Interesting article about Lithium-ion batteries, insurance and thermal runaway fires. 

It's a good thing that most of us don't carry electric powered surfboards (which seems an oxymoron to me to begin with) because it seems the gadgets aboard superyachts are mostly at fault when fire occurs. Nevertheless, insurers are declining coverage for yachts with lithium-based batteries. It is advised to discuss repowering with insurers before installation. 

One of my laptops once burst into flame and that was scary enough. I immediately unplugged it and the fire was self-limiting. What I found disconcerting about this article is that they don't actually say what it takes to put a Li battery fire out aboard a yacht. Anyone have experience with this? Does it require a different extinguisher?

Also, they cite this resource as useful: The MCA’s Electrical Installations – Guidance for Safe Design, Installation and Operation of Lithium-ion Batteries. Seems like daunting reading. 



Vice Commodore, OCC 

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Bill Balme - 26 May 2022

Here's how I installed my Lithium batteries...

https://toodleoo.com/?p=2931

Bill.  Very nicely done.  Using Victron is a class act, and all the blue equipment makes a nice color coordinated install to show off to friends.  I like the neat schematic and easily understood writeup.  Your big battery protect with the fins looks different from mine without.  Maybe a new design?

We have found that in order to live on our LFP batteries on a daily basis here in the tropics we need at least 3X our daily usage in useable battery capacity.  That gives us 3 full days on the batteries without having to use any petrol for charging if we have no sun for that long.  But that is pretty rare here.  We have 540ahrs of LFP cells and use about 150ahrs a day.

We have 800 watts of solar mounted flat with minimal shading which gets us recharged by noon on most days.  But of course with LFP that is not important at all.  You made a good decision to put a separate small MPPT on each panel.  It helps minimize shading impact and one damaged does not affect the others in case one has a problem.  If your panels are the same voltage as boat voltage you don't even need MPPTs.  Mine are not.

Best and thanks for the link.  Dave McCampbell, SV Soggy Paws

Here's how I installed my Lithium batteries...

https://toodleoo.com/?p=2931


Bill Balme

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SoggyPaws - 25 May 2022

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Dick - 25 May 2022

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SoggyPaws - 22 May 2022

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Philip Heaton - 8 Oct 2021

Our batteries are reaching a stage where replacement will be needed shortly. Consequently we are thinking about LiFePO4 batteries which are lighter, smaller, don't require same capacity, can be discharged further and last longer but are a bit more costly.  Does anyone have any experience or advice re these batteries?

Phil.  This is our first look at this forum so this may be a bit late.  After 6 months of careful study we installed a DIY LiFePO4 battery system on our boat, SV Soggy Paws, about 2 years ago using quality equipment and good electrical techniques. It replaced a 13 year old 390 lb Sonnenschein Gel house bank with 100 lbs of LFP cells and 50% more capacity. For anyone contemplating doing this I recommend thorough research on the several trusted LFP websites on the internet, including MarineHowTo and the Nordkyn sites. Both are excellent and very detailed. There are also several good UTube sites, including the Will Prouse and Off Grid Garage sites, that will give visual learners the basics, but not everything you will need to know to do a proper marine install.  And there is at least one LFP forum for boats, Lithium on a Boat, that is well regarded because its many experienced users can give good advice on most details.  As with all things on the internet remember that not everything on the internet is true! Also, since the technology, is now barely 20 years old even the experts have differences of opinion. There are a number of options on how to do things properly, and some of these are better than others.  Our installation is documented on our website.   Dave McCampbell SV Soggy Paws

Hi Dave,
It is good to get your report. A few questions:
Has your insurance company had any reaction to your having a DIY lithium install?
Have you had any load dumps? What have you done in your design to prevent load dumps (or give warning) ?
Have you incorporated any lead batteries into your system as so many seem to be doing now and many are recommending?
As I see you are a  US flagged vessel, have you been following the initial reports of ABYC standards with regards to lithium?
Thanks, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Ps. I suspect I could get this from your site, but I am at anchor and also feel others may be interested in these questions.

Hi Dick,
Good to see this thread is still active.  Having followed this for some time on the forums and elsewhere it amazing how many cruisers/boaters are installing LFP now.  But it has to be done right and we recommend by the owner so they will know their system if something goes wrong in the future.  Luckily I had my wife, Sherry a degreed engineer and computer programmer, to give me advice when I strayed during installation.  She is the real brains on our boat.   In answer to your questions:  
-Topsail had no mention of lithium batteries until this year when they added install must be done according to manufacturer's recommendations or words to that effect.  Our cells, like most others, are from a Chinese company so not much guidance there.  So we followed our BMS Electrodacus' recommendations, which are excellent, and that of several others we trusted.
-If by load dump you mean battery being disconnected from the load unexpectedly, that is handled by our BMS if any cell goes below 2.8vpc.  Also, some loads, like radios, have a disconnect feature if total battery voltage drops below a certain low value.  But this is not really useful with a LeFePO4 (LFP) system as a cell could be really low and the total battery voltage still well above the equipment's load disconnect voltage.  We also have a very sophisticated Node Red monitoring system Sherry designed for our computer or a Raspberry Pi.  It is fed by the BMS output and external alt regulators.  We monitor this constantly while we are aboard.  For the above reasons and because we have sufficient battery capacity to last 3 days without charging it is very unlikely we would ever have a unexpected load dump.  Soon I will add an alarm set above 2.8vpc to warn us when we get near the BMS low voltage disconnect.  All this assumes you are using one of the quality external relay BMSs, not a SE Asian internal Mosfet BMS. Internal Mosfet BMSs are common with preassembled (drop in) lithium batteries and do things differently.
-Our separate 700 cca starter battery is SLA (sealed lead acid) just because it is cheap, works well for about 5 years, and is easily replaceable anywhere in the world.  We use a thermal circuit breaker and diode to charge it off the house bank.  I have not paralleled a LA battery to our LFP as I see no reason to do so, and it just adds weight to the boat.  We are wired with separate BMS controlled to the cell level voltage disconnect relays set to safely independently disconnect charging sources if the BMS sees a cell high voltage spike over 3.55 vpc.  See our article for details on this under the lithium install article on our website.  http://www.svsoggypaws.com/electricalsystems.htm look at Trickle Charging.  Our lithium battery install article is at the top of this link.
-I have seen several posts on the Lithium Batteries on a Boat forum (excellent) regarding ABYC requirements but have not studied them in detail.  At this point we are pretty confident we have a safe system.  We are now off cruising across SE Asia and have one engine we are overhauling in back of a local mechanic's house.  So we are pretty busy and that is not a priority.  We will get to having a good look at it eventually but don't expect to have to make many significant changes to comply.  Our Electrodacus SBMS0 is very high quality and the several sets of instructions and support from the designer and their forum leads little room for error.  And up front we spent the better part of 6 months studying everything we could find to learn what to do and not do.  So I think we are good for now.
Have a look on our website link above and you will see how we are set up in great detail.  Thanks for your interest.  We think this is a real game changer for serious cruisers for many reasons.  Happy to answer any more questions if we can.
Dave McCampbell, SV Soggy Paws
In Kai Islands, E Indonesia

Hi Dave,
Yes, that is what I mean by load dumps (gotta be a better way of saying this) and you describe one of the scenarios that can lead to a load dump.
Thanks for the fill. Your system sounds well thought through and well researched. I especially like that one of your resources was RC at MarineHowTo who I think has done realy good work at keeping the balance between something exciting new and enticing and boat safety and reliability. And, I believe much still continues to evolve as the field moves toward "standard" practices.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

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Dick - 25 May 2022

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SoggyPaws - 22 May 2022

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Philip Heaton - 8 Oct 2021

Our batteries are reaching a stage where replacement will be needed shortly. Consequently we are thinking about LiFePO4 batteries which are lighter, smaller, don't require same capacity, can be discharged further and last longer but are a bit more costly.  Does anyone have any experience or advice re these batteries?

Phil.  This is our first look at this forum so this may be a bit late.  After 6 months of careful study we installed a DIY LiFePO4 battery system on our boat, SV Soggy Paws, about 2 years ago using quality equipment and good electrical techniques. It replaced a 13 year old 390 lb Sonnenschein Gel house bank with 100 lbs of LFP cells and 50% more capacity. For anyone contemplating doing this I recommend thorough research on the several trusted LFP websites on the internet, including MarineHowTo and the Nordkyn sites. Both are excellent and very detailed. There are also several good UTube sites, including the Will Prouse and Off Grid Garage sites, that will give visual learners the basics, but not everything you will need to know to do a proper marine install.  And there is at least one LFP forum for boats, Lithium on a Boat, that is well regarded because its many experienced users can give good advice on most details.  As with all things on the internet remember that not everything on the internet is true! Also, since the technology, is now barely 20 years old even the experts have differences of opinion. There are a number of options on how to do things properly, and some of these are better than others.  Our installation is documented on our website.   Dave McCampbell SV Soggy Paws

Hi Dave,
It is good to get your report. A few questions:
Has your insurance company had any reaction to your having a DIY lithium install?
Have you had any load dumps? What have you done in your design to prevent load dumps (or give warning) ?
Have you incorporated any lead batteries into your system as so many seem to be doing now and many are recommending?
As I see you are a  US flagged vessel, have you been following the initial reports of ABYC standards with regards to lithium?
Thanks, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Ps. I suspect I could get this from your site, but I am at anchor and also feel others may be interested in these questions.

Hi Dick,
Good to see this thread is still active.  Having followed this for some time on the forums and elsewhere it amazing how many cruisers/boaters are installing LFP now.  But it has to be done right and we recommend by the owner so they will know their system if something goes wrong in the future.  Luckily I had my wife, Sherry a degreed engineer and computer programmer, to give me advice when I strayed during installation.  She is the real brains on our boat.   In answer to your questions:  
-Topsail had no mention of lithium batteries until this year when they added install must be done according to manufacturer's recommendations or words to that effect.  Our cells, like most others, are from a Chinese company so not much guidance there.  So we followed our BMS Electrodacus' recommendations, which are excellent, and that of several others we trusted.
-If by load dump you mean battery being disconnected from the load unexpectedly, that is handled by our BMS if any cell goes below 2.8vpc.  Also, some loads, like radios, have a disconnect feature if total battery voltage drops below a certain low value.  But this is not really useful with a LeFePO4 (LFP) system as a cell could be really low and the total battery voltage still well above the equipment's load disconnect voltage.  We also have a very sophisticated Node Red monitoring system Sherry designed for our computer or a Raspberry Pi.  It is fed by the BMS output and external alt regulators.  We monitor this constantly while we are aboard.  For the above reasons and because we have sufficient battery capacity to last 3 days without charging it is very unlikely we would ever have a unexpected load dump.  Soon I will add an alarm set above 2.8vpc to warn us when we get near the BMS low voltage disconnect.  All this assumes you are using one of the quality external relay BMSs, not a SE Asian internal Mosfet BMS. Internal Mosfet BMSs are common with preassembled (drop in) lithium batteries and do things differently.
-Our separate 700 cca starter battery is SLA (sealed lead acid) just because it is cheap, works well for about 5 years, and is easily replaceable anywhere in the world.  We use a thermal circuit breaker and diode to charge it off the house bank.  I have not paralleled a LA battery to our LFP as I see no reason to do so, and it just adds weight to the boat.  We are wired with separate BMS controlled to the cell level voltage disconnect relays set to safely independently disconnect charging sources if the BMS sees a cell high voltage spike over 3.55 vpc.  See our article for details on this under the lithium install article on our website.  http://www.svsoggypaws.com/electricalsystems.htm look at Trickle Charging.  Our lithium battery install article is at the top of this link.
-I have seen several posts on the Lithium Batteries on a Boat forum (excellent) regarding ABYC requirements but have not studied them in detail.  At this point we are pretty confident we have a safe system.  We are now off cruising across SE Asia and have one engine we are overhauling in back of a local mechanic's house.  So we are pretty busy and that is not a priority.  We will get to having a good look at it eventually but don't expect to have to make many significant changes to comply.  Our Electrodacus SBMS0 is very high quality and the several sets of instructions and support from the designer and their forum leads little room for error.  And up front we spent the better part of 6 months studying everything we could find to learn what to do and not do.  So I think we are good for now.
Have a look on our website link above and you will see how we are set up in great detail.  Thanks for your interest.  We think this is a real game changer for serious cruisers for many reasons.  Happy to answer any more questions if we can.
Dave McCampbell, SV Soggy Paws
In Kai Islands, E Indonesia

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SoggyPaws - 22 May 2022

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Philip Heaton - 8 Oct 2021

Our batteries are reaching a stage where replacement will be needed shortly. Consequently we are thinking about LiFePO4 batteries which are lighter, smaller, don't require same capacity, can be discharged further and last longer but are a bit more costly.  Does anyone have any experience or advice re these batteries?

Phil.  This is our first look at this forum so this may be a bit late.  After 6 months of careful study we installed a DIY LiFePO4 battery system on our boat, SV Soggy Paws, about 2 years ago using quality equipment and good electrical techniques. It replaced a 13 year old 390 lb Sonnenschein Gel house bank with 100 lbs of LFP cells and 50% more capacity. For anyone contemplating doing this I recommend thorough research on the several trusted LFP websites on the internet, including MarineHowTo and the Nordkyn sites. Both are excellent and very detailed. There are also several good UTube sites, including the Will Prouse and Off Grid Garage sites, that will give visual learners the basics, but not everything you will need to know to do a proper marine install.  And there is at least one LFP forum for boats, Lithium on a Boat, that is well regarded because its many experienced users can give good advice on most details.  As with all things on the internet remember that not everything on the internet is true! Also, since the technology, is now barely 20 years old even the experts have differences of opinion. There are a number of options on how to do things properly, and some of these are better than others.  Our installation is documented on our website.   Dave McCampbell SV Soggy Paws

Hi Dave,
It is good to get your report. A few questions:
Has your insurance company had any reaction to your having a DIY lithium install?
Have you had any load dumps? What have you done in your design to prevent load dumps (or give warning) ?
Have you incorporated any lead batteries into your system as so many seem to be doing now and many are recommending?
As I see you are a  US flagged vessel, have you been following the initial reports of ABYC standards with regards to lithium?
Thanks, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Ps. I suspect I could get this from your site, but I am at anchor and also feel others may be interested in these questions.

+x

 

Philip Heaton - 8 Oct 2021

Our batteries are reaching a stage where replacement will be needed shortly. Consequently we are thinking about LiFePO4 batteries which are lighter, smaller, don't require same capacity, can be discharged further and last longer but are a bit more costly.  Does anyone have any experience or advice re these batteries?

Phil.  This is our first look at this forum so this may be a bit late.  After 6 months of careful study we installed a DIY LiFePO4 battery system on our boat, SV Soggy Paws, about 2 years ago using quality equipment and good electrical techniques. It replaced a 13 year old 390 lb Sonnenschein Gel house bank with 100 lbs of LFP cells and 50% more capacity. For anyone contemplating doing this I recommend thorough research on the several trusted LFP websites on the internet, including MarineHowTo and the Nordkyn sites. Both are excellent and very detailed. There are also several good UTube sites, including the Will Prouse and Off Grid Garage sites, that will give visual learners the basics, but not everything you will need to know to do a proper marine install.  And there is at least one LFP forum for boats, Lithium on a Boat, that is well regarded because its many experienced users can give good advice on most details.  As with all things on the internet remember that not everything on the internet is true! Also, since the technology, is now barely 20 years old even the experts have differences of opinion. There are a number of options on how to do things properly, and some of these are better than others.  Our installation is documented on our website.   Dave McCampbell SV Soggy Paws

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Philip Heaton - 7 Apr 2022

I have just come across this article which has been written with .. er .. feeling:
https://loosecannon.substack.com/p/youre-not-qualified-to-have-li-batteries?s=w&utm_medium=web

Food for thought.
Phil

Hi Philip,
Nice catch. I am loath to c&p copywrite material from my Professional Boatbuilder, but I think this particular article is important and it is great you found an on-line copy.
Jonathan Klopman (Marine Surveyor), comments on the state of lithium batteries on boats. His particular expertise is accident reconstruction and failure analysis.
Of particular interest in an overallinteresting article was his description of the suggestions generated by ABYC’s technical information report which (as I understand it) is a precursor report prior to ABYC developing and publishing their standards for a Lithium install.
For those not familiar with ABYC, ABYC is (sort of) the US equivalent to CE.
The article also has some compiled on-board fire statistics which are quite interesting.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy

I have just come across this article which has been written with .. er .. feeling:
https://loosecannon.substack.com/p/youre-not-qualified-to-have-li-batteries?s=w&utm_medium=web

Food for thought.
Phil

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dcaukill - 31 Mar 2022

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Dick - 14 Nov 2021

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dcaukill - 14 Nov 2021

A couple of observations.

I have 4x200Ahr LiPO4 batteries fitted as the house bank: charged by 2x100Amp chargers, or the engine alternator, or solar panels. The AGM bowthruster batteries are charged by a DC charger off the house bank as are the engine and generator AGMs by trickle chargers. Everything: batteries, controllers, chargers etc is branded Mastervolt and  installled by thier reps. It all works well.

Fire exinguisher by Nueruppin.Their WD range is specifically directed at Lithium batteries.

Hi dcaukill,
Thanks for your report. Sounds like a well thought through set-up. That is interesting about the fire extinguisher being designed for lithium.
Does your insurance co. know that you have lithium batteries and did they have any reaction? Did they suggest the fire extinguisher?
MV seems to have done a good job at putting together packages.
My best, Dick

[/quo

The boat having been refitted fairly extensively over the last couple of years, i have now talked my insurers through the work that has been done. Specifically as regards the LiFePO4 batteries, beause they are Mastervolt, fitted to a Mastervolt set up by a Mastervolt dealer they are unconcerned. Because i was aware of your concern i mentioned it to be told that insurers generally do not like DIY lithium conversions and often wont cover them - at least not without an 'expert' assessment.
Thats the good news - the bad news is that they have withdrawn cover for named storms in the Caribbean :-(.   It's hard to find a European insurer who will cover it now.