Just a quick update.
While the cabling did not come out looking nearly as professional as I’d hoped it would, everything fits, and we’re putting the batteries through their paces.
There were a couple of nerve-wracking moments when mounting the cables to the batteries using the terminal bolts and I was greeted by exciting cracks and the smell of ozone.
I’m not normally skittish around electricity, but with the amount of power each one of these, contains I was definitely on edge.
At the risk of jinxing it, the entire project went about as smoothly as could be expected. There were the usual, “Crap, I didn’t get the right size of bolts”, kind of moments but nothing that was a real issue.
The Starting Point
The image above is my starting point. According to the ABYC standards, lithium batteries cannot be allowed to move at all, hence the weird wooden harness on the existing battery.
The blue painter’s tape marks the 1/2 point between the sides of the compartment and gives me a rough idea of where the bus bars need to go. Using the trusty painter’s tape, I created a template of where I would need to drill.
I don’t like drilling through fiberglass. It’s not that it’s hard or anything, I just don’t like doing it for some reason. Here are the mounted bus bars.
Once the bus bars were mounted, we needed to balance the 3 batteries by wiring them all in parallel. This is where that “professional look” starts to break down.
After letting them sit for 24 hours to balance, we pulled the old battery out, put the new one in its place, and connected all the cables.
So right now, the batteries are set up and powering the inverter, I’ve validated that the solar charge controllers are working as expected, and lastly, I’ll use the shore power battery charger tonight to top off the battery and make sure that it works as expected.
Assuming all of that goes without a hitch all that’s left is securing the batteries, cleaning up, and moving back into our cabin!
There was a bit of a learning curve with programming the equipment but nothing too crazy. If anyone has any questions about LiFePO4 batteries or setting up off-grid electrical systems, let me know.
Nice! I’m going to be doing this wiring job next week.