Ben
I went with separate 12 volt house and 48 volt propulsion bank. I personally did not want all the eggs in one basket. I will use the 48 volt bank to power some 12 volt items like my laptop but, find the sevcon converter gets rather warm with extended use and is only about 85% efficient. Not a problem if you are at a dock with AC available but, out at anchor it can eat a lot of amps if you are feeding the 12 house wiring with it for an extend stay away from the dock. Something you might want to consider.
Capt. Mike
Sent from on board BIANKA
http://biankablog.blogspot.com
On Thu, Jul 28, 2011 at 06:46:06PM -0000, Eric wrote:
> If you're committed to a large house bank, then I think that you'll get better performance from the 4Ds.
It certainly seems that there's a net benefit to all the lead being in
one place; that makes sense.
> But on my boat, I pulled the house bank out altogether. The plan is to run the house loads off of the traction bank, using a DC to DC converter. Using a converter with 300W of 13.2V output gives more than 20A of house capability. I've also addded a 32Ah AGM to act as a buffer against peak loads and to provide power when the traction batteries and converter are shut down completely. I have to admit that my boat electrical is fairly minimal, no TV, no A/C, no microwave, etc. so my electric head is my highest demand (16A) and that's only for a few seconds at a time. The lights and the tillerpilot draw much less. Right now the little AGM is my only 12V power source and it works well for day trips. I want to add the converter before I spend a long weekend at Catalina with this boat.
>
> With that setup, I've only got one charger (48V) and I can run that from shorepower or my portable Yamaha EF2000iS generator. I'm just trying to simplify my systems....
Hmm. Well, I'm having to build my system up from the other side: the
only "house bank" it has aboard is a single, rather small battery (the
previous owner only used the boat for racing; it clearly always sat at a
dock.) Given that I'm living aboard, that's got to get resolved
*soonest*: I'm having to run the generator most of the day, every day,
since even using the lights (all incandescents... I feel like I'm living
in the 13th century or something :) drains that battery in short order.
The only trick is going to be finding the 4Ds around here (NYC area):
the delivery charges on heavy stuff like that are insane.
Thanks for your advice, Eric!
--
Ben Okopnik
-=-=-=-=-=-
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