This post has nothing much to do with Arcturus. It's more about Wild, which is not an Ericson. I found myself polluting another thread with tangetially-related material, so I relocated it here, as it may potentially be of interest, as a cautionary tale if nothing else. And I spent a lot of time typing it.
From the thread: I hadn't heard that existing boats were being required to retrofit ELCI devices. My survey did not. As it happens, I am planning a serious refresh and clean-up of the electrical systems on s/v Wild. I have quite a ruinously expensive stash of kit ready to take to the boat in Mexico this month. But I glossed over the ELCI. Wild does have an older Blue Seas double-pole main breaker, just a few inches from the shore power inlet, so a Blue Seas ELCI panel would fit right in its place, with a little enlarging of the hole. Just a few more Boat Bux (ouch ouch ouch ouch)... Oh, but wait... that model is 120 VAC only, so I'd need a "C series" unit, that requires a separate enclosure. Yep, sounds like a B.O.A.T. project alright.
Here is my current project (no pun intended) on Wild. A lot of this is pre-existing. The AC upgrades are because I'm considering sailing away from North America. Even though I rarely plug in to shore power, I'd like to be prepared to do so. In the course of researching this, I learned that in New Zealand (for one) a local electrician must inspect and tag your boat for code compliance before connecting to shore power. Most other places are more laissez faire, but maybe I'd better consider circling back and adding ELCI. Oh, and um, because it's also a good idea?
Like this post, my drawing just kept growing. And there are more drawings... All of the boxes except those on the left-hand side are to scale. And for the nitpickers, the chassis grounding cables are not shown, but they are there.
First, I'm replacing the "galvanic isolator" with a Victron isolation transformer. It will be useful even if I never shove off and it has the ability to step up (or step down) voltage to match the boat with the local supply. And it'll look good sitting next to the Victron Multiplus inverter/charger. In fact, today I'm testing the "open box" unit that I got on eBay. (It cost less than that ELCI...) (Not shown: collection of power plug adapters.)
Second, I'm adding an auxiliary battery charger. Nothing fancy, but I'm using a Victron unit (keeping it blue) that can run at 50/60 Hz. When in the 50 Hz world (or anywhere questionable) an isolation breaker disconnects the Multiplus from shore power, the aux charger supplies 30 amps at 13.8 VDC to the battery box, and the Multiplus converts that to 115 VAC at 60 Hz for the AC panel. Lots of stuff can run just fine on 50Hz these days, but for those few things that can't, it can let all the magic smoke out. My air conditioner says it wants 60 Hz only.
Third, adding a second small AC panel. This is a bit in the weeds, but the Multiplus has a secondary AC output. This is for loads that you don't usually ever want to run on batteries (e.g. water heater, air conditioning.) It's live only when plugged in to shore power. Of course you can do this manually with no extra hardware. You can also achieve the same thing by sawing through the busbar in the main Blue Seas panel to isolate a couple of breakers. But in a solar power system, Multiplus can also be programmed to turn on AC2 when the batteries reach 95% charge and turn it off when they ramp down to 90%. This dumps extra solar power into the water heater (or...?), instead of just turning off the panels. Et voila! Hot showers without running the engine. (Again, you can do this manually, if you happen to be in the salon and think of it. And remember to turn the heater off before the batteries get sucked down too much. I manage to remember about half the time.)
Also possibly of interest, the new Victron Lynx DC busbar and fusing system is shown. The original wiring had a lot of daisy-chained 2/0 cables, and not enough fuses, by modern standards. I added solar power and more batteries and some less than top-of-the-line busbars. Which is threatening to become a high-amperage rats nest. The leading cause of fires on boats. Solar power turns out to need really perfect cable connections to work efficiently, and those cheap busbars are falling down on the job. The Lynx system looks really expensive! But pricing out the equivalent in Blue Seas hardware, actually comes out to cost quite a bit more! And the Lynx comes with integral enclosures, so it doesn't have to be hidden away inside something else. This also shortens-up a lot of those big cable runs. (The DC wires actually enter the Lynx from the right-hand side but it got too complicated to draw it that way.) Don't worry, Blue Seas is still getting plenty from me on this project.
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Well, we've come this far, I might as well add that I'm cleaning up the electronics cabinet at the Nav Station. It has also become a rats nest of 12VDC cables, NMEA cables, ethernet cables, antenna wires, speaker wires, etc. And the original installers screwed things directly into the cored hull (from the inside of course), which I want to stop doing. So I'm hoping to tame it all with a series of DIN rails and cable ducts, supported on a couple of ribs that I'll epoxy to the inside of the hull.
For reference, it's behind the black panel shown here, drawn with the panel hinged down.
And finally I'm probably relocating the Multiplus from the sail locker to a new enclosure in the aft cabin. The original installation is really a bad idea, with 20 feet of 2/0 cables (no fuses) running across to the other side of the boat and back. I'm pretty sure the reason they did this was to get the electrical "hum" noise out of the aft cabin. (And because the original owners were bankers who probably didn't like looking at utilitarian stuff.) If so, that was only partially successful, because there's only a thin fiberglass wall separating the sail locker from the cabin. But people rarely sleep in my aft cabin, and I'll try to build a sound-proofing cabinet around it and the isolation transformer. I should get more than enough cable back from that to do all of the "new" work described above. (I was hoping to stuff the blue boxes into the little hanging locker shown there where the AC panel is, but it just isn't wide enough. You can get the boxes in, but you can't see them or work on them. Can't get both hands in there at the same time. I may give it one more try. It's like playing Tetris.)
Well, that's a lot, but it doesn't all have to be done in the boat yard. Once the new backbone is installed, I can run a temporary bridge from the Lynx to the original main switch and relocate one circuit at a time.
From the thread: I hadn't heard that existing boats were being required to retrofit ELCI devices. My survey did not. As it happens, I am planning a serious refresh and clean-up of the electrical systems on s/v Wild. I have quite a ruinously expensive stash of kit ready to take to the boat in Mexico this month. But I glossed over the ELCI. Wild does have an older Blue Seas double-pole main breaker, just a few inches from the shore power inlet, so a Blue Seas ELCI panel would fit right in its place, with a little enlarging of the hole. Just a few more Boat Bux (ouch ouch ouch ouch)... Oh, but wait... that model is 120 VAC only, so I'd need a "C series" unit, that requires a separate enclosure. Yep, sounds like a B.O.A.T. project alright.
Here is my current project (no pun intended) on Wild. A lot of this is pre-existing. The AC upgrades are because I'm considering sailing away from North America. Even though I rarely plug in to shore power, I'd like to be prepared to do so. In the course of researching this, I learned that in New Zealand (for one) a local electrician must inspect and tag your boat for code compliance before connecting to shore power. Most other places are more laissez faire, but maybe I'd better consider circling back and adding ELCI. Oh, and um, because it's also a good idea?
Like this post, my drawing just kept growing. And there are more drawings... All of the boxes except those on the left-hand side are to scale. And for the nitpickers, the chassis grounding cables are not shown, but they are there.
First, I'm replacing the "galvanic isolator" with a Victron isolation transformer. It will be useful even if I never shove off and it has the ability to step up (or step down) voltage to match the boat with the local supply. And it'll look good sitting next to the Victron Multiplus inverter/charger. In fact, today I'm testing the "open box" unit that I got on eBay. (It cost less than that ELCI...) (Not shown: collection of power plug adapters.)
Second, I'm adding an auxiliary battery charger. Nothing fancy, but I'm using a Victron unit (keeping it blue) that can run at 50/60 Hz. When in the 50 Hz world (or anywhere questionable) an isolation breaker disconnects the Multiplus from shore power, the aux charger supplies 30 amps at 13.8 VDC to the battery box, and the Multiplus converts that to 115 VAC at 60 Hz for the AC panel. Lots of stuff can run just fine on 50Hz these days, but for those few things that can't, it can let all the magic smoke out. My air conditioner says it wants 60 Hz only.
Third, adding a second small AC panel. This is a bit in the weeds, but the Multiplus has a secondary AC output. This is for loads that you don't usually ever want to run on batteries (e.g. water heater, air conditioning.) It's live only when plugged in to shore power. Of course you can do this manually with no extra hardware. You can also achieve the same thing by sawing through the busbar in the main Blue Seas panel to isolate a couple of breakers. But in a solar power system, Multiplus can also be programmed to turn on AC2 when the batteries reach 95% charge and turn it off when they ramp down to 90%. This dumps extra solar power into the water heater (or...?), instead of just turning off the panels. Et voila! Hot showers without running the engine. (Again, you can do this manually, if you happen to be in the salon and think of it. And remember to turn the heater off before the batteries get sucked down too much. I manage to remember about half the time.)
Also possibly of interest, the new Victron Lynx DC busbar and fusing system is shown. The original wiring had a lot of daisy-chained 2/0 cables, and not enough fuses, by modern standards. I added solar power and more batteries and some less than top-of-the-line busbars. Which is threatening to become a high-amperage rats nest. The leading cause of fires on boats. Solar power turns out to need really perfect cable connections to work efficiently, and those cheap busbars are falling down on the job. The Lynx system looks really expensive! But pricing out the equivalent in Blue Seas hardware, actually comes out to cost quite a bit more! And the Lynx comes with integral enclosures, so it doesn't have to be hidden away inside something else. This also shortens-up a lot of those big cable runs. (The DC wires actually enter the Lynx from the right-hand side but it got too complicated to draw it that way.) Don't worry, Blue Seas is still getting plenty from me on this project.
=====
Well, we've come this far, I might as well add that I'm cleaning up the electronics cabinet at the Nav Station. It has also become a rats nest of 12VDC cables, NMEA cables, ethernet cables, antenna wires, speaker wires, etc. And the original installers screwed things directly into the cored hull (from the inside of course), which I want to stop doing. So I'm hoping to tame it all with a series of DIN rails and cable ducts, supported on a couple of ribs that I'll epoxy to the inside of the hull.
For reference, it's behind the black panel shown here, drawn with the panel hinged down.
And finally I'm probably relocating the Multiplus from the sail locker to a new enclosure in the aft cabin. The original installation is really a bad idea, with 20 feet of 2/0 cables (no fuses) running across to the other side of the boat and back. I'm pretty sure the reason they did this was to get the electrical "hum" noise out of the aft cabin. (And because the original owners were bankers who probably didn't like looking at utilitarian stuff.) If so, that was only partially successful, because there's only a thin fiberglass wall separating the sail locker from the cabin. But people rarely sleep in my aft cabin, and I'll try to build a sound-proofing cabinet around it and the isolation transformer. I should get more than enough cable back from that to do all of the "new" work described above. (I was hoping to stuff the blue boxes into the little hanging locker shown there where the AC panel is, but it just isn't wide enough. You can get the boxes in, but you can't see them or work on them. Can't get both hands in there at the same time. I may give it one more try. It's like playing Tetris.)
Well, that's a lot, but it doesn't all have to be done in the boat yard. Once the new backbone is installed, I can run a temporary bridge from the Lynx to the original main switch and relocate one circuit at a time.
