that will allow one ampere of current to flow for
one hour. An ampere is a unit of measure of the rate of electron flow or
current in an electrical conductor. Our refrigerator, for example,
requires about 10 amps per hour, or 240 in a 20-hour day.) This first thing I
learned is that the measly 1100 amp-hours I had in my two banks was clearly not
enough. We have a pretty big boat, but people with smaller boats than ours have
more A-H that we did. Moreover, we use Alternating Current (AC) extensively. We
have a household-size GE refrigerator on our boat, for goodness sake. Other
people have made different choices; some don’t have electric refrigerators or
freezers, some have smaller ones, some have propane appliances, some have
special marine 12 volt – 120 volt refrigerators, etc. We like having the luxury
of a big household refrigerator. That means we have to have enough battery
power to run it for a reasonable period of time. 1100 amp hours wasn’t going to
cut it.
Second, we learned that several (though certainly not all)
of our friends have combined what I call their “inverter” banks and their
“house” banks into one. There are advantages and disadvantages to that
approach. On the one hand, for example, it is much easier to keep track of what
is happening to your batteries when you have only one bank. In addition, you
can use the juice from all your batteries equally. On the other hand, if you
have a big bank you may have issues charging all your batteries in a reasonable
amount of time. So, to me, it doesn’t seem to be a slam-dunk one way or the
other.
Third, I learned that many (though not all) of my friends
were using golf cart batteries on their boats. I knew, of course, that many
people on power boats used golf carts, but I was a bit surprised at the number
of my friends that did. The most important reason they cited was that the Golf
carts are smaller and easier for one man to handle. While that is true, because
most golf carts are usually 6-volt (requiring two batteries wired in series to
produce the required 12 volts) larger banks will require two to four times as
many connections as regular batteries. Connections, of course, lead to
inefficiencies and the potential for problems.
After that input, I initially decided to increase our
battery bank by at least 50%, to put all batteries in one bank and to convert
to golf cart batteries. Then, I talked to the boatyard (Whiticar, in Stuart
Florida) that would have to do much of the work. They had a couple of
observations and suggestions. First, they understood completely my desire to
increase the size of our bank. Second, they wanted to make sure I understood
that while they were perfectly willing to put in all golf carts, it would be a
lot more costly as they would have to find and/or make space for the new
batteries (even though we would be taking out the old batteries, it was not a
1:1 exchange) and they would have to reconfigure and re-wire the banks that I
had. They suggested that I think about making a one-for-one exchange with my
existing 8-D batteries, then find room for two more. They thought, and I eventually
agreed, that it would be a lot less work (read a lot less expensive). Moreover,
let’s face it, while some of my friends are agile enough and handy enough to move
and re-connect their batteries in the coming years, I am not going to. I can
reconnect batteries regardless of their weight, but if I really need to move
them, I will whip out the two most important items in my tool bag – my
checkbook and my cell phone – and find someone who can do it for me. So, the
fact that that golf carts can be handled by one man (they are still about 70
pounds each!) is not that much of a selling point.
So, here is what I ended up with: 6 x 8-D batteries with 330
amp-hours each for a total of 1980 Amp-hours. Now, most 8D batteries have
around 250 amp-hours, but I figured in for a penny, in for a pound. I know what most of you are thinking, “Brown,
what the hell did you do? Increasing your AH capability by 50% is one thing,
increasing it by a factor two is another!” You may be right, but I decided to
go big or go home. Here is my thought process: (1) I am tired of worrying about
how many AH are left in the banks and when we are going to have to turn on the
generator. (2) We all know that the less the depth of discharge (DoD) of a
battery the longer it will last. In the case of these particular batteries, the
manufacturer indicates that when they are normally discharged to 80%, the
service life (measured in cycles) is likely to be 2.5 times higher than if they
were discharged to 60%. When my previous inverter bank was new, I would frequently
discharge it to 60% (never below 50%, of course). Now, because I will have
twice as many AH available I should not be discharging it to less than ~80%. Maybe,
just maybe, they’ll last longer.
My original intention was to keep all these batteries in one
bank – but, since I have so many AH there may be a problem. I have two very
good, modern battery chargers, one part of the inverter-charger combination and
a separate 80 amp battery charger made by Charles, one of the best on the
business. I am not going to go into the workings of modern three and four phase
chargers, but suffice it to say that using two chargers will not cut the
charging time in half. In fact, the only way to tell how much the second
charger will contribute (if at all) seems to be to test the various
configurations. So, what I had the technicians do was to give me a switch so that
I can either combine all the batteries into one bank or separate them into a
4-battery inverter bank and a 2-battery house bank. Before we leave the Yard I
will test the two bank solution versus the one bank solution to see how long it
takes my two chargers to charge the batteries. Based on that observation, I
will normally carry them in one configuration or the other. I will keep you
posted.
The Generator
OK, even though the batteries cost upwards of $500 each and
even though there was quite a bit of labor involved in moving out four 200
pound batteries, and moving in six two hundred pound batteries, the eventual cost
of the battery challenge will be insignificant in comparison to the cost of the
generator challenge.
We have always had problems with our generator. Initially it
was the solenoids. After we fixed those it was the fuel system. When we had the
fuel system repaired the cooling system began acting up. This year we had
problems with the radiator cap and the heat exchanger. Well, we have finally
hit the point where the heat exchanger failed catastrophically – failed to the
point where the damage it caused to the rest of the system cannot be fixed.
In our generator, as in most marine generators, a fresh
water-antifreeze mixture circulates through the system to keep the generator cool.
As this mixture circulates, it cools the generator, of course, but at the same
time the mixture becomes hotter and hotter. Eventually, the fresh
water-antifreeze mixture runs through the “heat exchanger.” The heat exchanger takes
the cool salt water that the generator has sucked up, runs it past the mixture
to cool it down, then dumps the now-hot saltwater overboard. In our generator,
somewhere along the line, the heat exchanger broke and allowed salt water in to
the fresh water cooling system. You know
how corrosive salt water can be. Unbeknownst to us, the salt started corroding
the insides of the fresh water system and punched holes in it until just about the
whole generator was compromised and feeling the effects of the salt water. When
the tech looked at our generator he said he would have to replace this, replace
that and replace something else, just to see if the generator could be flushed
and repaired. He didn’t know how much that would cost, but it wouldn’t be
cheap, OR we could get a new generator. To paraphrase a famous song, “We closed
eyes, we held our nose … we paid the money.” We are now the proud owners of a
brand new 17kW Onan-Cummins generator.
This generator is so quiet … c’mon, c’mon, you are supposed
to say in unison, “how quiet is it?” Anyway, it is so quiet that we (mainly
Ann) decided to take up the carpeting in the galley. (Nobody wants carpeting in
their kitchen. We kept it there because it attenuated the sound from the
previous generator). When we started picking up the carpeting we found parquet
flooring, as is the case in the rest of the boat. Ann spent some time repairing
the floor, filling the holes from carpet nails, etc. and now we have a
beautiful hardwood floor in our galley. Yes, it has a few scars and a few
gouges, but hey, who among us does not?
Side Trips
While the boatyard boys were working on the boat, we took
two side trips, one to downtown Stuart and one to Saint Augustine. We kind of
had to. In the first place we were going nuts just sitting there; in the second
place they had to turn off the water and electric while they put in the
batteries. Moreover, they had to build scaffolding for the generator to pull it
out of the generator room, then maneuver it through the saloon (living room). For
our trip to Stuart, we rented a car, visited West Marine, Publix (the Florida
grocery monopoly) and a few other places. The most interesting was downtown
Stuart where they were holding their weekly Farmer’s Market. The vendors didn’t
really have anything that we needed, but it was nice to see folks peddling
their wares on a nice sunny Florida afternoon.
St. Augustine was … well, it was St. Augustine. It is
probably my favorite city along the ICW and has more history and tourist attractions
than you can shake a stick at. For example, did you know that, English propaganda
notwithstanding, St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied European settlement
in the United States? Did you know that Ripley’s first “odd-itorium” is in St.
Augustine? Anyway, we spent three days at a motel in St. Augustine and had a
really good time. When we got back to the boat, we found that they had put in
the batteries, had removed the old generator and put in the new one – though the
new one hadn’t been connected yet.
Finally, on Wednesday we left Stuart and headed to Ft.
Pierce to fill up with fuel and head into the wild, blue yonder. But you’ll
have to wait until next time to learn about those adventures.
ANN’S NOTES: OK
readers….TEST in ten minutes…Subject 1.. size of batteries and the number of Ah
that corresponds with them? Subject 2..How many batteries and battery banks does
Traveling Soul currently have ? No cheating..ok..open
book test.
What Michael did not tell you was that Me, Myself and I gave
up valuable storage space in the galley to put in those big ass batteries. I figured
since it is the fridge that sucks up so much power, that is was only fair that I
sacrifice some space under the bench sitting area.
The new generator is very pretty and quiet. The big red salt
encrusted one is in a scrap metal heap and the pretty new one is earning its
keep. Heaven knows we paid a small fortune to adopt it and give it a new home.
St. Augustine was great, I found a nice motel just outside
of town that takes pets. Traveling with Spot puts a whole new twist in finding accommodations.
If you ever need a nice place to stay ,
it is called the Southern Oaks Inn. Clean
room, comfortable beads, mini fridge, mini microwave, coffee pot, very
good breakfast, pool , wifi, and free
parking. Surcharge $15 per day to bring a pet.
I know Michael wants to send this out so I am going to close
out.
We are heading back to the condo. It is going to be a busy
summer full of family, friends, trips, and the normal medical and dental
appointments.
Hope to see all of you soon, come visit!!!
Traveling Soul…OUT
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