The Generator Sprung a Leak
And it hasn't bothered me at all
My trusty old Honda 2200i generator stopped working.
I changed the oil on schedule, removed and cleaned the carburetor several times, and tried multiple brands of spark plugs. Choked halfway, it ran for a couple of years almost every morning for a few hours, bringing my 400Ah hour flooded lead-acid house bank up from 30-something percent to a 100% full charge.
Recently, a leak developed in the generator, but I never found the leak because of how the unit was constructed. But there was a leak, and the evidence was on the boat's cockpit floor! I’m not going to fix it at the moment. The plan is to drain the fuel and put the unit in my storage unit.
Why? I haven’t needed it recently, and I probably won’t.
Avemar has a new 800Ah LiFePO4 power plant!
A few weeks ago, I sailed from West Palm Beach to Stuart, Florida, to meet Matt from Mobile Solar Consulting. I hired him to inspect Avemar’s brand-new DIY electrical system!
I had just installed two 400Ah lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries and several blue boxes to control everything.
Matt spent several hours aboard Avemar documenting my work and making improvement suggestions. His main recommendation, and the real reason I needed his expertise, was to validate my choices for fuse sizes, considering the power, large cables, and long wire runs.
Ultimately, he said my work “was among the best” do-it-yourself jobs he had seen, and yes, he recommended changing almost every fuse!
Let’s get into The Details (Part 1)
The House Bank
I’ve been following the “lithium battery” ecosystem longer than I’ve owned Avemar. I am friends with a few people who have built their lithium batteries from scratch. They swear by them because they know every wire, connection, and cell intimately and trust them entirely (and they think they saved a lot of money, which may be true), but out of the gate, for me, DIY’ing such an important part of the boat, especially when living aboard full-time was out of the question.
If you are considering transitioning from traditional batteries, you’ve probably seen all of the same brands I studied. I won’t go through all of that here. I’ll tell you that in the end, I wanted to 1) power everything I could think of that I’ll need while sailing and living aboard full-time, off-grid for the next five to ten years and 2) be able to monitor the system in detail on and off the boat and 3) only spend what I needed and 4) not be influenced by promises in a brand’s marketing, or more commonly, sponsored sailing YouTubers hyping batteries they were given or got-at-a-price-so-low they won’t share the cost.
Ironically, a YouTuber helped me tremendously in choosing my house bank batteries. Last year, Clark from Emily & Clark’s Adventures began a series of videos called the “Cheapest Lithium Challenge.” The timing of this series aligned with the beginning of my power upgrade on Avemar. One of the batteries reviewed got my attention. I bought two VoltGo 400Ah LiFePO4 batteries and could not be more pleased.
At the time, they were the highest-rated battery in Clark’s tests. You can watch the video review of this particular battery yourself here:
The specs met my needs, they were built to UL1973 standards, the size fit the available space, and the price was within my budget.
After I purchased and installed the two batteries, the support I received directly from VoltGo was exceptional. The batteries were working great, but I wanted to connect them with ethernet cables to my boat network to monitor them directly. I sent an email, and the next day, I received an email in which the company put together my specific setup on a workbench at their shop and made me a personalized video to show me how to get the Victron networking working! Who does that these days?
Details (Part 2)
Wind and Solar
Last Summer, I installed a solar arch from Atlantic Towers and mounted two Maxeon® 415W-R solar panels on the stern of the boat, replacing one 20-year-old 75W panel mounted on a stern post when I bought the boat in 2020.
I made a custom mast and mounted my SuperWind 350 Micro Wind Turbine to the side of the new arch. There is arguably slight shading on the solar panels but it’s difficult to see or measure the change in output between the two panels. Plus, having wind generator at night or on cloudy days when sailing offshore and charging my batteries makes this mounting location worth it to me.
The solar panels have PV (photovoltaic) cables that run through a shutoff switch for each, into two Victron SmartSolar 100 volt | 50 amp MPPT charge controllers, then out through two 50 amp circuit breakers, to a bus bar and into larger cables, and then into the boat, connecting to Victron Lynx Distributor, a fancy, but not terribly expensive, bus bar with fuses for each connection and networked chips to monitor power through each circuit.
The wind turbine outputs a maximum of 29 amps at 12 volts, and its PV-like cables run into the boat to its proprietary charge controller.
Using a Victron 500Ah SmartShunt, I can monitor the power the wind turbine contributes to the system. That power then contributes to the system by connecting to the Lynx Distributor.
The Starter Battery
When it runs, the diesel engine's alternator is the third means of generating power. The internally regulated alternator sends (up to) 60 amps through an on/off switch and a bus-style fuse and then charges a maintenance-free Optima BlueTop 12-volt deep-cycle AGM battery.
Once that starting battery is fully charged, excess power from the alternator goes through a Victron Energy Orion-Tr Smart 12/12-Volt 30 amp Isolated 360-Watt DC-DC Charger. The excess power is also sent to the Lynx distributor.
I’ll continue to explain what’s hooked to the Lynx Distributor on the right side of the photo above; two other connections are on that same bus bar.
The Inverter/Charger
One of the additional two connections passes through an on/off switch and back to the Victron Energy MultiPlus-II 120V, 3000VA 12-Volt Pure Sine Wave Inverter, and 120 amp Battery Charger.
When I’m connected to shore power, the inverter receives the 30 amp power pedestal on the dock and charges my house bank of batteries. It also runs the equipment that requires 120v AC, like the air conditioner and heater.
When I’m not on shore power and want to charge my laptop or run the microwave, air conditioner, or anything else that you’d typically plug into a socket at a house on land, the inverter converts 12-volt DC power from my batteries into AC power at 120 volts.
(I can also run the reverse-cycle AC and heater when inverting, but it uses too much power, so I don’t. I’ve tested it, and it works. I’ve also installed a Cubic Mini Cub wood stove for primary heat. If I haven’t already posted about that gem, I'll cover it in another post!)
Powering the DC Circuits
The final cable connected to the right side of the Lynx Distributor is the 12-volt DC output that runs to my main breaker panel at the navigation desk.
That panel contains breakers, switches, alarms, and diagnostic lights for most of the boat's equipment, including the anchor and navigation lights, the B&G navigation system, the bilge and water pumps, etc.
The cable that powers the breaker panel first passes through a cool device called a Victron Smart Battery Protect that monitors the battery state. Via Bluetooth, the device can be programmed to automatically shut off the power to the DC panel if the battery gets low, conserving the remaining battery power for critical systems.
I set it so that if the battery bank drains down to 15%, the switch cuts the power to most items on the boat, but critical items can continue to work: for instance, my GPS, AIS, and VHF radio.
Monitoring The System
It’s been nearly three months since I took the five lead-acid batteries back for recycling at the local auto parts store. I have not used the generator once since. It wasn’t working, and I didn’t need it! It’s in the storage unit, minus a carburetor.
Click this link to see the real-time status and all of the details of the power situation on SV Avemar. You may need a free Victron account, but if you are a sailor, you probably have one or will shortly!
“Among the best” - that’s very cool, congrats!
We know you'll enjoy it all no matter where you go. Wishing you good weather and a dafe trip to Block Island. Great biking there. Interesting how they had to move the lighthouse back from the eroding edge of the cliff.