WHEN SHIP HAPPENS

I have one critical item on my Spring Outfitting list before bottom painting and  launching BIANKA for

the season. It is to replace one of the four batteries in the 48 volt electric propulsion  
battery bank. Even though the batteries are only two years old it looks like one of them
failed and needs to be replaced due to an error in judgment on my part but, caused by
the freight company that did not secure the batteries in shipping. Herein lies the cautionary
tale for others to not make the same mistake I made.  I converted Bianka to Electric
propulsion in 2008. At that time I installed four 8A4D batteries in series to make up the
48 volt propulsion Bank. They did quite well and lasted for eight years. In year eight one
of them showed signs of failure.

Since it is good practice to try and keep all the batteries used in the same bank the same age. I decided to replace all of the batteries instead of the one that was beginning to fail.  The Battery was drop shipped from a warehouse in Florida and took a week to make it up to Long Island. The four batteries were supposed to be delivered to my house.  However I got a call from the shipping company that I needed to come by and pick them up at the warehouse. I thought this was a little strange but I was too excited and wanted to have the batteries installed on board as soon as possible.   So I made no complaint. I drove to the warehouse on a hot summer day to pick up the four batteries. A couple of the warehouse workers were acting a little strange as I asked about my order and they seemed to take their time bringing out the  batteries with the forklift.

There were a few things I noticed that seem strange but I did not question them at the time.
 First was the batteries were not secured to the pallet, the plastic they were wrapped in was
ripped off of them and the cardboard that covered them  was kind of ripped up too. I lifted up
the cardboard from two of the batteries they seemed okay so I accepted the order and and
I had the workers load the batteries into my car.

It was only after I drove to the boatyard to install the batteries on the boat that I discovered
to my horror that two of the batteries were physically damaged. Unfortunately, these were
the two that I didn't look at at the warehouse. Their lugs were bent over like they had been
dropped on them.

The other two batteries looked physically okay.  Here is where I made my error. I called the company where I bought the batteries and told them of the damage to the batteries and I
would need two replacements. I should have rejected the entire shipment because even
though the other two did not look physically damaged one of them was damaged internally
which I discovered while on one of my cruises last year. It’s voltage would start dropping
rapidly when under a heavy current draw compared to the other three batteries in the bank.
Which is why I plan on replacing it this year. But, just to make sure the suspected bad battery is indeed bad. I’ll do a quick check of all the batteries to confirm my suspicions.

ELECTRIC PROPULSION: SOME THOUGHTS ON ELECTRO SAILING: Part Two

Now that I've shown an example of how I am able to easily Electro-Sail with BIANKA when the winds fail to show up. I'll discuss the components that enable me to achieve it and some of the things I have learned in the past nine years since I converted BIANKA to Electric Propulsion.

My Thoosa 9000 EP system specifications were designed  for 20 miles at 4 knots. This was using my 8A4D AGM batteries only. I have never checked if this was the actual case nor do I want to unless it becomes necessary. BIANKA is a sailboat and I always prefer to use the sail for propulsion. Another reason to avoid trying to push the battery bank close to depletion is you decrease the amount charge cycles of the battery bank. As this chart below shows:

It's about saving the amps champs! But, that does not mean I just use the EP system to get into and out of the harbor. Which is very easy for an EP system to do. I tend to leave my home harbor for other destinations not just day sails. But, EP makes that easy to do too.

So what do I use when I feel the need to Electro Sail? I will first start out under battery power alone. I watch the XBM battery monitor to see when my battery back has dropped down to about 75% battery capacity from the 100% fully charged condition I started out with. This is about two hours after I have started motoring. As noted above this habit allows me to have more recharge cycles out of the battery over it's lifetime. This is better than depleting the bank to down say 50%. It also reduces the amount of time spent to charge the battery back up to 100%

So when the battery bank has dropped to the 75% capacity.  I fire up the Honda 2000i generator and plug in the ZIVAN NG-1 charger into it.

The ZIVAN has turned into a real workhorse and has been very reliable. When I first installed the Thoosa system back in 2008 I was concerned about what would happen if the charger went bad and could no longer charge the battery bank while on a cruise. So I bought a backup NG-1. I'm happy to say that the backup has remained in it's box for these past nine years and has never had to be put into service.  The ZIVAN also works well with the Honda 2000 generator. When I use it for Electro Sailing on BIANKA it functions as a power supply pushing out 15 amps of max current to propel the boat acting as a power supply to push the boat along. It's output is just 900 watts well within the maximum 1600 watts continuous rating of the Honda generator. As the graph below from one of my harbor tests shows that 900 watts allows me to motor BIANKA at around three knots without drawing any amps out of the battery bank:

 In fact it allows me to operated the Honda Generator in ECO mode which makes the one gallon of gas in the Honda generator last for about four hours. I have operated the ZIVAN in this full out mode for hours at a time without issue. BIANKA will move along quite nicely at this speed until the fuel runs out. Of course despite being a fairly sophisticated charger the ZIVAN does not know it is being used only has a power supply to push BIANKA along on a windless day. It thinks it is still charging a battery bank. Which brings up something one has to be on the lookout for when Electro-Sailing with this and other chargers. Because the charger never sees the battery being charged at some point it will disconnect. Thinking the battery is not charging it will timeout. It takes several hours to reach this conclusion and it is easily reset by unplugging it from the generator and plugging it back in. Then it is good to go for another several hours.
 One of the nice things about having Electric Propulsion is how easily it is to modify components of the system or change operating modes. Because the ZIVAN's output is limited to 900 watts it means I am not able to take advantage of the full 1600 watts continuous output of the Honda 2000i. So I am contemplating buying a 48 volt 1500 watt power supply to use when it looks like I will have to operate on an extended Electro-Sail mode. I expect it should move BIANKA along about 4 knots. I'll test and post about that hopefully some this upcoming season.

A BATTERY SNAFU!

I order four new 8A4D MK batteries and waited a week as they made their way up from Sanford Florida. They were additionally delayed by the fourth of July holiday weekend. I received a call from the shipping company that unless I had a fork lift I would have to come and pick up the batteries at their warehouse. OK no big deal and I could then drive right down to the boatyard and begin to install them.
  I drove the half hour to the warehouse and two employees bought the batteries out on a pallet with a fork lift. The four batteries were loosely wrapped in plastic but, they still  had cardboard boxes covering them.

The cardboard was a little beat up and I did check one of the batteries to make sure they had the right terminals. In my rush to get them loaded into the car I did not check the other batteries. I signed the delivery form and off I went to the boatyard with five hundred pounds of battery in the back. When I got there I started to unload the batteries it was then I saw this:

Two of the batteries had bent terminals! One had a misshaped case too.While they tested fine I was not about to take any chances with them especially on a boat. I really should have inspected each of the batteries more closely when I picked them up.  Obviously the shipping company had mishandled the shipment and caused the damage. I contacted ALT-ESTORE customer service from whom I had ordered the batteries who then worked with MK BATTERY and they arranged for two new batteries to be shipped to me. Capt Mike gives a tip of the hat to both companies for their excellent customer service.  One thing for sure is  next time I need new batteries for BIANKA's electric propulsion system I'll be checking the batteries before I sign off on the delivery.

MY BATTERY REPLACEMENT CHOICE

A new set of batteries should be arriving today to replace the original eight year old 8A4D batteries on board BIANKA. Due to the failure of one of the batteries I thought it best to replace the whole lot. While the remaining batteries seemed to be in good enough shape they would only degrade the new battery.  This would require me to do another whole swap in a few years anyway. I looked into Lithium Ion replacements and the economics just did not quite make sense yet because of the increased price and other add on items I would have to buy like a new charger. I found a 48 volt 200 amp hour Lithium Ion battery for around $5000. For the same amount of money I could replace all my AGM's two times and still have a sizable chunk of cash for other boat needs. The AGM's should last me a minimum of sixteen years based on my experience with the first bank. If Lithium prices come down as they have been predicting I will revisit the issue but, for now I'm going with what has worked for me the past eight years.

BATTERY INVESTIGATION PART FOUR: USING THE CENTECH BATTERY ANALYZER

So another unseasonably warm winters day has me back on board looking at the fourth battery in the electric propulsion system. I bought with me again the Centech Battery Analyzer.  It's really easy to use but, in the previous test I did not have the cold cranking amp spec for the 8A4D battery entered into the Centech tester. So I decide to redo the test since it's pretty easy to do. Here is the video:



As you can seen the results are pretty much the same that I experienced earlier which I noted in a previous post. The battery tested OK. I also bought along a load tester and hooked it up to the battery. It also confirmed that they battery had over 1100 cold cranking amps available.  I then hooked up an external 15 amp charger to the suspect battery and it too like the Dual Pro charger said the battery was bad and failed to charge it completely.  So it's a dilemma to me how bad the battery really is and what to believe as far as testing vs chargers. I am suspecting that having the Paktrakr battery monitor connected over the winter has sulfated the battery a bit. Then adding the optional data collecting cable added an additional load which sulfated it more. Enough so that it has a problem charging. In attempting to measure the additional current load with my digital volt meter I accidentally blew the internal fuse on it. So I'm not exactly sure how much the data cable additional draw is. So for now I have disconnected the Paktrakr from the battery and have the solar panels charging the the bank. I will see how things look the next time. I have an idea on how I may remove the sulfated material off the battery grids but, I will need to rearrange some of the battery cables and need to order some 2 AWG crimp connectors to make some jumper cables first.

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