![]() While out away from the dock, the generator provides up to 50 amps of AC power which we never have exceeded. Particularly in the winter when we might have an AC oil heater running while also on board using the microwave, stove, or the hot water heater, it will allow for bursts over that limit without any interaction. ![]() Instead, having the MultiPlus in-line for all incoming shore power allows me to use the Power Assist feature when I am at the dock and exceed the 30 amp shore power limit. ![]() I considered rewiring things to 50 amp, 240VAC, but that is a project for another time. Rendezvous only has a single, 30 amp, 120VAC shore power connection. Victron inverter in assist mode, augmenting my 30 amp shore power with battery capacity Victron Power Assist feature (seen below) which would help during high AC use periods while connected to shore power.Central control for all inbound AC power.One big change to the system was to run my shore and generator power connections directly to the inverter, rather than having it hang off of a circuit on the AC panel. I’ve used these before in many designs, and love the feature set provided by the combo, and the visibility provided by the Color Control GX. Redundancy / separation between house, start and generator banksįor the heart of my system, I chose a Victron MultiPlus 3000W inverter, combined with a BMV-712 battery monitor and Color Control GX display.other LiFePO4 systems I had installed before Local and remote monitoring of all parts of the system.Faster charging rates both underway and at the dock.Like the other systems I’ve installed on previous boats and for other people, including the LiFePO4 system on Grace, I wanted a Lithium-based system with more overall amp hours, higher charging rates, but with a simpler design. They also routinely had issues due to the bad charger and cross connection while charging the house bank. These were huge, took up a lot of space, and could be optimized with newer technologies. Large start batteries – 8D batteries to start each engine, and a 4D battery for the generator.Plus, there was a Magnum battery combiner ALSO in the mix that would routinely connect the banks together. Bad AC charger – ProMariner AC charger – excellent at cooking batteries! – this thing was a nightmare piece of equipment, and after I put voltage monitoring in place, routinely pumped 16-18v into my start and generator batteries.There was also more than 40′ of cable between the house and start bank by the time it went from the battery banks, to the combiner switch, and back. No charge control between house + start batteries – only a combiner switch – this meant remembering to combine the batteries when charging, and hopefully remembering to disconnect them when at anchor, or you deplete the starting batteries (which happened several times).Charging is slow – normal with flooded batteries – the last 10% always takes forever, and the charge sources with this system are very small or inefficient.Overall capacity – while 420 usable amp hours is quite a bit, the amount of electrical stuff on the boat, even before I added electronics, meant that you needed to charge at least twice a day while at anchor.70 amp “newer” alternator and 40 amp original alternator (more than 20 years old) charging start banks. ![]() ProMariner 3 bank AC charger – charges generator and start batteries.Magnum 2800W inverter/charger – both at the dock via shore power and underway via the 8Kw Onan generator.Start batteries – 2x 8D flooded batteries – one for each engine.House battery bank – 6x 6 volt GC2 style flooded batteries – 280 amp hours each, for a total of 840 amp hours (only 420 usable at 50% DOD).The original system was pretty standard, and worked OK, except for overall capacity and charging issues. ? Original System Original 840 amp hour house bank using 6x 6v GC2 flooded batteries However, performance and other problems cropped up in the first few months of using it, so I moved this project earlier in the list and jumped in. Rendezvous came with a decent power system which I had hoped to use for a year before upgrading. I upgrade my power system with Battle Born batteries, Balmar alternators, and Wakespeed regulators to give me way more power and longer time at anchor.
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