A SPRINGTIME SOLAR SURPRISE

 I've been away from the boat for awhile. I was traveling to warm places each month over the winter. Plus getting COVID knocked me down but, not out for two weeks. So I did not get on BIANKA for my usual checkups and battery charges. Usually that would not be a problem since my 48 volt solar panels would keep things topped up. So it was a surprise when I looked at the data from the new Victron SmartSolar MPPT 100-Volt 20 amp 48V solar controller.  

Where I noticed several days of no charging data and when there was some charging it was lower than usual. I also noticed the Dual Pro four bank charger was charging at the lowest bar display. This meant the batteries where in a more discharged condition than I've seen in a long time.  

Time for some serious diagnosis on what was happening with the solar charging system. I first checked the 48 volt solar panel voltages and they were near their open circuit voltage specs. I then turned my attention to the Anderson connectors that I used to combine the panel wires to the solar controller. It was there I found the problem. I installed the panels and connectors over twelve years ago. My mistake was never doing any maintenance on the connectors in those years. I found despite taping the connectors to improve their water proofing most of the Anderson contacts had corroded to the point where they were no longer conducting voltage.

I redid the connection using some Spade Connectors I had on board and the problem was solved if only temporarily. Now I need to see if the 48 volt electric propulsion battery bank comes back to full charge as we head toward spring launching. 

BLOG UPDATE:  Going back a few days later and the solar controller charging and battery bank was back to normal. 

 The battery bank was charging normally using the Dual Pro charger. So it looks like things are moving in the right direction for a spring launching.

 

POSEIDON SPEAKS TO ME: Part Three

I called David at Annapolis Hybrid Marine the U.S. distributors for the Thoosa 9000 systems.  Since the Key switch did not seem to be the issue I began thinking of other things that might easily resolve the problem. One was to disconnect the B+ of the battery to hopefully reset the controller. David said that was not necessary. I then mentioned that the power contactor relay might be bad. David ask if I had a multimeter on board. Of course I did. He suggested I remove the cover to the controller box and he could guide me on making some voltage measurements. This of course means emptying out the starboard locker and squeezing my way to large frame down below in the summer heat to access the controller box. I had not had to do this in eight years of electric propulsion operation because the system was so reliable. But, now it had to be done. I then asked a question that saved me some aggravation. In preparation of my journey down below I asked how many screws hold the cover of the controller box and are they Phillips? David replied no they are Torx (star) type screws. I did not have any Tork screwdrivers on board so I would need to buy them. But, at least I had not found this out after contorting my body down below after emptying out the locker. So it was a row back to land to get a Torx screw driver set to continue trouble shooting.


At the store I had several choices of Tork tools. The first one I picked up was a compact set that folding into the handle. It looked like it would do the trick. Though something told me that maybe I had better have a backup.


So I also bought another Torx set that had a screwdriver type handle with interchangeable bits. 
 Good thing I did this because I found that with the compact folding set it was difficult to access and turn the screws at the rear of the case. Where as the set with the screw driver handle was much more secure and made it easy to turn the screw. But, even then I found the controller box was just a little too close to the battery charger case to use the handle.  I was however able to use just the Torx  bit and a pair of small vice grips to turn the screw enough to remove it.



With the controller case finally removed I gave David another call and armed with a digital multimeter I was able to start trouble shooting.  There is not much to a Thoosa 9000 system. There is of course the battery bank, motor, key switch and a box holding the controller and a few other components.

But, even inside the controller box there are many components that one finds with a diesel engine system. There is a relay, fuses, connectors. The one main different component is the motor controller. In my case it is a Navitas 400 unit. Under Davids guidance I carefully connected the multimeter ground to the B- battery connection in the box. I then checked the voltage at the power relay connections. Which was the component I thought was the next culprit after elimination the key switch. I measured 55 volts which was full battery voltage on both terminals.  David explained that it looked like the the relay was good because 55 volts on both terminals means the coil of the relay is not open. What happens on turn on is after the Controller does it's self check it grounds one side of the relay which then allows full battery power to the controller. This was not happening. So it was time to look at the controller. There were two status/fault lights on one side of the controller neither one was on. David then instructed me to probe two pins on the multipin connector  to the controller module.  There was 55 volts across those pins. This meant the controller module was getting power. So the diagnosis is the controller is bad. David mention this had happened to other units and as a result they were no longer using the Navitas controllers because of these mysterious sudden failures. Stil I had gotten eight trouble free years out of this one and could easily replace it but, I was thinking it might be best to upgrade to the new controller David mentioned. Trouble is the new controller is larger and won't fit in to the current box. He said I also needed to check if the new slightly larger box dimensions would fit in the current space. I'm pretty sure they would but, I want to make sure and while I'm at it I want to mount it so I will be able to have enough roof to use the Torx screwdriver handle to remove the cover in the future.

 So a quick ten minutes of probing and the problem was quickly diagnosed. Compared to the hours I and some diesel mechanics I had hired in the past spent scratching our heads working on the diesel it was a breeze. Unfortunately, it is getting late in the season and I would be away for several weeks. So I had a few things to think about before I decide to move ahead with a new controller box which I'll share in an upcoming post.

CONVENIENCE WIRING WITH ANDERSON POWER POLE CONNECTORS AND A RIGRUNNER JUNCTION BOX

I mentioned in a previous post about using my Morningstar solar controller as a junction point for some new rewiring rather than the main breaker panel. I also added a  Rigrunner 4005 junction box. This box allows for several individually fused  Anderson Power Pole connectors to be plugged into the box.

 You can see some of the items I chose to connect to the box in the photo below:

A SMALL CONNECTOR PROJECT

When I added the 48 volt solar panels to the bimini project I needed a way to connect both the 12 volt panels and 48 volt panels to their appropriate battery banks. So I rigged up a temporary junction box using a barrier strip and a small plastic project box as a temporary install. Here is what I had and it has work pretty good over the years.

 Well several years later I'm getting around to an upgrade . I'm finally getting around to making a better way to connect the solar panels to the solar controllers using Anderson Powerpole connectors. Like the ones shown here:

The blue connector signifies that the voltage the wires are carrying is 48 volts and is used to charge my electric propulsion battery bank. Speaking of colors notice how the red color has faded from this wire:

Exposure over the years has caused it to almost become white in color. Another good reason to have color coded connectors like Powerpoles on the ends of the wires.

 The Anderson Powerpole connectors can also be mated as shown here:

 This assures the proper ground (black connector) travel with the positive voltage wire. This helps to eliminate confusion with different voltage systems. You can also buy an optional clip that locks the pairs of Powerpole connectors to add some extra security that they won't pull apart.

So after replacing the lug connectors with Powerpoles I also put a little dab of Marine Goop on the back of each connector to help seal the wire and connectors.

Now both the 48 volt  and 12 volt solar panel connections can be easily accessed for troubleshooting and testing. I have plans to put some instrumentation in line to measure how well the panels are doing in the near future and I will post about those tests here on the blog.

UPDATING THE ELECTRIC PADDLE

Well another 50 degree F plus day came along between cold snaps. So I wandered down to the boatyard to check on the boat. I stopped by the office for a gam and Russel was busy sending out bills to drop the moorings. A bittersweet sign that the new sailing season is coming. But, of course so does the bill for the mooring. When I got on board I checked the bilge:

Still dry as a bone and good to see. I let my Dual Pro 4 charger top off the four 8A4D AGM batteries that make up the 48 volt propulsion bank of BIANKA. Though they were pretty much full already. I then turned my attention to a quick little issue regarding the new Electric Paddle outboard I bought. A few weeks ago I got a letter in the mail from the folks who make the Electric Paddle about a possible issue of corrosion on one of the connector terminals because of a missing seal on the connector. A follow up letter provided two brand new seals to be installed in case they were not on my outboards connector:

It turns out they weren't on my outboard's connector but, no harm was done as the connectors were completely clean and corrosion free. Even though the battery and outboard had been exposed to several rainstorms over the season.

After I put one of the seals on the connector I decided to just do a little preventative maintenance as long as I was here. I took one of the Connector Cleaning Brushes  I carry onboard and put some Corrosion Block on it:

Even though the connectors were still very clean and showed no signs of corrosion. Using the Corrosion Block can't hurt so I cleaned inside the plugs and pins of the connectors:

Mission accomplished!  Nice to see that the folks who make the Electric Paddle here in the United States also follow up on the products once they are shipped.

REWIRING THE HEAD LIGHT: PART ONE

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When I bought BIANKA she had a combination of lights. Some were fluorescent and some were regular tungsten lamps. Which are power hogs compared to the florescent lights. I've been replacing the tungsten lamps with much more energy efficient LED lamps. I also am replacing the fluorescent fixtures with LEDs as they fail instead of getting them rebuilt. The fluorescent fixture in the head area died a while ago and the other day I decided to rewire it for an LED replacement:

After making sure the breaker was turned off I first removed the bulbs and then the metal shield that covered the ballast electronics::

I was then able to cut the power wires to the fixture and remove the four screws holding the fixture to the cabin top. There were two wood shim pieces on the back of the light to take in account the curvature of the cabin top. I am going to reuse the fluorescent fixture and it's switch but, I have no use for the failed ballast circuit board so I will remove it and a lot of the associated wiring:

To remove the ballast board I had to drill out the two rivets holding the circuit board to the light frame from the back of the fixture:

With the circuit board gone there is a lot more room to install the LED replacement lamp(s):

Turning back to the light wiring. I noticed that someone had used wire nuts to attach the light to the boat wiring:

This is not a good idea for a whole bunch of reason on board a boat, Especially from a corrosion standpoint. I removed the wire nuts and replaced them with versatile  Anderson Powerpole Connectors :

This will make it east to reconnect the new LED lights when the fixture is installed. It will also allow for easier modification and changes in the future.

REWIRING THE HEAD LIGHT PART TWO CLICK HERE  

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INSTRUMENTATION PROJECT PART 9: CONNECTIONS

The battery end of the project has been wired up with fuses and Anderson connectors. The helm meter panel like wise has been wired and tested. So the only thing that remains is to connect the two with wires. There are four meters each monitoring one of the four 12 volt batteries in the 48 volt electric propulsion string. I thought about individual wires in a harness, duplex wire and various other cable types. Happily I found what I needed in a trash bin that fit my needs perfectly.
    I was doing some freelance work in a building that was undergoing some renovation and found about fifty feet of E90298 cable made by National Wire about to be thrown out. It had ten 20 AWG wires inside a durable UV resistant cover.  It even had a shield around the bundled wires. The wires were also tinned making it perfect for the marine environment on board as it would be more resistant to corrosion than bare copper. Best of all I could not beat the price FREE! I love to recycle where I can and this cable instead ending up in a landfill  is perfect for the instrumentation project interconnection.

I love it when a plan comes together like this. Because I only needed eight wires to measure the four individual battery voltages it meant I had two spare wires that I might use down the road for something. The only issue I thought might be a problem is each of the 10 wires in the harness were different colors. Which could be confusing down the road in trying to figure out which wire was positive or negative when connecting or trouble shooting. But this was easily solved after I first assigned the color coded wires to each battery:

Because of the various colors used to connect the batteries I decided to cover each wire with two different colored heat shrink at the battery end. Red for the wires that went to the positive battery terminals and black for wires that went to the negative battery terminals. These would help avoid confusion and mis-connections even though the Anderson Powerpole connectors where color coded. It just adds helps eliminate confusion. It would also add another layer of protection for the wires:

.I also put on some  General Purpose 1/4-inch Braided Cable Sleeve over the heat shrinked wires. This not only kept the wires together making for neater wire runs but, also added another layer of protection to the wiring harness:

All I needed to do now was crimp on the Anderson Powerpole pins and insert them into the proper color coded powerpole housing and the battery end of the instrumentation project was done:

 For the helm end of wire I chose to enclose each pair of wires in white heat shrink:

and connect them to the helm panel meters box:

After an operations check out the project was just about complete. All that I needed to do was to add a little sealant to the back of the Anderson Powerpole connectors to water proof the wires and also inside and outside of the meter enclosure box where they connect up. I used Marine Goop. Once that was done it was time to move on to wiring the battery current meter.

INSTRUMENTATION PROJECT PART 8 CLICK HERE


INSTRUMENTATION PROJECT PART 10 CLICK HERE

ON BIANKA'S BOOKSHELF: Books of an electric sailor

I've seen a number of posts recently  on various sailing sites of people wanting to find books on gaining knowledge about all things electrical on board their boats. I have two books on board BIANKA that I consider worth having on board. One is Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual: How to Maintain, Repair, and Improve Your Boat's Essential Systems by Nigel Calder.

My dog eared and oil stained copy has been on board since I first purchased BIANKA back in 1995. Since I converted to electric propulsion there are now whole chapters concerning diesel engines and alternators I can now ignore. But, others especially those concerning electrical wiring and extensive coverage of batteries have come in very handy. For example I purchased a heavy duty crimper to make the crimps on the 2 AWG wire interconnects for the electric propulsion battery bank. Unfortunately, my crimper had markings only for metric sized wires. I opened Calders book and found a conversion chart that allowed me to set the crimper to the proper setting. It's information like that which can save the day when you are in some far away anchorage trying to make repairs.The Boatowner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual : How to Maintain, Repair, and Improve Your Boat's Essential Systems is also available for the Kindle.

The other book which I find useful is  Boatowner's Illustrated Electrical Handbook by Charlie Wing. It contains a lot of information about the various electrical systems one would find on board and the theory of how they work. There's DC and AC theory covered as well as things like bonding and corrosion issues. Wiring color codes and a number of charts and formulas as well. The Boatowner's Illustrated Electrical Handbook is also available as a Kindle e-book download. 

Both books are worthy of the space they take up on board. Both are very useful if you just want to understand about electrical systems and devices on board your boat, need to do some repairs or even rewire your boat. After converting to electric propulsion I find them even more valuable to have on board.