Tuesday, September 20, 2022

Re: [electricboats] Maximum input voltage for outboard?

Why not just change your charge controller and charger to stop charging at 54 volts and keep using the batteries that you already have.  There is almost no useful Wh at the very top and bottom of lithium batteries.  And as a plus, under charging them will add years to there useful life.

On Sep 20, 2022, at 12:35 PM, James Jones <jgjones252@gmail.com> wrote:

An update...

I communicated with both the outboard maker ("Don't exceed 55 volts. Seriously. Warranty is void if you do."), and the battery folks ("Battery is within specs, will try to find a solution, [e.g.: voltage regulator, buck converter, etc.]" but after talking to their tech as he searched, it doesn't appear that any off-the-shelf item which doesn't cost heaps of money has the right voltage and amperage range. (Matt: many thanks for the info and offer to talk to them. I didn't really dig into the details with them (cell voltage protection, etc.), but they didn't give me any runaround, and I think they did their best to be helpful.)

So... unless I can find a reasonable alternative, I'll go to plan B: Since this outboard can use 24, 36 or 48 volts, I'll rewire the batteries in parallel to make a 24 volt bank, rewire solar panels to output 24 volts, and buy a new 24 volt charger. My solar controller is also multi-voltage. This will, I imagine, reduce the maximum power of the outboard, but realistically I don't think I'll be unhappy with the speed from 24 volts if I every have to floor it. :)

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