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SoggyPaws - 17 Aug 2022

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Bill Balme - 15 Aug 2022

Is that perhaps a little bit of a misleading conclusion?The Porrimar is a hugely different boat to anything we sail and in only the last sentence does the report make any link to Lithium Ion batteries. The Porrimar has 8 tons of batteries of unspecified chemistry - that’s a massive source of energy no matter what chemistry - so perhaps it’s a little premature to blame the batteries - and if they were the cause, it would be nice to know the specific chemistry involved. When I replaced the batteries on Toodle-oo!, I removed 600# of Lead acid and replaced it with about 120# of LFP. By my estimation, 8 tons of similar batteries would amount to around 40,000 AH (12V) - it’s not comparable in any way to a cruising sailboat. It’s great that the abyc has come out with the guidelines that they have - which seem to be reasonably achievable without undue cost - which hopefully the insurance industry will latch onto. Our change to LFP has been the single best upgrade I’ve made to our boat - and is being adopted by a large and growing percentage of the cruising population.

Hi Bill,
I completely agree with you.  There is a big difference between these super yacht lithium battery systems and ours.  For instance the battery  capacities are much larger and Porrimar's decks are entirely covered in solar panels producing many thousands of amps.  But the cause of the fire could well have been due to their toys being charged rather than the ship's batteries.  Given the size and cost of that boat its electrical system was probably very well done with quality equipment.  Maybe not true for the toys and who knows which lithium technology was used in them. 
In the Min article on the Porrimar fire that Daria mentions there is a link to an earlier article discussing several other notable fires attributed to lithium batteries.  It is here:
https://marineindustrynews.co.uk/insurance-refusals-on-lithium-ion-boats/
Although there is no mention of the specific lithium technology responsible for the fires, most are attributed to charging devices other than the ship's batteries.  There are some very interesting comments made in the article that are worth considering by anyone installing LiFePO4 (LFP) in their boats.  All the fires I read about appear to be caused during charging.  This is where a quality BMS and properly sized relays should be able to save your bacon, especially if you are using LFP!  Another reason to have done the research and know what you or your installer are doing.  Using inexpensive LFP batteries sealed with an internal MOSFET BMS inside is asking for trouble especially in our marine environment.
And then there is the insurance issue.  It is certainly worth checking to see what your insurance underwriter has to say about a LFP install.  Some say nothing, some require professional installation, some reduce the coverage and still others will not insure boats with lithium batteries.  In my mind the reasonable thing to require of an owner would be that any install must meet ABYC and manufacturer requirements.
Lots to ponder.
Dave McCampbell
SV Soggy Paws

Hi Dave,
Lots of good comments.
I particularly appreciate your mentioning the number of products that use lithium batteries and their propensity, rare but well documented, to cause fires. These include battery operated tools, phones computers etc. The tools especially are often stored jumbled up in dank places for long periods.
A couple of quick thoughts in no way exhaustive:
Do not use cheap charging devices such as are flogged at discount places.
Charge only on hard surfaces where there is ample air flow for ventilation.
Do not leave charging unattended.
Charge only as-needed and do not store on charger charging.
Have smoke detectors strategically placed in the boat (generally wise) and charge near them.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Ps. And I very much agree that an owner should be very well acquainted with his/her lithium system to the point where, even if installed by others, it could have been done by the skipper.

For anyone who has a subscription to morganscloud.com there is a lot of valuable and, I think contrarian thought given to the subject. In particular, the situation specific nature of risk. The clearly very experienced contributors to the discussion make the point that the most critical failure modes are dependent on the type of sailing a boat does and the people on board.

From our perspective, and I would imagine in common with OCC members, crossing an ocean or cruising remote locations without lead acid batteries carries a high level of risk. If you want the benefits of lithium, but mitigation of this risk you need a dual chemical system. The catch 22 in this is that a dual system in itself creates a significant risk. With current technology and the nature of the market this is only mitigated by having considerable technical expertise on the boat. This rules out the 'getting a professional to install' as you need to be able to maintain, diagnose problems and solve them on the high seas.

So far I've learnt that 'drop-in' batteries should be avoided in favour of prismatic cells and external BMS's. This reinforces the need for technical expertise to design, install and maintain a system. And that the promise of electric cooking, replacing a generator of replacing high volt AC devices with DC devices requires a huge upgrade in charging capacity. There are a number of ways of configuring a dual chemical system, but all of them depend on a mix of technology from different suppliers and a few key components a marginal at best.

Being purely objective about the decision if lead acid works for you now there probably isn't a good reason to consider lithium. ' ...lighter, smaller, don't require same capacity, can be discharged further and last longer' are not good reasons bearing in mind that you will probably have to add and change a lot of components in the system to make it work.

The proponents of lithium (typical on social media) are more likely to be electrical hobbyist than sailors. Many sellers are pushing drop-in because cell/external BMS  based systems are more often uniquely designed per boat and can't be economically commoditised.

The reason I'm considering lithium is to give me a safety margin to run critical systems on long passages where I might get a string of cloudy days with no PV and I don't want to burn precious diesel. The best solution I've found so far is a completely self contained Ecoflow Delta. I can charge it of the existing PV or the inverter when there's spare capacity and plug it into the shore power inlet when I'm short of charge in the lead acid house bank. Bonus... I can use it to run 240VAC devices and take it to the beach.

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Andy.Todd - 25 Aug 2022

For anyone who has a subscription to morganscloud.com there is a lot of valuable and, I think contrarian thought given to the subject. In particular, the situation specific nature of risk. The clearly very experienced contributors to the discussion make the point that the most critical failure modes are dependent on the type of sailing a boat does and the people on board.

From our perspective, and I would imagine in common with OCC members, crossing an ocean or cruising remote locations without lead acid batteries carries a high level of risk. If you want the benefits of lithium, but mitigation of this risk you need a dual chemical system. The catch 22 in this is that a dual system in itself creates a significant risk. With current technology and the nature of the market this is only mitigated by having considerable technical expertise on the boat. This rules out the 'getting a professional to install' as you need to be able to maintain, diagnose problems and solve them on the high seas.

So far I've learnt that 'drop-in' batteries should be avoided in favour of prismatic cells and external BMS's. This reinforces the need for technical expertise to design, install and maintain a system. And that the promise of electric cooking, replacing a generator of replacing high volt AC devices with DC devices requires a huge upgrade in charging capacity. There are a number of ways of configuring a dual chemical system, but all of them depend on a mix of technology from different suppliers and a few key components a marginal at best.

Being purely objective about the decision if lead acid works for you now there probably isn't a good reason to consider lithium. ' ...lighter, smaller, don't require same capacity, can be discharged further and last longer' are not good reasons bearing in mind that you will probably have to add and change a lot of components in the system to make it work.

The proponents of lithium (typical on social media) are more likely to be electrical hobbyist than sailors. Many sellers are pushing drop-in because cell/external BMS  based systems are more often uniquely designed per boat and can't be economically commoditised.

The reason I'm considering lithium is to give me a safety margin to run critical systems on long passages where I might get a string of cloudy days with no PV and I don't want to burn precious diesel. The best solution I've found so far is a completely self contained Ecoflow Delta. I can charge it of the existing PV or the inverter when there's spare capacity and plug it into the shore power inlet when I'm short of charge in the lead acid house bank. Bonus... I can use it to run 240VAC devices and take it to the beach.

Hi Andy,
Many good and thoughtful points. I would wish to underline:
Agree completely that the Morgan’s Cloud essays on Lithium and the contributions of readers are very valuable for thinking through an install.
Also agree completely on the need for the skipper (of widely wandering boats) to be so well versed in this new technology that he/she could do the install oneself: even if a commercial installer does the job.
And agree completely about the in-advisability of the purported drop-in batteries, especially for widely wandering vessels).
This tech is changing so rapidly that waiting is probably wise as, I believe, we are not far from a commonly agreed-upon design that is reliable, safe and has some history in field experience.
Many other good points to ponder.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

I’ve seen only a couple of dual chemistry systems and both had severe performance problems - probably because they weren’t installed correctly - but interesting that abyc seems to be wary of such designs too.

I agree that doing the installation oneself is important - at least until some technicians (are there any these days?) learn all the intricacies and foibles of LFP systems - so that if strange things start going on, one can attend to them rapidly.

We did indeed increase our charging system - or more accurately we modified it. We could have maintained our small 260W solar and augmented charging with the generator and still been way ahead of the game since LFP accepts charge so quickly, but we opted to increase our solar to nearly 800W… in the last 90 days we’ve used nearly 300kWh and replaced 270 of that with solar and wind, 20 with the alternator and just 5 with the generator! It’s a quieter life!

We now cook with (mostly) electric and heat water using batteries when the engine has not been run in a while.

I am NOT an electrical hobbyist so it took me a solid 2-3 months of research and planning - and scores of hand drawn wiring diagrams to get comfortable with the design but I’m now at the point where the LFP is far easier to use and maintain than the old wet cells.

We liveaboard full time and travel extensively…


Bill Balme

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Andy.Todd - 25 Aug 2022

For anyone who has a subscription to morganscloud.com there is a lot of valuable and, I think contrarian thought given to the subject. In particular, the situation specific nature of risk. The clearly very experienced contributors to the discussion make the point that the most critical failure modes are dependent on the type of sailing a boat does and the people on board.

From our perspective, and I would imagine in common with OCC members, crossing an ocean or cruising remote locations without lead acid batteries carries a high level of risk. If you want the benefits of lithium, but mitigation of this risk you need a dual chemical system. The catch 22 in this is that a dual system in itself creates a significant risk. With current technology and the nature of the market this is only mitigated by having considerable technical expertise on the boat. This rules out the 'getting a professional to install' as you need to be able to maintain, diagnose problems and solve them on the high seas.

So far I've learnt that 'drop-in' batteries should be avoided in favour of prismatic cells and external BMS's. This reinforces the need for technical expertise to design, install and maintain a system. And that the promise of electric cooking, replacing a generator of replacing high volt AC devices with DC devices requires a huge upgrade in charging capacity. There are a number of ways of configuring a dual chemical system, but all of them depend on a mix of technology from different suppliers and a few key components a marginal at best.

Being purely objective about the decision if lead acid works for you now there probably isn't a good reason to consider lithium. ' ...lighter, smaller, don't require same capacity, can be discharged further and last longer' are not good reasons bearing in mind that you will probably have to add and change a lot of components in the system to make it work.

The proponents of lithium (typical on social media) are more likely to be electrical hobbyist than sailors. Many sellers are pushing drop-in because cell/external BMS  based systems are more often uniquely designed per boat and can't be economically commoditised.

The reason I'm considering lithium is to give me a safety margin to run critical systems on long passages where I might get a string of cloudy days with no PV and I don't want to burn precious diesel. The best solution I've found so far is a completely self contained Ecoflow Delta. I can charge it of the existing PV or the inverter when there's spare capacity and plug it into the shore power inlet when I'm short of charge in the lead acid house bank. Bonus... I can use it to run 240VAC devices and take it to the beach.

Hi Andy,
I am not a contributor to MorgansCloud.com, but installed my own LFP system on our cruising catamaran over 2 years ago in the Philippines. We have crossed the Pacific and mostly cruise in remote locations, now in Indonesia, over the past 15 years. Like Bill, my wife and I spent most of a year researching, purchasing, testing and installing our LFP house bank. It is an amazing game changer compared to any lead acid battery system. The advantages are really significant and well worth the effort and expense. I am a Naval officer and oceanographer, not an EE. My wife is a computer programmer. So if we can do it anyone willing to do a bit of study can also.
We believe that any failure will be dependent on the equipment used, the correctness of the installation, and the level of knowledge of the owners and their ability to operate and maintain their system. An LFP installation should start with months of research on trusted websites like Marinehowto.com and Nordkyndesign.com and participation in lithium forums like Lithium Batteries on a Boat. All these sites are for marine installations not EVs or home installs. They are not for ‘hobbyists’. Spending considerable time on these sites and several others should give any reasonably knowledgeable and electrically capable owner enough information to do their own installation. Not doing this and trusting someone else to do the work is where the risk starts.
I agree that using a professional installer is fraught with risk, not only because he/she will not be aboard later, but also because there is increased risk of a problem developing, either from the equipment used or from poor installation techniques. But this is true for any pro installer an owner uses if not monitoring every minute of the install. The solution for this is to do adequate research prior to anyone doing the installation.
“If you want the benefits of lithium, but mitigation of this risk you need a dual chemical system”. I would be interested to know where this statement comes from and the reason for it. I’ve seen many options for how to do a best-practices LFP install, but I have not yet run across this. We use a LFP house bank and lead acid start battery but only because of the convenience of not having LFP protocols for two separate batteries. The lead acid start battery is simple to install and cheap to replace. The LFP house bank is its backup.
I agree that DIY prismatic cells with a quality external relay BMS is much preferred over a Drop In LFP system. But if done right, many of the changes an owner will need to make are the same. And as mentioned earlier a knowledgeable and capable owner is key to a successful install.
We did not change much in the way of charging capability when installing our 540 ahr LFP bank. Of course this depends on how well a boat is set up electrically to begin with. If marginally done, yes much will have to be upgraded. In general it starts with knowing your average daily amp hour usage (ours 160 ah), installing enough LFP to hold over at least 3 days if no charging is possible, and then having enough charging capacity (ours 800 w solar & two 60 a alts) to recharge every few days. Those using lead acid will need more rated battery capacity and more charging capability since they can only use 50% of their rated capacity and need to recharge to a full 100% every day or risk serious loss of service life due to sulfation. Of course if you add additional AC appliances, like the amazing induction cooktop, you may need even more rated capacity and charging capability. None of that is difficult, just costs a bit of cash. But the advantages of LFP in, our opinion, far outweigh the work to be done and expense incurred.
‘The proponents of lithium (typical on social media) are more likely to be electrical hobbyist than sailors’. Maybe this is true. Installing lithium in an electric vehicle or home is certainly different than doing the same on a cruising boat. But some of those on the forums are EEs and know quite a bit about lithium technology. The problem is separating what is true from what is not or is true in some cases but others not. That’s where study on the trusted sites mentioned above is invaluable for a boat owner. If one learns the basic truths first, it is relatively easy to determine which information can be trusted.
Your desire to significantly increase usable battery capacity with a much lighter and physically smaller house bank is partly why we made the decision to install LFP. I recommend you take a long look at the trusted sites above before making a final decision on what to do. There are also some excellent YouTubers like Will Prouse and Andy’s OffGrid Garage that will add to your knowledge. They are very interesting and informative. You might also look at my upcoming article on lithium batteries in the next Flying Fish, our extensive LFP install information on our website link in an earlier post and Bill’s install information.
Finally, I just looked at the Ecoflow Delta add on the web. It looks like a pretty slick, but expensive portable battery power supply, costing about the same as a Honda eu 2000 gas generator. As with our older generation Honda, it could serve as an emergency, but rarely used, source of power, but not a good substitute for a proper LFP house bank. Also, as with all electronic devices you will need a backup. For that reason we carry a spare BMS, cells, and critical electronic components for our LFP system just in case.
Dave McCampbell
SV Soggy Paws
Labuan Bajo, Indonesia

Dave, just a correction. You say 'Your desire to significantly increase usable battery capacity with a much lighter and physically smaller house bank,,,etc'. I was quoting Philip's desires and making the point that these may not be good reasons to take some level of risk of changing to all LFP if he has a LA topology that worked for him. Plus the considerable time and effort required to research the subject.... as you and every sensible advisor attests to.

I have a background is in Risk. My assertions are based on this knowledge. In which case just changing from something that has worked for a long time to something new and different has a significant comparative risk. While most users will never suffer the consequence of failure of a LFP system, depending on the situation the consequences of LFP failure are more severe than with LA. That risk can be quantified and for my situation the risk-weighted cost of LFP failure is too high. An answer to this might be a dual chemical approach. The technical challenge is how to do this without increasing risk.

The best argument for 'dual chemical' is on Morganscloud. This means a dual redundant LA / LFP systems. It is not connecting LA and LFP, as there a lot of conflicting advice about on social media. This implies very significant risk such that you would never consider for a boat. RAN sailing on YouTube have the type of dual chemical system I'm referring to, but they use it in a different way than I want. When their LFP goes down they completely disconnects the LFP and switch on an independent LA back up bank.

Because my LA system works fine (logically and operationally) for the most part I want to keep it. I would like a little back up to run critical systems for cloudy days on long off shore passages. The other benefits for amp hungry appliances would be a bonus but not a reason. Commonly this is done by charging the LFP through the LA, but that negates the efficient charging capability of the LFP. An answer could be a charging bus going to an either/or switch normally set to the LFP bank. The LFP charged the LA through a DC/DC converter. The LA is connected to the critical loads, the LFP to the rest. If the LFP goes down you can switch the charging sources to the LA.... except any DC/DC converters on the market seem very marginal for this configuration.

Any insight would be appreciated?

Andy, it sounds like you might be best served by simply adding a portable generator to your existing LA system with which you are familiar and comfortable.

If you want a good resource for understanding what’s out there (LFP), along with numerous (nearly) applicable schematics, the Victron website is an excellent place to start - though even that gets rather confusing when you’re drilling down to the nitty gritty details.

I’m no longer a participant on Morgan’s Cloud, but agree it’s a reasonable (if opinionated) resource. My problem with the site was that Harries is so risk averse that to follow many of his recommendations would require more finance than I have at my disposal! Dual electrical systems seems to be following that general pattern!

Hope you find the right solution for your requirements!


Bill Balme

Bill, I have a background in risk of technical system. I have a diesel generator on the boat and I understand the technology, probably better than most. The issue for me is all and simply about risk. It is not about the technology, although technology probably has an answer to the risk problem. I'm hoping someone can point me at it??

I want to reduce the risk of running out of power on a string of cloudy days on long passages to keep critical systems going. Any configuration (including anything derived from Victron's information) has risk. Any differential risk analysis tells us that introducing LFP, with any of the current system topologies or commercially available devices significantly increases risk. In my particular case the risk differential is exacerbated as if push comes to shove I can turn the generator on.

In technology terms a system that allows an EXISTING LA bank and a new LFP bank to be charged appropriately and is able to run loads from either bank is needed. There are diagrams that suggest this can be done, but some of the critical components are marginal at best in these configurations.

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Andy.Todd - 27 Aug 2022

Bill, I have a background in risk of technical system. I have a diesel generator on the boat and I understand the technology, probably better than most. The issue for me is all and simply about risk. It is not about the technology, although technology probably has an answer to the risk problem. I'm hoping someone can point me at it??

I want to reduce the risk of running out of power on a string of cloudy days on long passages to keep critical systems going. Any configuration (including anything derived from Victron's information) has risk. Any differential risk analysis tells us that introducing LFP, with any of the current system topologies or commercially available devices significantly increases risk. In my particular case the risk differential is exacerbated as if push comes to shove I can turn the generator on.

In technology terms a system that allows an EXISTING LA bank and a new LFP bank to be charged appropriately and is able to run loads from either bank is needed. There are diagrams that suggest this can be done, but some of the critical components are marginal at best in these configurations.

Andy,

I don’t have a degree in risk management, but have enough electrical maintenance and repair experience to know a dangerous situation when I see one. We all have a different tolerance for risk. Ours is pretty low since we are full time cruising overseas and one mistake could have dire consequences. There are by now probably thousands of experienced cruisers that have installed LFP batteries in their boats, and evidently feel that the significant advantages are worth the risk. Reading general/cruiser social media forums and reports about undetermined cause fires on boats with lithium batteries will not help you assess the risk in doing a proper LFP install.

I’m curious where did this statement come from?
“Any differential risk analysis tells us that introducing LFP, with any of the current system topologies or commercially available devices significantly increases risk”.

In all the extensive research I have done on lithium batteries I have never seen anything like that. In fact properly installing and using LFP batteries is, according to most electrical experts with significant LA AND LFP battery experience, less dangerous/risky than using LA batteries, especially as they age. “Properly” is the key word here. This opinion comes from the trusted websites (add Battery University to those) I mentioned in earlier posts, not from cruising social media sites with a mixed bag of accurate opinions. Of course there are several options for installing a LFP system, some, especially drop in installs and those done with inexpensive and inappropriate equipment, have more chance of having a problem than others.

The required BMS for all LFP installation adds another level of safety not present in a LA install. And the cells themselves rarely fail after the first 6 months of use and never due to anything like spontaneous combustion. Additional security for overseas cruisers like us from a failure can easily be mitigated by carrying an additional BMS, a extra cell or two and a few other inexpensive components. Cruising overseas we believe you can never have too many spares.

Installing a dual chemical LFP/LA system only complicates your electrical system and will not solve your running out of amps problem long term. But it does increase the risk of a failure. If you are worried about that see my comments above about system design that ensures you will have sufficient holdover house bank capacity for at least 3 days. Beyond that just use your alternators if underway or portable generator if in port. Simple. If you want to discuss how to easily charge both a LFP house bank and LA start battery we can do that.

We believe that anyone that has not actually done a proper DIY LFP install is hardly experienced enough to render a trusted opinion regarding any LFP vs LA battery risk. I don’t know where the Morgan’s Cloud forum falls. We all have to make our own decisions about what to put on our boats. But relying on cruiser social media will get you good and bad opinions, and unless you have sufficient knowledge from prior research, it will be hard to separate the two.

Dave McCampbell
SV Soggy Paws

David, As I said, it is all about 'risk', NOT technology. By 'differential' I mean the increase in risk due to change. No matter what you finish up with 'changing' (sails, batteries, the color of your upholstery, direction of travel etc.) you are likely to introduce risk. In this case it's high and because the power system is critical to my particular sailing requirements the consequences of failure are high.

You've made the change so you are past the point where the this particular element of risk is incurred. If I was starting with an empty boat I'd go LI. I'm looking for a technical solution that allows me to keep what I've got, but add the benefits in LI without increasing risk. That ought to be possible.