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[Music]  welcome everyone to how to a little  series that were promoting and sharing  our passion for boating with all of you  here in the room with electrical systems  so a little bit about myself  first and foremost I am a boater it's  Who I am its my DNA it's the one word  that defines everything about me I would  say it affects all parts of my life and  what I'm here to share with you is sort  of a little bit of my approach to  boating which is trying to avoid  surprises we talked a lot a little bit  about that and reduce sort of the stress  of boating by having a reliable reliable  boat and one of those aspects is  electrical there's a lot of different  parts on a boat I've decided over time  to try to be good at one of them which  is electrical and electronic systems my  background choose I'm in the business  I'm fortunate enough to be invited and  all of your boats and I'll talk a little  bit about that later big deal is also  doing things by the book you know it's  important to not sort of have too much  bravado or creativity on electrical  systems you want a little bit but not  too much I have a lot of boaters  sometimes they come and look at the way  I did it I'm like yeah it's great that  you did this way but you know there's a  normal way of doing it and everyone  would have understood if we did the  normal way right it's less surprising  it's you know why make it complicated  simple is always better for some of you  that might be have subscriptions or I've  read about our articles we write two  columns every month one in Pacific  yachting and one in Northwest yachting  for those of you that don't have a  subscription all those articles are  actually published and available online  for free on our website all as PDFs they  go back for Pacific yachting I think  it's almost nine years now and for  Northwest yachting it's over a year so  you even though you don't have a  subscription and you want to geek out  you'll be able to find all articles on  all different topics and of course as an  engineer I like lists and categories and  formats so everything is categorized on  my website so if you want to read about  solar you go to page at solar and  everything about solar is there and sure  enough if you want to do it could be  anything it could be batteries tons of  articles just on batteries so you can  find it sort of like an index or a table  of contents you can find all that  content I am a boater I mean I have to  be it's like I said it's I I don't think  I would be in this business and the ups  and downs of everything related to boats  if I didn't love them  it's not always easy but it's extremely  rewarding and as a boater here in the  west coast of North America  my favorite cruising grounds are the  Brownton archipelago which is on the  north end of ankov island pretty remote  and also last summer we spent the  majority of the summer in Berkeley Sound  on the west coast of Vancouver Island so  I like to sort of go further places  where there's less support you're more  on your own you don't always see a boat  and again reliability of your systems  are important the further you go afield  from civilization the more you need to  rely on yourself either understanding  your systems right or troubleshooting  them because you can't just call out  someone the next thing just for you a  little bit of a background that might  not know a little bit about the company  that I founded years ago is that we're  we got good by basically repetition  right specialization through repetition  we do it over and over again so we only  do a few things and those are marine  electrical and electronics and today I'm  going to be talking about electrical  systems our service area in terms of  actually doing work on boats and last  year we did about a thousand build  projects our in British Columbia mostly  in Western Canada but mostly British  Columbia so American owners or I've got  boat owners from San Francisco Portland  even Washington State if we end up doing  work they come to British Columbia for  that the other thing too that's  interesting is that a big part of our  business and that's actually where we're  learning most of what I'm going to share  with you today boaters are everywhere  around the world and  I would say between five to ten design  engagements a week that we're doing  these are boaters you know they could be  summer in Guatemala Venezuela Abu Dhabi  Singapore Hong Kong Kentucky Louisiana  everywhere New Jersey you name it Idaho  they're building a boat in their  backyard they've got a sailboat they've  got a houseboat they're building a  trawler and they're saying Jeff I have  all these ideas but I need somebody sort  of helping me make sense of my choices  and if I'm gonna do something and that's  what we're gonna be talking about I want  to do it well once right it's easy to  scratch a line or erase the line on  paper once you've built it on your boat  and you've taken the time to run a line  and electrical induce something and  actually execute and then use someone  else comes on board says you shouldn't  have done that you will go through the  well of despair first of all you're  gonna fight that that's not a good idea  then you're gonna come to the  realization that yeah you shouldn't have  done that  and that's not going to be instantaneous  right now you'd be like yeah I guess I  have to redo it all and then you're  going crap wouldn't have been easier to  just erase on a piece of paper what was  not a good idea and then built and I  always tell remind people I mean how  many great things in life have been  built without a plan think about it all  the highrise was built yeah we didn't  have plans we just sort of we went  through it and yeah look at it  it worked most great things in life come  with a plan and that's what we're gonna  be talking about today is have a plan no  matter how small the job how big the job  is is way better to hash out the details  and think about it at the beginning than  to do it and then try to explain what  you did to someone and then realize  maybe you could have done it a different  way that would have been much better now  the other one last point I want to  emphasize is that some of you have  noticed we're filming this presentation  we have over 165 YouTube videos on how  to like this and there's about probably  another 30 that are in the pipeline that  have already been produced that are  coming out so by the end of the year I  will probably be at 225 YouTube videos  again I'll categorize different topics  you can find them on our website or on  YouTube and  that's a really another way for us to  share our knowledge and our passion and  even the comments I'm learning from  comments I'm improving this presentation  based on the questions I get on YouTube  about things that were maybe  misunderstood or that I didn't actually  explain properly right it's again the  community aspect of building so  questions we've got some time so if  you're feel free to raise your hand if  it's a question that takes longer than a  minute to ask then I would ask that we  ask those questions at the end and maybe  in the back if your question is you know  30 seconds 15 seconds then it's  relatively gonna be a short answer if  it's a two-minute question then it's  probably gonna take so much time that  it's gonna stop the flow of the  presentation so think about your  questions for the first part and if I'll  be in the back as long as I need to at  the end of these presentations if your  question is a three-minute question I  will listen intently I'll paraphrase  make sure I got it right and I'll give  you the best answer I can but just think  about that when you're asking questions  today throughout the presentations the  other thing too is we're going to be  posting all these slides on our web page  on p/y systems dot forward slash media  and so you'll be able to access the PDF  of this presentation online later on  make sure that when you're looking at  these all conceptual diagrams that we're  going to be sharing with you today  these are conceptual diagrams meaning  you can't build your boat from a  conceptual diagram a conceptual diagram  is more of a way for us to express ideas  right to share concepts it goes  obviously more in detail if you've seen  the wiring diagram for your boat  obviously the details are deeper and I  try to include them in my presentations  originally and most people are like what  the hell am I looking at there's a  thousand different things on that page  I'm like oh yeah I get it I can time  we're gonna be lost in the weeds  we got a step go a little bit higher and  so we're expressing concepts today on  conceptual diagrams these conceptual  diagrams are also available on the  website you can download them and that's  how you go about oh yeah so that's how a  solar panel is connected well how's the  battery combiner work how is the battery  isolator work right and we're gonna be  talking about that okay all right with  that let's get it underway let's not get  scared it's okay but this is what a boat  electrical system looks like  conceptually on the DC  level that's what it looks like and our  goal here today is to go through every  one of those items specifically the ones  on the left hand side of the slide and  what we're going to be looking at is  every single one of them and how they  affect one another so we're gonna be  talking about solar controllers  alternators battery chargers methanol  fuel cells we're going to talk about  battery Isolators battery combiners and  we'll even me to talk a little bit about  DC generators and wind turbines so  everything at first should be  intimidating and it's okay you know if  you want easy you're not gonna be doing  voting so if we're here in the room as  voters we know that easy is not voting  isn't so we're willing to take on a  challenge and you do it one bite at a  time right and again with your  electrical system on our boats it's not  about understanding all of it it's  understanding one part of it at a time  and eventually it all makes sense or  more sense as you get to know the system  one important takeaway that I want to  leave on this slide and I cannot  emphasize this enough and we're going to  be repeat these words all the time and  ignore it your peril if you want a world  of magic on your boat and you describe  your term in magical terms for the  electrical system it's because someone  that did the work on your boat forgot or  decided to ignore the difference between  unsweet distribution and switch  distribution unstitch distribution means  a connection that is directly connected  to the battery that is always there  always on even when you turn the battery  switch off those loads or charging  circuits are always connected to the  battery you can never disconnect those  circuits from the battery with a battery  switch that's why it's called an  undisturbed  right and the other side is switch  distribution one other little takeaway  electrical is a business of perfection  if that's not if you know as a boater we  need to say to ourselves I'm being asked  to be perfect am I willing to take on  the challenge and if not you should not  do electrical electrical is not a place  where you can have it  80% it 95% it 99 percent it  it's a perfection business it's either  do it alright or you haven't done it  right  it's period there is no room for error  right and so as when we take on  electrical work it's important to say I  am being challenged here to do  everything absolutely right every  connection has to be done right the  location of the connection has to be in  the right place there is only one right  answer okay and that's important to  remember it's not like building a table  if tables a little bit you know sort of  crooked doesn't look great you know it  still works  electrical is not like that it's not  like carpentry it can just it's not  about looking great or not it's about  it's got to be safe reliable right and  that's very important ok so the other  thing too that we're gonna I want to  emphasize here is the AC system of  electrical or marine electrical system  pretty much looks like what we have here  on the slide you're gonna have sources  of AC coming on board right on the  left-hand side you have Shore power and  you have a generator these are pretty  much the only two sources of AC on a  boat you can have multiple generators  you know we get invited to work on 100  footers 120 footers 150 footers they  might have three generators you know  port starboard a night gem you know a  lot of north ovens you know 75 they  might have a big jam a small jam you  know Bay jam night jam it doesn't matter  how many generators you have how many  short power receptacles you have you  might have shore power or receptacle up  front in the aft you might have two up  front two and a half a Bayliner 47 88  has 3 AC inputs right line 1 line 2 line  3 doesn't matter there's just more  sources running the panel  it looks intimidating but actually AC on  a boat is pretty simple there's not a  lot of magic with AC because generally  nobody in their right mind would work on  AC if they didn't know what they were  doing from a matter of safety that's a  place where you really do not want to  take any chances so you basically have  multiple sources and then you end up  having a source selector you need to  decide what's going to run the boat it's  going to be the generator or Shore power  and that feeds a panel and then in turn  from the panel you might have what are  called inverter loads now you might not  have to AC panels on your boat but in  the back it's wired like it's two  different panels  okay so when you have an inverter on  board most installs are gonna have a  basically a sub panel for inverter loads  not all remember there's no sort of one  way only way with memory and electrical  there's a lot of differences right in  possibilities but I'd say 95% are gonna  have sort of non inverter loads not  inverter loads would be like a hot water  heater a battery charge you wouldn't  want to run a battery charger from your  inverter right an inverter takes power  from the batteries you want to want to  bat charge your batteries from your  batteries it's the opposite of Aliano da  Vinci infinity machine it's just not  gonna work and I've seen that a lot  people are literally go cruising and  they're like my batteries are dying all  the time I've got weak batteries and  sure enough it's because their inverter  is powering their battery charger and  while they were under way they're like I  want my battery charger on oh I don't  have AC I'll make an inverter on and  they're not understanding and I never  laugh I'm like yeah it makes confusing  somebody wired it badly  so you made that error it's not that  your batteries are a problem is that  you're charging your batteries from your  batteries and basically that's it AC  systems are pretty straightforward it  doesn't matter if it's a 70-footer or a  30-footer they pretty much are just more  of the same we'll talk a little bit  about AC so next what we're gonna get  into is when you're thinking about doing  an electrical system or improving on  your electrical system because most of  us are not doing a complete refit of our  electrical we're saying I'm going to  tackle a part of the electrical there's  some things that are good on my boat and  there's some things are not so good on  my boat and you're gonna say okay  I'm gonna be in doing improvements or  changes or a whole overall change you  got to start thinking about requirements  and these are the things that you need  to hash out before you go down the path  right generally you've got to think  about what are all the different things  you're gonna run on your boat don't do  the electrical system and then start  adding like oh yeah I'm gonna I've  decided now two years in I'm going to  add a windlass I've decided now that I'm  gonna do an inverter oh I'm gonna decide  that you know I'm not gonna stay  overnight one night I'm gonna stay  overnight three nights all these things  need to be hashed out at the beginning  if you're building a house how many  rooms you're gonna have in that house  have to be figured out at the  that you can tell the builder a while  underway like oh yeah I didn't think  about my daughter's room  can we add that oh yeah we're doing a  bottom you know a basement suite can we  add that all those discussions in your  mind have to happen at the beginning so  start dreaming you know where's my boat  going to be in five years two years and  so figure out all of your AC and DC  loads the other thing that's really  important it's figuring out how much  power you're going to need a day it's  important to if you're planning to  retire and you're gonna say how much  money do I need in the bank to retire  one of the other variables you need to  ask yourself is what my burn rate how  much money do I need a year will  influence how many much money you need  in the bank to retire and sizing a  battery bank is directly correlated to  how many amp hours you use every day on  your boat it's got to be otherwise world  of surprises and disappointments you  might buy too many batteries or too  little the other variable that's really  important is how frequently will you  have an opportunity to recharge your  batteries and I can't say that enough  some boaters have a generator on board  and they run that generator morning and  night some boaters actually believe or  not run their generator 24/7  I had a boater that had a 36 footer and  he was okay running his generator 24/7  you know it didn't bother him he doesn't  have battery problems does it not have  battery problems the generators running  all the time running a battery charger  he doesn't need really I mean he has  batteries but he could have one right  the generationally running now that's  one end of the spectrum another end of  the spectrum is potentially a sail  border that wants to stay on the hook  for two weeks and without running the  generator or charger ie a generator or  even the alternator how are you going to  do that are you gonna have solar to  recharge the batteries or you're gonna  have a wind turbine how are you gonna  recharge the batteries to stay on the  hook for a week two weeks or three days  right and the other thing to consider is  well how many battery banks am I gonna  have on the boat you know some boaters  you know you might have a 20-foot boat  it's 15 foot boat they have one battery  one engine  you know the downrigger the chartplotter  is just running it for example imagine a  tender 15-foot tender a rib one battery  on board starts the engine also runs  maybe a simple VHF  that's as simple as it gets a single  battery you might have a boat and you're  saying well actually a little bit of  division of labor a battery for the  engine a battery for the house oh I have  two engines a battery for port engine a  battery for starboard engine oh I've got  a generator generator battery oh I  actually have thrusters I have forward  and aft battery for four thruster  battery for a thruster you know I'm  having a windlass and my windlass is  obviously at the bow and my house  battery banks are way at the aft I'm  gonna have a windlass battery right some  voters have inverter only battery banks  the most amount of battery banks I've  seen on a boat so far is six but that's  something you've got to think about how  many different battery banks are you  gonna have there's definitely such a  thing as too many but you want to have  as little as possible within reason  right one is probably always too little  and then you got to do not more than you  need and you sort of like are pushing  and pulling against yourself right I  need no more than I want and I need no  little than I want so you got to find  that magic number of battery bags that  you're gonna have in your boat  so with that oh yeah and one two last  points again if you're a totally  completely new boat you might decide am  I gonna go with 24 volt boat or am I  gonna do 12 right big implication on  there you're seeing more and more 24  volt boats right now especially above 50  feet and then is the boat coming from  Europe is it a 220 bow to 120 boat are  you gonna have to 20 loads coming in are  you gonna be an a big AC user boat or  you're gonna have air conditioning  onboard right you can't run air  conditioning on just and run your boat  just on a simple 30 amp 120 you might  need a 50 amp 220 so all these things  you still need to think about at the  beginning always create a plan and think  where you're gonna go  before you start your journey super  important okay alright so with that  we're gonna start with batteries there's  a lot of choice with batteries I mean  that's the good thing and that's also  the bad thing right it's a little bit  overwhelming you go into marine battery  store and you're like I want a marine  battery they're like okay well let's  start the journey and that's where we're  gonna talk a little about about the  journey of choosing the right  hurry for your boat there's no such  thing as a perfect battery for everyone  there isn't if there was it'd be easy I  shall one slide  we're like done battery check box here's  you know the Silver Bullet and we move  on it unfortunately like with mold  things on a boat and I remember I  remember guard --less of money you have  a billion dollars you spend it on a boat  at the end of the day you're making a  not a thousand you're making a hundred  thousand decisions that are compromises  I want a bigger boat you're gonna have  this and that you're constantly moving  these levers that effect something else  right and so money doesn't even solve  all problems sizes and solve all  problems all about compromises you could  have a 30-footer 100 foot or a 50 footer  it doesn't matter  you're constantly choosing so batteries  is one of those things you have to  choose as a motor most of us as a boater  will end up choosing pretty much with  what's called our flooded lead-acid  batteries or sealed lead-acid batteries  seal valve let acid batteries those are  AGMs absorbed glass mat or gels flooded  lead-acid batteries or the batteries  that we all had in our cars 20 years ago  right they had electrolyte you know  there was battery acid in them it was in  a flooded state liquid state we're  seeing more and more seal valve  regulated batteries on boat nowadays  right and those are AGM and also Firefly  batteries and another word that's  commonly used and we're seeing that a  little bit more and more it's coming out  more and more every year as well our  lithium batteries lithium phosphate iron  batteries again don't get caught up and  oh I need an AGM because my neighbor has  one no not that easy there's a lot of  choice and we're going to talk a little  bit I'm here next slide is going to show  you some of the differentiators between  elana acid batteries  remember AGM is a lead acid battery gel  is a lead acid battery flood is an acid  is a lead acid battery so there's three  big choices with lead acid batteries  we're gonna focus on the next slide  between Firefly AGM AGM and flooded one  of the first differentiators is cost  don't kid yourself the least expensive  battery not the best value battery but  if cost is king and that's the only  thing you care about  you want the least-expensive battery  you're gonna go for a flood of the acid  battery no doubt this is going to be the  lowest number on the battery no doubt  now if it was that easy you can buy  things just strictly based on cost we've  probably all you being fast food every  day and nobody would ever worry about  organic or anything else it'd be fast  food all the way the only way but  low-cost is not necessarily best value  there's generally something in the  between from a low cost and so you can  see the differences in dollar signs  these are sort of trying to represent  the cost a Firefly battery is going to  be probably three times more money than  a good quality flooded lead-acid battery  so why would you do that why would you  spend three times the price well it's in  sort of the benefits that you get as a  boater one of them is life cycles right  and I'm actually next I'm going to talk  about cycle I should talk about battery  life battery life is basically 4 X 5 X  so if you're buying a battery and you're  changing your batteries every 3 to 5  years  your Firefly batteries are gonna last 4  times that long at 50% depth of  discharge a Firefly battery is 3,600  cycles and flooded battery is 300 cycles  that's 12x again the math but if you go  all the way down to 20% of capacity a  Firefly battery is 1200 cycles and a  flooded battery at 50% has 300 so your  training you're saying you know what I  I'm buying batteries but I don't want to  do this again this is the last time I  want to buy batteries that's where you  would end up doing Firefly batteries the  other thing a big takeaway between AGM  and flooded is you have more usable  battery capacity and this is important  because what you see is not what you get  with a battery a 200 amp hour battery is  not 200 amp hours of usable battery  capacity you can do it but you're gonna  have a very short battery life I have  very stubborn clients and we see them  every couple years they refuse to ignore  my advice about not discharging their  batteries to 50% on flooded  and unfortunately tell them we're I mean  I I don't mind seeing you that often  it's fun it's good for the business but  isn't it frustrating and change your  batteries every couple years when you  could be changing them every 5-10 years  if you actually maintain them properly  and you didn't work them so hard so the  depth of discharge of that battery is  really important you don't want to go  too deep on the discharge okay and the  other thing too that's really a big  takeaway especially with Firefly is that  they can live in a partial state of  discharge without affecting battery  capacity what does that what does that  mean it means that it prevents premature  aging Firefly batteries and they're  perfect example so for cruisers people  that are going away from arena for a  long period of time they're off the dock  for two months three months or they're  going offshore if you're a boating and  you're not answering our docking every  night and you're off the grid for two  months three months a year you're going  off grid you want a battery that will  not sulfate prematurely that can stay  always between 50 and 80% and never get  to 100% charge and the way that you do  that the way that you do that is having  a battery that is tolerant to a partial  state of discharge and that's why some  boaters will choose if it makes sense  for them will choose your Firefly  battery even though it might be 3/4  times the price of a flooded battery  because they know that they're living in  that partial state of discharge all the  time here are some examples of some  battery banks installed on boats and I  have a full one-hour presentation just  on batteries and we also do a course on  marine electrical system and then it's a  two-hour presentation is just on  batteries and I could do eight hours I  could do 12 but people will be running  for the exits we'd have to lock the  doors so if you're going to be  installing a battery bank on your boat  here are some tips you want the battery  bank to be in one physical location now  I'm not saying all battery banks in one  location you want if you have house  batteries and you have four house  batteries you don't want to on the port  two on the starboard your battery bank  for your house has to be in one location  and again today people sometimes say say  Jeff why if we did the Y on everything  we would be here for a hundred hours the  Y is the longest the what is easy  the why is I'll tell wise as long as you  want me to do but again I'll do that in  private in the back and I can explain  you all the whys these are just the  what's really important that you also  fuse all non starter loads to a battery  bank that is a black and white I can  tell you every single one of you unless  it's a brand new boat untouched if it's  a factory boat this rule is followed  every boat from a factory is going to  follow this row rule the moment your  boat leaves the factory and you invite  someone on your boat or a previous owner  wired your boat I can guarantee you that  99.999% of you have circuits that are  unfused guaranteed because it's path of  least resistance you don't need a fuse  until you need one the circuit works  it's like a seat belt you've never used  your seat belt of lists you've been in  an accident you just don't need one  until you do so it works without a fuse  and that's the thing a fuse is not  critical for it to work it's critical  for you to protect your circuit in the  event of a short or over current  situation that could happen okay next  we're going to talk a little bit about  power jolt yes question  yeah go ahead  a really good question the question but  one of the attendees was when I'm  installing a battery bank should the  battery bank be of all the same  uniformity they should be all the same  and absolutely black and white you  cannot and this is this is one of the  main reasons that you need to evenly  maintain your battery banks it's a  little bit of like tires in a car you  can have tires that are four or five  years old you lose one and you just  change the tire  you kind of have a brand new tire with  three old tires if you change the  battery midstream or even new batteries  they all have to be the same they have  to all start the same brand new  batteries all go together if you have a  GM they all have to be a GM everything  has to be the same you can't you can't  miss golf cart batteries with group  thirty-one batteries with an 8 D battery  no mismatch you can do it  but then also don't ask yourself why you  were unlucky that you're changing your  batteries frequently you're into a world  of hurt shortcuts rarely pan out in life  rarely pan out we're looking for them  all the time but you don't want to do a  shortcut that has been proven to not  work so you always want to have battery  banks that are the same age right the  same type same chemistry and if one  battery bank fails our battery fails out  of a battery bank four years from now  you change the whole bank another  question of her most pictures of wiring  installations with large bundles  drastically the question from the  gentleman in front is when you have  large bundles of wiring does that cut  your ampacity and the answer is yes and  the reason it's because of heat bundles  of wiring the ideal and we can't do this  on our boats you can do them ferries and  ships you'll see if you're ever on a  ferry or ship you look up there's  actually wine trace the wires are sort  of mismatched going in the tray that's  really good for heat dissipation you  keep everything together bundle that's  how you get warm outside your cold hug  someone and how you put a bundle and you  keep everything and then they're  actually in the ABY see they'll have  charts they're like how many wires are  bundled together in a boat the challenge  is it looks neat  and we want things to look good but if  you've got a really big bundle that's  gonna actually de-rate your cable for  ampacity so that means you need a larger  cable when it goes in a bundle and there  are tables that actually specify that so  a good question another question up  front  yes sir is the term Firefly is that a  brand of battery or a night good  question  it's Firefly a type of battery or a  brand Firefly is a brand that is also a  type meaning it's a foam core based AGM  they have a patent it was invented for  Caterpillar and that battery now is  they're the only ones that do that so  they sort of have because they have the  patent yes it's a brand name but it also  happens to be the only one that can do  that battery it was an american-made  product the inventor actually lives on  the east coast of the United States in  Maine amazingly smart man amazingly  smart game changer by the way huge game  changer yes gentlemen question over here  and the host batteries are already  separated starboard port and  extra battery  in this case is even separated remotely  can  you still have to use the rule of  everything going positive  and everything negative coming from  so the the question by the gentleman is  I we have a boat situation happens by  the way boats aren't perfect if they  were none of us would be looking at  making our boats better or fixing them  right I mean that's what brought me to  this business a boat has multiple  battery banks connected together like  our multiple batteries connected in one  bank one a port side one on starboard  side and even a third one in another  location first of all as we know the  rule is you shouldn't have that but  that's what you have and you decide to  live with it your choice should the  positive and negative be at opposite  ends should you try to act like the  battery was in one location and it isn't  and have the positive in one end of the  battery bank and the negative at the  other and the answer is at 8 yes  absolutely again I can't tell you the  why because we'd be here for days I have  lots of stamina I'm a business owner  lots of stamina but we're not gonna go  but the answer is yes you have to have  it at the opposite ends now you remember  here's another little takeaway as a  boater the good news is you can do  whatever you want in North America on  your boat and the bad news is you can do  whatever you want on a boat honestly  that's why I'm in this business I  thought a boat was like a car there's  only one right way that was the  manufacturers way and if you bought a  Toyota you know you sort of got that  Toyota way and that's what you're buying  when you buy a boat the moment it leaves  a factory the world of creativity and  macgyverism happens people take  shortcuts and they do not know the  shortcuts implications and that's good  news or bad news somebody was really  happy that they were able to take a  shortcut and nobody's there's no  standards police on land it would be  criminal somebody if somebody dies  because you've missed wiring a house  they're coming after you there is no end  on a boat a it was sort of your way and  that's the good news and the bad news  it's good news for the MacGyver's out  there and it's bad news for people that  sort of like safety  I'm mr. safety i boat for pleasure i  don't want to have my book catch on fire  i don't want to have a boat that's  unreliable i want a boat that's  predictable i like it sort of the way  there should be so good news or bad news  depending on your perspective  all right with that we're gonna start on  power generation so power generation is  I mean batteries are one thing but  remember batteries are just as wait for  you to store power right that's it so  how do you go about charging batteries  through alternators solar methanol fuel  cells so we're going to go through a  little bit of that so on the diagram all  battery chargers now an inverter it can  be two things remember an inverter can  be an inverter charger or an inverter if  it's an inverter only it's not a  charging source it can go to the switch  distribution because it's a load right  but remember a lot of us the majority of  us on boats have inverter chargers those  are sort of weird devices it's a load  but it's also a charger and if you have  an inverter charger that inverter  charger has to be connected to the  unsweet distribution via its own switch  and we'll talk about that on the slide  here I'm showing an inverter as a load  only and if it's an inverter only device  that device is on the switch  distribution again ignore at your peril  ignore it your peril electrical is  blamed all the time I read you know  books from the 70s and 80s and they  talked about how electrical is magical  and who's reliable unreliable  frustrating blaming a wire think about  it it's an inanimate object has no  intelligence it simply was installed by  a person and we blame electrical for  being unreliable there is nothing more  beautiful and simple and predictable  than electrical it's not that this the  wires are electrical is unpredictable is  the person that did it didn't know what  they were doing right people make  mistakes  it happens electrical is not unreliable  people installing electrical systems  make mistakes and those mistakes are  never identified and become very  frustrating paying points and we blame  electrical systems but we should blame  the Installer electrical one is done  right it works flawlessly absolutely  flawlessly  so here I want to emphasize and  especially if you have a boat that has  over the ages has improved or changed  especially if the battery bank with this  gentleman had more batteries than  probably the Builder I put in you want  to make sure that your charge rate on  your battery charger is at least 10% of  your deep-cycle battery bank size every  boat builder that I've ever been I've  ever seen been on because again I get  invited thank you on literally we get to  work on a thousand boats a year I don't  get to see a thousand boats a year but I  get to see hundreds I've never seen a  brand-new boat that does not have a  battery charger that is ten percent of  the battery bank size every single  designer of electrical system and every  manufacturer does this rule the problem  is that as boaters we end up at buying  more batteries on our boat we often too  often forget to increase the battery  charger size thinking hoping that the  designer size a battery charger for all  possible permutations of your battery  bank in the foreseeable future  no one does that I tell this all the  time with you employees there is no hope  I want it to know I want you to confirm  it I want you to check it oh I think  don't think tell me is that battery  charger size to handle this battery bank  size over if you have a not brand new  boat ninety percent of you have battery  chargers that are too small and a direct  consequence of that is that your battery  banks are dying or aging prematurely and  you're losing your battery banks too  soon because your battery charger is not  10 percent of your battery bank size so  if you value money and your time make  sure your battery charger is at least 10  percent of your battery bank size so for  example if you have for golf cart  batteries wiring a 12-volt battery bank  let's call it 400 amp hours marketing  would tell you 460 and you know they're  gonna make the numbers as stretch as  humanly possible but let's call it 400  you need a 40 amp charger on a 400 amp  hour battery bank that's what it is it  doesn't so much effect engine batteries  because engine batteries are not brought  to a deep-cycle level right  there's a big difference between starter  batteries and deep cycle batteries  if you're curious again you can see  bunch of youtube videos just on that  topic now there's also an upper end  limit you can't charge a battery as fast  as you want regardless right so AGM is  theoretically around 40 flooded  theoretically around 25 lithium  theoretically 300 percent so that means  if you have a 400 amp hour battery bank  you could theoretically charge that  battery bank at 1200 amps sounds great  but I like I can guarantee you that you  cannot go to a chandlery and say by the  way I'm looking for a 1200 amp charger  it's not gonna happen it's not gonna  happen  there is no such thing as a 1200 amp  charger the largest battery charger on  the market is a hundred amp 24 volt  charger that's it so looking for a 1200  amp charger is you're gonna start  looking for a long time and not on the  internet either can it doesn't happen so  you want to have a battery charger  that's not too big not too small and you  want to be realistic with your  expectations so generally we size  battery chargers a little bit bigger and  we try to give them about 20% of  capacity as a way to reduce charge time  and that's really important if you have  a generator now again some owners don't  care about running their generators all  the time so for them it doesn't matter  but if you for whatever reason and there  might be a few good reasons that I can  think of not running your generator you  know 24 hours a day and you don't want  to run at 8 hours a day or 10 hours a  day and you only want to run 2 hours or  4 hours then increase your charger size  not size but add multiple chargers I  have some boats we have we had a 24 volt  boat we have 350 amps at 24 volts by  adding multiple Chargers on the bulkhead  you can stack or daisy chain chargers  okay this is what basically a charger  layout looks like now I can't emphasize  this enough a battery charger is powered  by AC your engine even a generator when  the generator is running it creates and  especially if you have an AC generator  creates a C and then AC powers of  charger Chargers used to be called  converters  that's the word that we would use the  opposite of an inverter right inverter  converter  they sound opposite similar but opposite  that word died unfortunately because  converters were we didn't understand  what was going on in battery we were  overcharging them so nobody uses the  word converter anymore you can't buy a  converter you just can't you buy battery  chargers now battery chargers are bulk  absorption float three-stage now they  even have a fourth stage but at the end  of the day a battery charger is powered  by AC so it's either when you connect it  to shore power or you have an AC  generator running and then you power  send a seeds of the device the device  takes that AC converts it and through a  three-phase smart charging curve  recharges your battery when your engine  is running an engine propulsion engine  is running  there is no propulsion engine that is  running that creates AC to run a battery  charger a lot of people think and I give  this all the time they're like Jeff do I  need my battery charger on when I'm  running my engine I'm like they're  unrelated they're not they're not at all  your alternator is running or turning  and creating DC power when you're  underway or at idle depending but not a  battery charger  so to recap you want at least 10% of a  battery back one second at least 10% of  your battery bank deep cycle size as a  charge rate I can't emphasize this  enough  practically 95% of you have a battery  charger with no fusing on it again you  don't need a seat belt to drive your car  besides the law and your conscience you  do not need a seat belt  your car will work without a seat belt  unfortunately when you need a seat belt  that you're not buckled in it's gonna be  a life experience it's gonna be a very  memorable moment unforgettable actually  and if you have a dead short on any wire  size on your boat it will may be your  last day on the water if you make it out  of your boat it will change your life  so fusing battery charger leads is  absolutely essential and they're  pointing that emphasizing here which is  again really important  a Chargers need to be directly connected  to the unstretched distribution meaning  when you turn your battery switch off  your charger is still connected to your  batteries right that is the rule  absolutely now it happens to be honest  happens off too often that the battery  charger is connected to the switch on  side of your switch meaning when you  turn that battery switch off your  charger is disconnected from your  batteries can't have that a lot of good  reasons worlds of magic if that happens  all right here's a little bit of slide  of an inverter the inverter is the great  of ice in the middle what is an inverter  an inverter is a device that creates AC  from DC right the opposite of a  converter and why would you have an  inverter on your boat you'd have an  inverter on your boat if you want to  have the benefits of running household  appliances on your boat when you don't  have a generator or you're not gonna  have a connected to shore power for  example on my boat  I run a coffee machine an espresso from  my batteries through an inverter I love  coffee it's one of the pleasures of my  life I have an espresso machine machine  and even if we're in an anchorage in the  middle of nowhere I'll turn the inverter  on and - presto machine is going to take  AC power from the inverter and the  inverter takes DC power from the battery  bank could be running a microwave it  could be running a TV alright there's a  bunch of what are called non inverter  loads non inverter loads are a hot water  tank AC hot water tank is not something  you want to run off your inverter you  can but your battery was gonna be dead  in 20 minutes rights are big big loads  should not be running off an inverter  like air conditioning you know could be  run but then you're got a big big  battery bang you're gonna have a lithium  battery bank you need a big big  electrical system to run large AC loads  on your boat there's no end of course  you can run a city off an inverter  there's inverters the size almost of  this room right but again the problem is  on our boats we're taking power from our  batteries and our batteries are limited  there's no such thing or very  early too big a battery bank we're  limited by space and weight and our  budgets you know otherwise we'd have  bigger battery banks if we could it's  like a little bit like money very few of  us ever have the luxury of saying I have  too much money it's very rare I don't  think I've ever met an order said Jeff  you know what I've got too much battery  banks oh yeah you know I wish I didn't  have as many it's it's a hassle to not  worry about power I've never heard those  words never it's never happened you  always wish you had a little bit more or  you're happy with you have but too much  power  no inverters are the number one device  that is installed unsafely on pretty  much all of our boats and it comes down  to  unfortunately the manual is almost I  mean the manuals almost a centimeter  thick it's about 70 100 pages and  unfortunately most men install inverters  unfortunately women install inverters  they'd probably be done right and most  men you know what they're born with  knowledge they don't need to read a  manual manuals are stupid they're for  other people and the other bad news is  when you buy an inverter you're not  actually buying all the pieces that are  required to install an inverter you're  just buying one part of the inverter  system so there's no switch there's no  fuse there's no wiring and you can get  away with getting an inverter to work  without actually wiring it properly  less than 1% of boats have inverters put  wire properly and the reason is most  factories don't install inverters if a  factory installed an inverter I can tell  you there'd be an engineer they're going  nuts and a lawyer and the office is  going you're crazy  we'll lose our name will be sued we'll  lose everything we have if we have a  boat fire because we badly installed an  inverter they would never do it they  have either a conscience or they love  their money too much to not care but the  problem is is most inverters are done  99% are done after factory and then  welcome to the world of get it done make  someone happy please someone do it in as  little time as humanly possible  and say you know why would an inverter  take 2-3 days to install I install mine  in four and four hours you're not doing  an apples-to-apples comparison one  person took a bunch of shortcuts and the  other person did it right so if you're  looking and you have an inverter on your  boat make sure all these items are on  your boat you need a class T fuse you  absolutely need a service disconnect you  need an inverter only neutral bus proper  size ground chassis wire the location of  the inverter cannot be in a in a  gasoline engine room and the inverter  cannot be 30 feet away from your  batteries when I find an inverter  properly installed no matter how  inappropriate it is I ask the owner if  we can high-five I'm like this is a  special moment you have a properly  installed inverter let's celebrate  that's how rare it is I'll see it  properly installed inverter maybe once a  year once a year that's how the manual  is just simply too thick you can't read  that it's a hundred pages why would you  do that question anybody on inverters  all right next thing we're gonna be  talking about is alternators if you look  on the slide here on the left-hand slide  pretty much every single boat that comes  out of the factory and this is 99.999  unless you might have a north oven maybe  a Fleming maybe a Saline you know maybe  all boats are wired like on the  left-hand side meaning this alternator  is directly wired the output the  positive output from your alternator is  daisy chained to the starter solenoid  post on your starter it's a short little  wire it's gonna be I don't care how big  your engine your mention could be bigger  than I am like wider like eight feet  long 10 feet long the alternator is  going to be slightly forward of this  starter you're gonna have maybe a four  feet five feet piece of wire on my boat  my engine is only this big  the wires are both this long and from  the positive posts of the alternator to  the starter so little solenoid post what  that means is that if you ever turn your  battery switch off and every single  battery switch on every single boat has  a tiny little label at the bottom and I  learned this the hard way because I had  lots of bravado when I bought my boat  lots of bravado I was not humbled yet  I've been humbled if you saw the scars  on my body from doing things the wrong  way I'd be disfigured I learned the hard  way and I remember I was an engineer  right out of school 2006 lots of bravado  the alternator doesn't seem to be  working I'm like I got this must be the  switch I don't know what the hell I'm  doing I'm like maybe the switch is  faulty turn the switch on turn the  switch by the switch was on turn it off  turn it on again I can guarantee you  that if I had if I had an alternator or  not problem before I created an  alternator problem  literally at the bottom of the switch  and small fine print is never turn  battery switch off when engine is  running every single switch on every  single boat has that because the  alternator cannot be disconnected when  the engine is running and if you do so  you blow up your alternator so I blew up  my alternator two weeks after buying my  this is sort of the genesis of being  here I felt so stupid and I was like no  this is no I'm not gonna you bravado my  way into all of this I got to start  educating that's why I start with forums  books Don Casey I had a boner history  saying Jeff I want to educate myself and  Nigel Calder you know all these sort of  famous authors there's tons of forums I  mean as a board if you're curious it's a  huge tap of information out there right  be curious and that's why with an  alternator after that problem I went  again reading Nigel Calder who's  presenting in the room a little down the  road just on the few stages down the way  over there I decided okay I'm gonna do  it the right way I'm gonna run a large  wire directly to my house battery bank  I'm not gonna have it switched anymore  I'm gonna have it fused but not switched  I'm gonna make it foolproof me being the  fool right so I basically said I don't  want to make that error ever again again  so I wired the alternator directly to  the house battery make sure and I and  you remember when we talked about  battery chargers not increasing with the  battery bank size over time that happens  to with alternators we end up putting  larger and larger battery banks on our  boat but the alternator doesn't increase  in size with it right I go on boats  let's say for example grand banks 42 had  you know one ad well port and starboard  ad 55 stack stock alternator remember 55  to 20 to 40 that's almost a 25% ratio  right so the alternator is perfectly  sized for that battery bank no problem  and then later down the road that boat  now doesn't only have one ad or a 240 a  power battery bank it has three more of  them right so now you have an 800 900  amp hour battery bank that is charged by  a fifty five amp alternator  and then I get a call from the order  it's like it's taking forever I'm doing  eight hours of motoring a day  my battery bank still doesn't get  charged I'm like it's not the motor the  problem is that your alternator is too  small for your battery bank size  remember a battery bank is like a big  wallet our large bank account our huge  safe it's one thing to have a big safe  but putting money into it is the hard  part right earning is hard storing it is  one thing earning energy and being able  to size it size an alternator size a  charger so that you can recharge your  battery bank at the right rate of charge  is very important and often overlooked  question gentlemen question is we have  or someone has a used boat and I'm  wondering what size alternator is it  you'll be able to see a little nameplate  it's about maybe about this big sort of  like on top of the alternator you know  following the curve of the alternator a  little nameplate hopefully it's not been  worn and you'll be able to see the size  of the alter it's gonna generally say  you know 75 55 90-120 some alternators  are like 260 amps 300 amps on large  engines but generally the stock  alternates 55 amps alright with that  we're gonna start the next thing we're  to talk about is solar when you do a  solar battery the old gentleman here  question 20 engine my start barely four  alternators wind sighs can I change the  upgrade because my house batteries are  bigger bigger load so later on each  engine yeah okay that's a good question  yeah so if you've got a boat two engines  which is not uncommon for a lot of power  builders or catamaran right power or  sail and I've got one alternating let's  say connected to a starter battery and I  have another alternator connected to my  house battery should I consider changing  which alternator I'm gonna make it mill  a bit more open which alternator should  I consider changing first I would change  the one connected to my house battery  right because that's the one that needs  the most think about your you know that  the house battery bank is generally the  largest battery bank you know you could  have it doesn't matter how big your boat  is it's generally gonna be in multiples  of you know your house battery bank  might be a hundred amp hours but  obviously they're measuring in cold  cranking amps but generally it's gonna  be maybe five X 10 X you know I have  some boats that have ten more house  batteries they need do engine batteries  in size and so if you've got you know a  really large house battery bank  the first alternator you should think  about changing is the house one and most  of the time the the alternator for your  engine battery is perfectly fine as long  as you're not running too many large  loads on your engine battery while under  way  I had a boater brand new boat 52 footer  the engine room got too hot they would  run these huge fans in the engine room  to cool down the engine room underway  massive fans like I'm talking like huge  while underway their alternator was so  small that after four hours of leaving  the marina their engines would die  because their alternator output could  not meet the demand of running those  fans and the engine would die because it  was an electronic engine so there's no  power to the digital control module  control module dies engine dies the  owner had to run his generator to run  battery chargers to power the fans to  run his engine  no joke brand-new about two million  dollars yeah got missed hey if it was  easy I don't even laugh if it was easy  we would not all be here in their room  learning about it right something easy  it's done so I go back and I'm like yeah  it's it's a big puzzle you know I don't  laugh anymore I'm like yeah it's not  easy that's why it's interesting if it  was easy I wouldn't be doing it  Solar so it's solar basically what  you've got is you've got a solar panel  connected to a controller so this is  really essential and I can't emphasize  this enough you cannot have a solar  panel directly connected to a battery  bank your battery banks might be  completely charged you're connected to  shore power I had that question asked  last night on YouTube I have a large  solar panel and is it going to be okay  to have a battery charger connected to a  battery bank with a solar panel  connected to a controller at the same  time meaning I'm connected to shore  power I have a battery charger turned on  the sun is shining now I have two  sources of power coming to one battery  am I going to be okay and because both a  battery charger and a solar controller  are voltage regulated through a  three-phase smart charging profile right  bulk absorption float yes you can have  two charging devices at the same time  today like on my boat I have six solar  panels six controllers and I can be  connected to shore power seven charging  sources of power all at the same time  and won't overcharge it because all of  them are being smart they're like do I  need to help no I won't do anything  they'll back off what I'm emphasizing on  the left part of this slide here is I'm  talking about a dedicated panel  dedicated controller and there's a  reason you might do this for reasons of  shading right like if you're a sailboat  or a power boarder and you have a huge  arch and you've got lots of things above  your solar panels and your panels might  experience shading your sailboat or you  have solar panels for example on your  dogger you have a boo  you know part of the day one panel is  going to be shaded part of the other day  the other panel is going to be shaded  assuming you're not moving and then only  when the Sun is directly overhead you  might have sun shining perfectly on both  panels without chaining well when that  happens you know when we install solar  panels on Dodgers we end up doing a  dedicated controller per panel right so  that each panel is perfectly tuned for  the sunlight conditions that it's  experiencing at that given moment I had  another client again last night on  YouTube asked me another question  they're like I'm putting three solar  panels but I've got a huge Bimini and I  do not have any shading can do should I  wire dedicated controllers or sure can I  wire them in series I'm like besides  redundancy which would be a good reason  to do dedicate controllers per panel you  can wire your three solar panels in  series which is what I'm showing on the  right-hand side here we've only have two  to a single controller so I generally  will wire panels in series if the  panel's I might do let's say one side of  a Bimini right on a Bimini I might have  a lot of solar panels I might have two  or three on one side of the Bimini if  they're all the same type same size I  might wire them in series and then have  some on the port side so I'm on the  starboard side wires in series again  there's no easy answer you got to think  about it pros and cons but you do not  want to have a panel that's on the port  that's going to experience different  shading conditions than one on starboard  and then have them connected in series  or especially in parallel question  the question is if you have multiple  solar controllers connected to obviously  multiple solar panels do you need to  have an independent battery path an  independent path to the battery bank the  answer is no you can aggregate like on  my boat I have Sora for solar  controllers at the back of my boat and I  aggregate the four larger wire fused  going to the battery bank so you can  start aggregating when you think about  electrical often we're gonna hear words  like trunk lines branch circuits think  about electrical as a tree right that's  why they call them a trunk and a branch  circuit so eventually you start  aggregating things because you do not  want to have 30 circuits or 40 circuits  on a battery right it has to be modular  you've got a large wire leaving going to  positive distribution negative  distribution then those go out fan out  the sub distribution they go to panels  and it's like a tree there's only ever  one path back to the ground with a tree  right so you never want to have loops  you don't wanna have parallel paths ever  right you only ever want to have one  path from an end appliance imagine a  leaf alight and there's only one path  that will go to the ground only one path  there multiple circuits but there's only  ever one path back to the ground yes  question  to use the battery connector from  yeah the question was do you have a fuse  on a from a solar panel to a controller  for example or to a battery yes all this  is a black and white rule this is truly  black and white all non starter circuits  have to be fused including solar panels  and you'll notice on the slide there's a  little wiggly line looks like sort of a  long ass that is the fuse connected to  the battery so the solar controller has  a fuse the positive connection to the  battery has to be fused has to be black  and white that's the code now again  scary part how many of us have unfused  circuits in our boats too many too many  of us because it works without a fuse  until you need a fuse gentleman in the  back question  yeah so the question is can win  generates interfere with solar generally  there are controllers that exist that  control both or convert solar and wind  generators so they won't interfere you  can have a controller just for your wind  generator a controller just for your  solar personally I like division  you know I'm an engineer I like sort of  not having all my eggs in one basket if  you're putting a wind turbine on your  boat you're probably thinking that  you're not going to be connecting to  shore power too often and if you have  solar on top of it you're really  thinking you need to be off-grid to put  both of those devices in one device if  you lose it and you're in the middle of  nowhere you're toast  I mean you're you're far away right most  people that end up having wind turbines  and solar are really off shore cruisers  there are people that are going often  beyond if you're doing that I personally  would rather have dedicated devices per  dedicated source of income rather than  having one that's common and you lose  that you lose both question  these things is there any disadvantage  the inline fuses as opposed to in  account the question is there any  different disadvantages with an inline  fuse versus a circuit breaker at a panel  no there isn't  I do an inline fuses on solar panels all  the time all the time and remember I can  bring a solar panel it's a good quiz  question here I can't bring a solar  panel to a panel a solar panel to a DC  panel panel to panel why because the DC  panel is switched and remember solar  panels have to be unswept you can never  ever ever bring a solar panel controller  connection to a DC panel ever why  because that is an unsuspecting all  charging circuits alternators battery  chargers solar wind turbines have to be  connected to the unsweet distribution I  know your panel is closer you're like so  easy it's right there can I take a  shortcut  think about it does Jeff like shortcuts  do you want it easy or you want it done  right  Easy's not a place on a boat you want  easy don't go boating  there is nothing easy about boating  there isn't nothing easy net always do  it right always do it right so a  question about sizing solar panels if  you've got solar panels on your boat and  you're you're wondering right Jeff I had  that yesterday I did a presentation on  solar Jeff how do I figure out how many  solar panels I need well there's a  really good simple rule here in the  Pacific Northwest  if you've got a 100 watt solar panel how  much power is it gonna output and yes  there's a typo in this slide 100 times  25 percent is 25 amp hours right so if  you for example have a 200 watt solar  array 25 percent of 200 watt is 15 amp  hours the other way of looking at is  saying Jeff I have a hundred amp hour  battery a half hour battery budget on my  boat  I want my solar panel staffs at all my  loads I'm going off in this summer I'm  not plugging in  I have boaters that like for example I  had a Grand Banks 36 a few years ago  they said Jeff we don't want to buy a  generator on our boat we're going to an  outstation it does not have power we  want to stay at the dock for a week a  week to two weeks I don't want a  generator I don't want to run my engine  to create power to recharge my batteries  I want you to create a solar array that  will allow me to stay at the dock pretty  much without power indefinitely  sounds crazy not crazy at all no problem  we ended up putting a 450 waterway there  daily power consumption was about a  hundred so we oversize it slightly and  they have a 450 waterway on a Grand  Banks 36 right on the Bimini and now  when they go at that out station without  power they're literally running the  fridge running their lights running the  water pump all from power that was  created storing the batteries and even  the batteries are running the boat  overnight and in the daytime the Sun  starts even if it's slightly cloudy  creates power recharges the battery and  then the cycle repeats I did it on my  boat in this summer on my boat I can be  completely disconnected I don't need an  alternator I don't need a battery  charger from May to September I have  more power than I need on my boat it's  doable I do it all the time I did a  lagoon 55 do it all the time now it  takes a little bit of stomach to go  through the purchasing of the solar  panels I mean that's not easy but once  you're over that hump and I did my boat  about eight years ago it's done it's  over I'm completely neutral I don't  worry about power ever in the summer now  in the winter time that's a different  story in the winter time the Sun here in  the Pacific Northwest is not shining 16  hours a day yeah solar in the winter  time is not it's not as good you went on  some you lose on others so if you're  going to be doing a solar remember when  you're choosing your controller think  about our men connect into a 24 volt  battery bank or 12 volt battery bank  because controllers are actually  designed specifically for what battery  bank they're going to be connecting to  not many of us have 24 but if you've got  a bigger boat  you know in the 50s or something and  you're doing solar you're going to want  to think about what size battery back  we're connecting or voltage battery bank  we're connecting to you're also going to  consider you know the maximum amperage  of that solar panel array voltage all  those factors there's no such thing is a  solar controller for any solar array you  size a solar array with a dedicated  controller they sort of work together  and remember another thing I emphasized  was if you're gonna have shade on one or  multiple of the solar panels think about  having dedicated controllers per solar  panel right not only for redundancy but  for efficiency that's why I have a  sailboat  lots of shading on a sailboat there's  booms are got a radar mask  there's shading all the time on my boat  so what I end up doing is I have six  panels six controllers my array is  awesome it was painful to put in  time-consuming but you know what there's  no operating costs solar panels don't  need oil changes there's no fuel filter  changes right it works you put it in all  your capital and labor efforts are  upfront you do it and then it's done but  it's not easy at the beginning it's  always more effort than you thought it  was going to be the next thing I want to  talk about here is talk about a methanol  fuel cell methanol fuel cells are a  device that converts methanol to a DC  charging voltage so you need to be  connected to a battery on switch side  right because it's a charging circuit  and that device basically runs in the  background doesn't output a lot of power  but it outputs a little power and it  outputs it continuously right it's the  difference between sort of the affable  when we were kids you know the the  turtle versus the hair  you know the rabbit goes quickly but  it's a sprinter the turtle runs doesn't  run it go slowly but over time gets  there a methanol fuel cell is something  that's very quiet runs at about 22  decibels and it runs in the background  and it's a way for you to recharge your  batteries and have it sort of  converting methanol to a DC charging  voltage now it's a DC device it's not an  AC device you can't run a microwave off  of methanol fuel cell and the other real  I guess reality is that methanol fuel is  not readily available everywhere so it's  more of a coastal thing you know if  you're going offshore and you're gonna  go in the South Pacific or in the  Aleutians or you're going way off and  beyond you're not going to be able to go  to Bora Bora and go to a chandlery and  say I want methanol m10 fuel cartridge  you'll be like yeah you know I've just  sold one yesterday no it's more for the  boaters here in the Pacific Northwest I  have some people that are doing races to  Hawaii sail boaters right they want  power to be generated then they never  want to run the engine not that they're  actually obviously using propulsion but  they want the e power we'll put a  methanol fuel cell on board so that  they've got power being generated in the  background with actually having the need  to run an engine and run an alternator  or will have sail borders and power  borders that have generators but the  generators are giving them a lot of  grief they're too noisy and maintenance  wise they're not always reliable will  rip out generators and replace them with  something that is you know weighs only  30 pounds that takes you know a tenth of  this space and will put them on board  and then that way when they're going in  Alaska or you know the Browns are north  to the Central Coast  they'll have DC power being generated by  the methanol fuel cell the units need  ventilation obviously there are creating  they do create a little bit of heat the  good news is the their output is  distilled water so if you have flooded  lead-acid batteries on your boat you  could actually use that water to top off  your battery cells sail boaters are  going to send the water to the bilge or  on some boats where we can't send the  water to the bilge because it's a dry  bilge we just have it go to sort of like  we'll use a bike bottle you know bike  water bottle and we'll have the water go  in there and we'll capture and then  we'll dump it overboard okay the next  thing we're going to talk about the two  other topics are power sharing remember  this is a prime example we talked about  a little year this concept of Jeff  I've got one alternator two alternators  but I have multiple battery banks think  about a sailboat er or a simple  powerboat single single screw and power  motor or obviously a sailboat or not can  around with a single engine many of us  many of us as motors are gonna have a  battery bank for a house and a battery  bank for our engine single battery for  engine and a battery bank made of  multiple batteries for your house but at  the end of day there are two battery  banks you have a single alternator how  does one have a single alternator go to  two places it's like having an income  stream you get a check from work you  have one check can you deposit one check  to two bank accounts you can't how would  you do that  you tear the check in half you go to one  bank give some money you're like I I  spread it evenly I'm gonna do 80% in  this Bank 20% in this other Bank it's a  problem right so how do you share one  alternator to multiple places  same thing with solar maybe you have  only one solar panel one controller but  you want to recharge another battery  bank how do you have one battery bank  share with another battery bank or do  how do we have one alternator go to  multiple battery banks so those are two  different devices the first one we're  going to talk about and you'll see on  the slide a little bit in the middle  there's a little device called a battery  combiner and just above it is a device  called a battery isolator so the next  two things we're going to talk about our  battery combiners and battery Isolators  the battery isolator is in the middle of  the slide so what is the battery  isolator do a battery combiner sorry  misspoke it's a device that whenever it  senses a charging voltage effectively  puts your batteries in parallel what  does that mean  it's sort of a device that opens and  closes a door and it does so  automatically it's sort of like a  greeter it says you know what in times  of Plenty I will share the voltage from  one battery bank to another battery bank  meaning whenever I sends that one  battery bank is full enough and  more than I need in one battery bank I  will basically let that voltage be  shared to another battery bank a battery  combiner is effectively it's a digital  solenoid it's a device that  automatically turns a switch on and off  and says now it's time to share and it's  really essential because it allows  multiple battery banks to exist on your  boat and to get a charging voltage from  one single source that's how you have  multiple battery banks on a boat with a  battery combiner notice that they're  both connected to the untwist  distribution meaning there are no  switches in between a battery combiner  and a battery right now what I decided  to show here on this diagram if you look  on the left hand side what you'll see is  that I have an engine battery it's  connected to a fuse right directly to  the battery and then on the right hand  side I have it connected to the untwist  distribution which is in turn connected  via fuse to the battery but there are no  switches at all even if you turn the  battery switches all off on your boat if  there's a charging voltage to one  battery and it senses that charging  voltage it will share it with the other  battery that's connected to it okay so  when you buy a battery combiner you need  to make sure that you think about what  is the maximum amperage that is going to  be going through that battery combiner  it's going to be 55 amps 120 amps 300  amps those are things to consider the  other one that's often overlooked again  fusing eighty-five ninety percent of you  unfortunately you're gonna have battery  combiners that are unfused because it  works without it right like a seat belt  so make sure that the fuse is rated to  handle both the maximum amperage of the  device and also the size of the wire  connected to the device  now you can't measure voltage without  ground you can't just put one probe on  something and say I have 12 volts  voltage is about a differential it's a  difference it's like height right it's  like the water level like and you need a  reference point  so these devices need a ground because  otherwise you can't measure voltage you  can't just measure voltage with one  probe you need to go the difference  between this and that  that's what voltages it's differential  so you also need to fuse the negative  and that's often overlooked too I would  say one last piece of advice on battery  combiners they're generally not meant  for battery banks of different sizes you  want a world of magic or paying putting  a large battery bank connected to a  small battery bank via combiner will  work perfectly fine perfectly flying  until until you have a battery bank that  is very heavily discharged think about  the analogy of water and when you have  two pools of water that are the same  height and you have a pipe at the bottom  of those two pools of water and they're  both the same height you open suddenly  that pipe if that both pools are the  same level there's no flow right there  the same equal level you suddenly bring  that level more and more down the more  difference in level the higher the flow  that's what we do with general dams when  we create electricity hoover dam in the  united states prime example you've got a  high water level on one side you got a  low water level on the other side the  bigger the delta between the two levels  of water it's a faster the flow right  because the waters try to equalize  itself so when you have a large battery  bank that is maybe full and a small  battery bank that is empty or vice versa  there could be a huge amount of flow  beyond the size of your alternator  beside beyond all size of all charging  so i've seen for example where the  largest devices the chargers only 40  amps the alternator is only 55 amps the  battery combiner was fused with a  hundred and 20 amp fuse and the fuse  blew how could a fuse blow  where the charging is only 55 and 40  amps what happened is you had uneven  battery banks as soon as they'd sense  that it can share it was trying to bring  that other battery up and the current  going through that was so high that it  blew the fuse and the problem is are  when fuses blow you don't know that they  blow unless you're sort of curious and  then what happens is that battery ends  up not getting a charge forever and ever  and I see that with battery thrusters  all the time battery thruster battery  banks and four months down the road the  owner calls my thruster battery bank is  at 2 volts what happened  generally is that there's a fuse that  blew the fuse blew that to the combiner  and it never got a charge and then  without a charge a battery will sulfate  and then will die so that's why people  buy battery Isolators binary Isolators  are only connected to one charge device  generally an alternator so that means  that when you fuse that device you know  that there will never be an alternator  will never create more than its rated  output if you buy a 120 amp alternator  you're not going to have one day at 300  Apple turn ater it's not gonna happen I  mean if it fails it's gonna fail to zero  it's not gonna fail to more right  otherwise we'd all be hoping for you  know failure for more output it's not  gonna happen  so that's why we and our tool can we  often use battery Isolators connected to  an alternator as a way to say for  example think about this would be a  common experience I want my battery  thruster battery bank to get a charge  when I'm running my engine because  generally you're using your thrusters  when you have propulsion right I mean  that's when you should use a thruster  and but you want that battery bank to  get charged maybe it was full before you  left the dock right I see that all too  often I'll see a battery charger  connected to a battery thruster bank but  no alternate connected to that battery  bank meaning if they leave the dock and  they had a hard time leaving the dock  while they're under way to a new  destination that battery bank did not  get a charge and now that your  destination is also windy it's all a  little bit sketchy  the thruster now is running never gotta  charge until they'll see another battery  charger being powered from shore power  that's why I'm a big fan of making sure  that thruster battery banks get a charge  from an alternator if you're underway  like a windlass you should not run a  windlass without having your alternator  running as well right you want to offset  the voltage drop you shouldn't be  running a let's not worry about running  the engine let's lift the windlass or  run the windlass lift the anchor and  then we'll run the engine it's not just  because it's unsafe to drift you want  the alternator to help you lift that  anchor and chain right and you do that  by running the alternator so one of the  big takeaways again fusing make sure  that you fuse your battery Isolators to  not have what I consider nuisance  tripping right so if you have 120 amp  alternator  you're gonna size the wire for 1.25  times that so have the wire size for 150  amp for sure have the few size for 150  amp right that way you'll never have  nuisance tripping right because if the  fuse trips or blows you won't know you  don't know unless you're really really  curious and think about how many of us  have battery banks without volt meters  it again this would never happen in the  factory the factory has someone like me  driving everyone else crazy including  the accountant the owner and I might  know you need a vole beater and  eventually because I'm nagging them so  much they give in that's what engineers  do they're like you need a voltmeter on  every single battery but how many  thrusters are installed at the factory  vs. installed at the commissioning stage  show of hands here who has a thruster in  the room anybody how many of you have a  voltmeter on your battery bank thruster  Beck you do what kind of boat do you  have sir yeah of course  absolutely north oven now you look at a  north oven and you look at a price per  length you're a crazy person if you buy  a north oven and you look at just why  would I spend so much more money when I  can buy something for so much less now I  can't afford a door slob I can't afford  a north oven but I don't think people  that buy north oven are crazy if you can  afford one the price is more than just  length and space same thing with a  saline it's fine I can't afford one I  have a Catalina it's a production boat  it's okay but I'm not going to miss a  north oven owner or a saline or and say  well that's just stupid no it's better  and the reason it's better is because  they end up doing all the little things  right having a thruster battery bank  without a voltmeter is having no sense  of pain and doing an endurance marathon  thrusters die all the time not because  the manufacturer of the thruster did a  bad job is because they're run under a  low voltage same thing with all in  Lass's we blame the device but what we  should blame is the installation the  shortcuts remember always do it right so  what I end up doing is I say well at  least have a voltmeter near the thruster  battery bank if it takes too long to run  the wire all the way back put a little  villa meter be curious you know when you  leave the boat go check to see oh yeah  I'm a checklist right as a boater if you  don't have a checklist you have a  phenomenal memory or you're not doing it  right  I have a checklist on my boat I go in  I'm like do I have a charging voltage  yes I can leave the boat and so you want  to do that if you have a battery  thruster or a thruster battery bank or a  windless battery bank or a generator  battery bank or an engine battery or a  house battery you should always know  what your voltages so you can know that  it's getting a charging voltage all  right with that we've got some time for  questions any question anything  electrical just the only caveat is if  you can't ask the question in less than  a minute I'm going to take the question  in the back because I don't want  everyone running for exits yes sir there  advantage and running the anchor winch  battery put it very near the anchor  winch or is it better to rough the house  batteries 20 feet back great question  you know the the dilemma that we have as  boaters is I have a windlass should I  have a battery bag for the windlass up  front near the windlass or can I run my  winless from a battery bank that's 20  feet away  remember the more battery banks you have  in your boat the more you have to manage  those battery banks it's like having  multiple checking accounts right imagine  if you had four checking accounts five  checking accounts you got to start  worrying are all my accounts having  money deposit in them are they being  maintained so that's one of the  downsides of having multiple battery  banks is you need to make sure that  they're getting the right amount of  energy right so that would be one reason  why you wouldn't do it but the flipside  is certainly for a voltage drop  perspective it's pretty ideal to have a  very battery bank almost add the  windless the flip side is you need to  find a way to charge that battery bank  which brings in complexity twenty feet  is not that far from a battery bank for  a windlass I would personally in that  situation run large cabling like I'm  able that's what happened I have a 35 36  foot boat my battery banks are midship  the run to the windlass is about 20 feet  but 20 feet return right so it's about a  40 foot run I have a 1500 watt windlass  because I always go bigger of course  always go bigger Engineering me can't  stop and then I have two watt wiring  from the windlass to the battery now I  can tell you I spend more money on the  wiring than I did the windlass but my  windlass runs amazing it's ten years and  I have a voltmeter on my windlass at the  helm and when I'm running my windlass I  can see the volts at the windlass and I  have very little voltage drop but most  people when they install a windlass they  buy the least expensive wire that they  can humanly buy and unfortunately the  consequences of that is they're winless  end up failing prematurely  I don't like failure  I like predictability so go with in your  situation go with big wires and have it  one to the house battery back in that  situation yes in the back  battery yeah that's another great  question so on a boat where you have a  thruster battery bank should your  windlass be run off that battery or off  the house battery in most situations I  would run the windlass off a thruster  battery back you already are going you  already have a bank there you might as  well minimize the voltage drop you  already have dealing with the fact that  you've got to charge a thruster battery  bank and you're rarely rarely running a  thruster at the same time as a windlass  could happen but pretty rare could  happen it could happen there's  situations where you might have side  winds and stuff like that or you're  anchoring and you're trying to be  precise in your anchoring spot but  generally you're not going to be running  a windlass and a thruster at the same  time so I would say in those situations  I would run a windlass to a thruster  battery bank before I would run it on a  house okay another question anybody else  yes  although there's no wires up interacting  with okay Wow that is magic question is  that I have a stainless steel sink or  Basin in my galley is a galley in the  galley and it's actually energized with  12 volts that's terrifying where the  hell is it coming from that is that's  yeah okay all right yeah so yeah that's  that's intense that's that's that's like  sort of like that I can move objects  with my mind nice teleportation one  thing that I would worry about is if the  sink is somehow connected to a stream of  water and your water is actually  energized so you're actually putting 12  volts in the water around your boat that  I would love I don't know never seen  that that is a world of pain you can  that's just you got to be that's not  something you could put on the  backburner you know you know how we all  have lists as motors and there's  important things and not so important  things and things you'll deal with later  that one is right at the top unless you  have a gasoline engine and it's leaking  and you have non ignition protective  devices in the gasoline engine room that  one's got to make it to the top that one  it's gotta be yeah absolutely  okay other question oh yeah in the back  yeah  our batteries in my house bank and I'm  thinking about swapping them out for AGM  does that mean I probably need a bigger  alternator I do have a higher speed than  a 55 amp but up and also a bigger  charger and I have an independent 40 amp  charger okay all right let me paraphrase  tell me if I got this right for the  benefit of everyone  this gentleman has six golf cart  batteries and golf carts by default can  only be deep-cycle by the way and he  didn't mention that  so golf cart batteries are only  deep-cycle batteries flooded so they're  flooded deep-cycle golf carts can you  confirm if it's a 12 volt bou 12 volts  or 24 12 so 6 golf cart batteries  there's gonna be they're gonna be wired  in series in parallel right because you  got to get to 12 so that's about a 600  amp hour battery bank marketing is gonna  say 700 720 but let's not believe  marketing so let's bring it down to  reality it's about a 600 amp hour  battery bank at 12 volts and the  gentleman has an alternator that's  bigger than 55 ABS but we don't know the  size and the battery charger is 40 amp  so right off the bat from our  presentation we talked about the minimum  size of a charger has to be 10% of a  deep cycle battery bank off the bat 40  is definitely smaller than 10% of the  609 power battery bank because 10% of  600 is 60 so you're running right now  two-thirds or 6.6 percent of your ideal  charging rate so currently right now for  sure your battery charger has to be  increased to at least 60 amps at least  that's minimum river minimum is not  ideal it's minimum so yes regardless if  if you change AGM or not with your golf  carts you should go with a larger  charger and a GM's  can take a higher rate of charge so if  you put an inverter charger for example  a 3000 watt inverter charger with 150 F  charger those batteries could take  easily 150 F charge rate easily that  would be about 25% of capacity  and no problem so there's a minimum of  10% and AGM is still also 10% and your  alternator also should be but remember  this is I could go down a rabbit hole  and I have a 20-minute conversation on  YouTube on this but what you see is not  what you get in life if it was so easy  right a 55 amp alternator will never  output 55 amps you're like what no a 55  amp alternator under normal like output  so you're at cruising rpm and you're not  trying to save fuel rpm you're actually  like loaded not wide open throttle but  at 85% so you're not like like on a  diesel you're at 2,600 rpm on a gas boat  you're at 4,500 rpm you're gonna get  maybe about 25 30 amps out of a 55 amp  alternator there's a lot of reasons for  that I can't spend too much time that's  why you want a bigger altar near like  for example think about it I have one of  my service vehicles in our fleet as a  sprinter mercedes-benz Sprinter I think  the alternator onboard is on board on  the vessel vessel can't even say  non-marine terms on the truck I think  it's a 240 amp alternator I never see  240 hands from an altar near its  internal regulated that's when they're  it's cold as soon as it gets hot it's  the rated by 15 percent internal  regulation D rated by another two thirds  I'm never running my engine at maximum  rpm all of those Rd rating and that's  why you generally get a little bit more  than half than your rated output with an  internally regulated alternator so  there's room for improvement if you go  to a GM that's the long version anybody  else have questions all good ro  yes  the charge controller charge controller  has to be mounted close to the batteries  right yeah ideally yes absolutely in an  ideal world a solar controller should be  mounted as close to the batteries as  possible what would be your maximum  distance guidance for that the question  is is there a maximum way that you can  get away as close as possible I've seen  instances where the solar controllers  are 2030 feet I've seen that there are  reasons why you want it as close as  possible but again this is the the  problem and I'm going to just put a  little bit of sort of a parenthesis here  there is no such thing as a boat an  ideal boat remember we talked about that  and a boat that conceptually follows  every rule does not exist so people that  are on forms that give you black and  whites all the time people that live in  a world of it has to be this way and no  other way generally what they don't  realize is a boat is full of compromise  sometimes the controllers cannot be  installed in the battery bank location  it's better if they are but it's not a  showstopper so sometimes for some reason  the controllers are located somewhere  else and I wouldn't worry too much about  it I really want other questions yes  sexual diagram for that trigger  it's kind of like it was possible to  direct  our switch DC  yeah good question so here's the the the  schematic that you're talking about the  gentleman was asking Jeff I'm looking at  your conceptual diagram and I'm  wondering can you in this situation the  way you have it wired is it possible to  run your switch loads directly from your  charger and if you look at this diagram  first thing you'll notice is the charger  DC output is connected to the  unstretched distribution so why is that  important because when I shut off the  battery switch that are running all my  loads all loads except a bilge pump  because a bilge pump would be connected  to an on switch distribution right all  loads like water pumps lights anything  you chartplotter is your navigation  suite all those things when I shut off  that battery switch that you can see on  sort of the top right of the diagram my  battery charger is only connected to the  on switch distribution so the loads are  not going to see any power and the  switch you'll notice is not connected  between the on switch distribution and  the battery it's low it's connected  between the loads and the unstretched  distribution so the answer is no not in  this situation yeah no but this is I'm  gonna parentheses think about this  happens all the time by the way this is  a world of magic and it's related to  your question if you shut off your  battery switch and you're there still  power at your panel right you're you  shut off power from your batteries to  your DC panel you turn the switch off  and there's power of the panel I would  suggest to everyone that that should  worry you that's like having a house  that's floating in air there's no pipes  connected to the house and there's water  flowing through the taps that's a horror  movie I mean that's what it is it makes  no sense how can something not be  connected to something else and yet  still work  right like the sink there is obviously a  connection right so if your DC panel is  energized when you're not connected to  the battery that means that something is  energizing that panel what is it your  solar panels your battery charger your  methanol fuel cell your wind turbine  what is energizing a panel without a  battery and the problem is all battery  chargers are not power supplies a power  supply is a device that keeps the  voltage steady regardless as loads come  on and off right a battery charger needs  to be connected to a battery because  what happens and this is literally what  happens as you slowly load up for  example a battery charger it will react  and will offset the loads by the current  the charging current and so a part of me  so as you're loading in this thing up  you're turning light slowly and slowly  the battery chargers now outputting 40  amps to offset the loads let's say and  then suddenly you shut them all off  what's going to happen to the voltage  through the roof it's not gonna stay at  14 or 13 it might go to 20 and 20 volts  you'll have the voltage spike what  happens to a voltage spike things go  kaput that's where people lose stuff a  voltage spikes are serious on the AC  side or the DC side that's why big boats  expensive boats they have a lot of AC  gear on board have isolation  transformers they're preventing voltage  spikes that happen on board both they  don't have them when there's a voltage  spike and that happens on sort of  destination marinas where the voltage is  not steady and suddenly a big boat  disconnects the voltage Rises some  people get a huge voltage spike and then  they lose $50,000 worth of gear on board  because of a voltage spike that's why  you don't want to have any charging  Chargers are not power supplies they're  completely different devices okay any  other questions  well good I want to thank every one of  you for being here today and being  curious about marine electrical systems  if you want to reach out I want to say  that you can you'll be able to find all  the slides on our website under the  /media tab you can also find all these  other presentations on YouTube and the  Seattle Boat Show is inviting all of you  to provide feedback at the link over  here so thank you everyone for being  here  [Applause]