question

nicholas-gouloussis avatar image
nicholas-gouloussis asked

Replacing Lead Acid service battery with Lithium on a boat.

Hi all,

I am currently running on two 100Ah lead acid batteries on my boat. One is solely used for starting the engine and the other one is the "service" battery for all other loads on board. A blue power charger 12V/30A/3 outputs is used to charge both batteries when the boat is connected to shore power. I also have a automatic charging relay to combine batteries during charging, isolate them when discharging and when starting engines. Basically it looks like this:


On top of that I have a SmartSolar MPPT 100/20 charge controller to charge the service battery from a 200W solar array.

I am now looking into replacing the service lead battery with a Lithium battery of the same or double Ah. If I'm not mistaken, the SmartSolar MPPT controller will be able to charge the Lithium battery but I am not sure about the blue power charger. There are multiple scenarios that I'm not sure about:

1. Charging from the engine only (ex. during night time when the solar panel doesn't work).

2. Charging from the engine and the solar panel (ex. when the boat is running during day time).

3. Charging from the solar panel only (ex. when the engine is not running during day time).

4. Charging from the shore power only (ex. when docked during night time).

5. Charging from the shore power and the solar panel (ex. when docked during day time).

Can anyone enlighten me on how I can properly charge both batteries under all possible scenarios?

Thank you in advance,

Nicholas

Lithium BatteryCCGX Color Controllead-acid
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ejrossouw avatar image ejrossouw commented ·

Hi @Nicholas Gouloussis Typically posts should only consist of one question ;) Maybe worth getting a professional installer to help you configure the system to avoid invalidating any warranties? Just a small observation, Lithium typically can discharge safely to 10% DOD or less so replacing it with the same should conservatively already give you at least a 30% more capacity. Also be mindful Lithium typically does not like low temperatures and extra measures may be required if temperatures of 5 degrees C or less are experienced.

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1 Answer
spirou avatar image
spirou answered ·

I will suggest you read this first https://marinehowto.com/lifepo4-batteries-on-boats/

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