I have a 30’ powercat that took a header into the canal with Milton. We pulled her out but all the 120v systems got fried. This is an opportunity to do a redesign on the 120v system.
On the 12v side I have 2 120 aH lithium batteries (separate from the house batteries) to supply an inverter that powered a dual voltage refrigerator, a hot water heater, and a MarinAire 6000BTU heat pump. I am going to switch to a straight 12v refrigerator and a 12v water heater. I can’t find a 12v heat pump so I still need 120v to run the AC. I had a 2000w inverter but it kicked off about half the time the AC started up so I am thinking 3000w.
I have a pair of 400w solar panels on the hardtop and a Victron MPPT to charge the lithium batteries. I would like to just go straight Victron and I would like to see the charging and battery levels on my Raymarine Axioms.
Do I need a Multi-Plus or a basic inverter. How can I get the charging data on to the NMEA 2000 bus?
The house and starting batteries are isolated from the inverter supply batteries. Is that the best approach? Should I add a DC to DC charger to be able to “jump” the house or starting batteries?
Thanks for everyone’s thoughts. I may ask some clarifying questions. I do have some serious space constraints but budget isn’t a concern.
If you use shore power some of the time then a Multiplus inverter has some advantages for integrating shore power, charging and inverting. For example on limited shore power supplies the inverter can run to augment the shore power. A separate charger and inverter can not do this as readily. If you never use shore power a simple inverter may be cheaper. I suggest you have a look at the Cerbo GX or Ekrano GX communication devices. All the Victron devices including battery shunts (and batteries if they have communicating BMS) connect to this and can be monitored remotely, data uploaded to Victron’s cloud (VRM). For you though, the Cerbo / Ekrano can be connected to a boats NMEA2000 network with all the info appearing on the displays. In terms of battery banks, particularly with LiFePO4 I would consider combining the house and inverter batteries for charging simplicity.
Thank you. Excellent information. I do run on shore power occasionally and the power supply can be marginal. MultiPlus.
There appears to be one more choice, MultiPlus II x2 or plain Jane MultiPlus. Prices are remarkably close.
Thanks again.