How exciting is this?
This is very, very, very cool.
It took three days to get everything through customs,
but we finally got the batteries today,
which means we can start this project that I've been excited
about for a while, and actually thinking about
for quite some time.
So what we're going to do is we are
going to replace the old lead acid batteries with lithium
batteries.
We are going to add this guy, which is a big--
Wow.
--3,000 volt amp or 3 kilowatt inverter charger,
sine wave inverter.
And the main reason we're going to do that
is because then we're going to attempt to get rid of propane
on the boat.
So I've had so many problems.
Like in every country you go to, there's
a different filling adapter.
You were carrying like an explosive gas
around on the boat.
It's just, in general, bulky and a hassle.
So the idea is that we're going to replace the gas stove
with an induction cooktop--
Look at that thing.
--which should be a pretty cool deal.
And there's a couple of really, really awesome things
about this.
First of all, we're getting rid of propane.
Second of all, it's going to run directly off this inverter.
So I don't have to fill up gas anymore.
And we're also going to add this battery monitor to keep
charge of the lithium cells.
So there's definitely a few advantages
to the lithium cells.
And even though we're getting rid of propane,
we're going to go with all-electric cooking,
I'm kind of betting that our generator time will
either remain the same or even go down,
even though we're going to be consuming more power.
And the main reason for that is the lithium cells
are extremely, extremely efficient.
So when we're charging our lead acid cells,
quite often if we're running one battery charger that's 70 amps,
it will start out charging at 70 amps, and then after an hour
when it gets to a certain percent of charge, the charging
current drops and drops and drops and drops.
So we usually turn ours off when it's charging like 15 amps
or so because at that point you're
just running the generator, and you're burning fuel,
that you're not really putting very much charge
into the battery.
So there's a big loss of efficiency
in charging on lead acid and AGM and gel cells,
but the lithium cells should be able to take charge,
like full charge, maximum, maximum, maximum,
and then it'll just stop charging.
So this, this is our old bank of lead acid batteries
that we put in the Madagascar.
They're about two years old.
They're still performing fine.
They're still doing well.
But we're going to upgrade while we're here in Grenada.
So each one of these is 100 amp hours.
So we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.
So a total of 800 hours, amp hours capacity at 12 volts,
or 400 amp hours capacity at 24 volts.
But one of the main problems with lead acid batteries
is you can't use the full capacity of the bank.
So on a regular basis, out of this bank of 8,
at the most, to get the longest life
and the most recharging cycles out of these batteries,
you can only use about half.
And most of the time we end up using about 30%.
So imagine having a bank of 8 batteries,
but you can only realistically use
the charge that's in three of them, which
is kind of a bummer.
But with the lithium batteries, we
should be able to use at least 80%
of the charge in the batteries.
So they're the same size.
They're actually lighter.
I think the lithium batteries are 13 kilos
and these are 20 or almost 30 kilos, so they're less weight.
And I do think we're going to get maybe two to three
times more capacity which means we'll
be able to go just that much longer without running
the generator and still not damage the cells.
We should be able to get at least 5,000 cycles out
of the lithium batteries.
So here they are, huh?
Yeah, so these are the cells, freshly cleared from customs.
This is Justin from Transporter Energy.
Hello.
He's coming from the UK.
You can see the--
look at this.
Look at the whiteness on this guy.
He hasn't baked quite long enough.
Not long enough yet.
Haven't cooked yet.
But we're working with Justin to install this on Delos
to prove that this sort of a concept works on a sailboat,
and we can put in lithium, put in a big inverter,
get rid of gas, go with induction, and hopefully,
get less generator running time too.
Definitely, definitely.
Tell me, these have like a computer and a--
They have a full computer system inside them,
so they regulate everything to do with the battery.
So they regulate everything to do
with the heats, the charging, everything
to do with the sounds.
And if there is a fault, then they will turn themselves off
until such time as the computer decides that the fault is gone,
and then they will reset and they'll work together.
OK, cool.
The number of ways you can damage a lithium cell
are too high a voltage.
That's right.
Too low a voltage--
That's right.
--and taking too much charge out.
Yes.
Getting it too hot.
That's right.
So they're more susceptible to damage that way.
That's right.
And so the computer says, OK, the voltage is too high.
I'm disconnecting this battery.
That's where--
The voltage is too low.
I'm going to disconnect.
The temperature's getting too high.
That's it.
Do the same thing.
Yes, the computer system inside will regulate everything
to do with the battery.
And if a cell goes down and one cell's lower than any
other cells in the battery, then all of the other power
will shut off the other cells until that cell comes back up.
So they all level back out.
And once they level back out, then the battery
will carry on charging.
Is there anything else we should know about lithium cells?
Well, the way that the lithium works,
it's totally different to a lead.
A lithium can take a lot of power
and they can pull at a lot higher rate.
And a lead battery, if you try and do
what we're trying to do on this boat,
then you will damage the lead batteries very, very quickly.
And the actual plates inside the batteries
will start to separate.
All right, so first step is we're
going to start fitting these batteries.
And I think it's a pretty good idea
to check the charge level so we know that they're all charged
and at the same level and all giving us
the right voltage before we put them in.
So this one's 13.3.
So that's good.
13.29, so that's within 13.3, so that's exactly the same.
That's what we want to see.
And they're all within 1/10 of a volt. No,
1/100 of a volt, which I think is pretty good.
OK, so next step.
I need to shut down all the power to everything
and turn off the breakers.
So fridge, freezer.
Going to turn off the lights.
Off, water pump off.
Turn off the instruments.
Yay, we're going to disconnect the boat.
3, 1, 2, 3.
Boom.
They're completely isolated now.
So we should be able to disconnect these and get
the new ones in now.
After a lot of research, I found out
that not all lithium batteries are created equal.
Depending on where they're produced,
you'll find different battery chemistries, production
standards, and even testing.
I decided to go with lithium iron phosphate.
LiFePO4 batteries have a slightly lower energy density
than other chemistries, but are more stable because of it.
Plus, they're 95% recyclable.
I chose batteries manufactured in the USA, which
means they conform to strict quality control and testing
standards.
These batteries in particular are even
certified for air freight.
All right, they fit in there pretty good, huh?
They're so much lighter.
It was really a chore carrying the lead acid ones out,
but these ones are pretty sweet.
Since we're on a 24 volt system, and these
are 12 volt batteries, what we do
is we wire two batteries in series to get 24 volts.
So this is the positive terminal of this one.
This is the negative terminal.
And so what we've done is mounted
the batteries sort of opposite.
So we have positive, negative, positive, negative.
And then what we'll do is we'll connect these two together.
So we'll get 12 volts plus 12 volts,
and then on these two terminals, we'll get our 24 volt.
So we actually have 1, 2, 3, 4 24 volt batteries, in essence.
And then those are all wired together in parallel.
They come together on these lugs,
and then that goes and feeds the rest of the boat.
When you're doing this, is there ever any risk
of getting shocked?
Well, it's DC voltage and it's pretty low voltage.
So, for me, if it was like 48 volts or above,
I would worry about it.
But at 12 volts or even 24 volts,
like you'd literally have to bathe yourself in saltwater
and then touch a bunch of things right off.
I've actually never been shocked doing this.
The thing that I watch out for is I
just tape always the positive ends
because if you're hooking them up,
and you're hooking up differently,
you could perhaps have one negative end
and then you could have another battery connected,
and then you could maybe arc.
I think it happened to me once on one of these.
Yep, you can see the end of this one.
How it's just melted.
OK, I will do this next stuff and go from there.
OK, can you see that OK?
26.6 volts.
Are these different to hook up?
Or do you know how to mark the same [INAUDIBLE]??
This part is mostly the same.
The part that's different is you really
have to watch how you configure the charger.
Like the solar charger, the charge controller,
the wind charge controller, and the battery charger
have to be set very specifically for the voltages for lithium
batteries.
The other thing we have to watch out for is on lithium batteries
if--
you know, these guys will disconnect themselves
in the event of a problem with the battery.
So let's say that something happened with the battery
charger while we're charging the batteries.
If the voltage gets too high and all of these batteries
disconnect themselves at the same time
to protect themselves, now you have no load on the system,
and you've got a battery charger putting out a bunch of energy.
And it can actually cause a spike
in the system that can damage everything else that's
hooked up to it.
It can be a voltage spike that's too high.
So one of the things that I've been reading about
is using the starter battery as sort of a safety battery.
So for example, you have a battery to battery charger
that you'd hook up here.
It would step down from 24 volts to 12 volts.
And that way if all of these batteries disconnect,
you still have the starter battery here that sort of acts
almost like a cushion.
It absorbs that spike, initially, to prevent damage
to all the other electronics on the boat that might be
sensitive to voltage changes.
And this is the tough part because it's
freaking steamy hot in here.
There's not a lot of room to maneuver,
and this thing is a beast.
It is heavy.
And trying to maneuver it up onto the wall while screwing
in the screws is pretty difficult,
but we've got it up there.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[GROANS]
Whew.
OK, so there's the new inverter charger.
Can charge at 70 amps.
This is the old Victron charger.
It can charge at 100 amps.
And here's the Mastervolt charger
that can charge at 80 amps.
So if I can get all these wired up
and the batteries can take it, we
can put in 250 amps, which is a lot.
Be sure to top those batteries up
really, really quick if the generator and everything can
handle it.
What are you up to now, Bri?
It's kind of the last piece I have to install,
and it's the new voltage monitor.
So here's the old Link 10 that just gave us
our voltage and our current.
We've got this new Victron one, which
is going to give us a whole bunch more stuff
and is configurable for lithium ion batteries.
And it's Bluetooth connected, which I think is cool.
So we can see like charge and stuff on our phone
if we wanted.
So I got to pull the new wires through.
Put this new, what is this called?
Can't remember.
Thingy?
Thingy.
Shunt.
It's called a shunt.
Installed over by the batteries.
And then basically the power goes through here
and they use this shunt to monitor the current.
And then the information gets transmitted over this wire
to the back of the gauge, and that shows up,
hopefully, cool numbers here.
Cool.
So that's-- I think the size is the same.
I think they probably do that on purpose
so that you can switch this--
When do they ever do that on purpose though?
That's amazing.
I don't know.
These guys really want to replace this one and this one
with this one, I guess.
Right?
Oh.
Just a few wires.
[LAUGHS] A few wires.
What is that wire?
Boat speed.
Not going to get time for that wire.
What?
Just an extra wire.
I want the number to get.
This is like old wires.
Old, old wires.
They shouldn't even be here.
All right, it took me a few hours
of mangling with the wiring, but it's in.
It looks real nice.
Check it out.
Look at that.
The voltage, 26.51.
We've got our charge percentage.
Amp hours, watts, and current.
So there's that in voltage.
What's also cool is it works over Bluetooth too.
Really?
So we've got our voltage current.
Consumed amp hours, which is pretty nice,
if you want to look at that.
And you can look at the history, although we
don't have any history yet because we
haven't done anything.
But we're getting there.
I've got to configure now the--
I've got this configured for lithium ion.
There's some settings you have to set.
I have to now configure the solar charge
controller and the charge controller for the wind
generator.
I have to configure those to lithium.
And then we'll install the induction cooktop.
Cool.
So getting there.
Getting there.
Look at all the wiring I removed.
Like all that out there.
Wow.
That was extra.
So your wire pile.
And all these wires.
This is the old wires from the old Link 10.
So that's out of there.
OK, it's been a long day, but I'm
about to turn the power back on to the boat.
And hopefully, things will go good.
Da, da dum.
Well, sue me.
No sparks.
No explosions.
OK, breaker one.
Breaker two.
Let's see if the lights have started working now.
That's live.
Now, what I should do is unplug the dock power
and see what happens.
Mm-hmm.
Nothing turned off.
No shit, that's cool.
That worked.
So what happened was I unplugged the dock power,
which would simulate the generator turning off.
And the inverter has a pass-through,
so when you're putting AC voltage into it,
it passes through just like normal.
So if the generator is making power
or if the dock is making power, but the second it loses power,
the inverter automatically switches on.
So it's a seamless sort of transfer.
So that's different from the other we had?
Yeah, because the other one, we'd have to turn the--
That is different, huh?
Yeah.
Wow, so that's cool.
So now we're running fully off the lithium battery.
Woo!
Good job, Bri.
I want to leave for .12 amps.
That's good.
Tee-hee, that's cool.
That's amazing.
Test number one.
The microwave hasn't run in like a year.
[LAUGHS] What will happen if it's too much?
It shouldn't be too much.
It's a 3,000 watt inverter.
Start?
Yeah, start.
[MICROWAVE BEEPS]
Oh.
20 amps.
50 amps.
60 amps.
70 amps.
Cool.
Using 1.8 kilowatts of power.
How soon do you want to have this done?
Well, we got to do the whole camera thing.
[LAUGHTER]
What was your name again?
Irving.
Irving, I'm Brian.
Nice to meet you, Brian.
OK, so this is Irving, and what we're talking about right
now is he's a carpenter.
Yeah.
And we're going to build a mechanism
to install our induction stove and replace the gas cooktop.
Well, maybe we can try to get a piece of mahogany for your--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
That would be cool.
3/4 inch or--
3/4 inch.
And how long do you think it'll take?
[INAUDIBLE] That's what I'm talking about now.
[LAUGHTER]
How late are you working tonight?
No.
Won't happen tonight.
No, no, no.
It's beer time.
Yeah.
We decided to run a little test here
to see the power of the induction stove
compared with the gas cooktop.
So basically, we're going to put a liter of water in each
and heat it up until the whistle starts to blow.
And then time each one and see how much current it takes.
There it goes.
[TEAKETTLE WHISTLES]
So 6 minutes and 24 seconds.
That's crazy.
That was way over, huh?
Get moving induction.
Cool.
High-five.
Nice job, buddy.
Ready?
Mm-hmm.
Power on.
[APP BEEPS]
Got power on.
And start.
Boom.
How much power are we using for that?
About 47 amps altogether.
But it's kicking off like no heat--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
There's no heat, which is key on a boat.
And we're not using--
And we're using the propane not--
[TEAKETTLE WHISTLES]
Oh.
OK, it was one minute slower.
7 minutes and 25 seconds.
Boiling water using the harnessed power
from the sun and wind is a huge step for us
in removing our dependency on propane,
even if I have to wait a bit longer for my tea.
And the fact that we're not heating up
the galley with waste heat anymore is a major bonus.
We're going to use and abuse the system for a few months
and report back with our results.
I can feel it.
Hey, guys.
Thanks for watching the video.
I hope you learned as much as I did.
If you'd like to learn more about the system
that we installed on Delos, the link is below.
And if you did like the content, give it a thumbs up.
It helps us to know if we're on the right track
and making the right type of videos.
Questions or comments?
Put them below.
I'll do my best to answer.