I had the EchoPilot 2-D on my boat when purchased 10 years ago. I found it
of little use because it only sees a little over a boat length ahead when
you really need it in water less than 4M deep. In muddy water if you are
looking for a channel, it only sees directly in front of the boat. You have
to turn the boat in hopes if identifying deeper water. I was rarely
successful, and was as likely to stumble on the channel as find it with the
sonar.
The transducer has since failed. I’m waiting until the 3D units get better
and cheaper before I replace it.

Kent Robertson
S/V Kristy
SN243

On Aug 20, 2019, at 11:34 AM, Oliver Henrichsen, SV Vela Nautica
<oliver.henrichsen@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Scott,

To place the charger in the engineroom has some downsides:
- hunidity
- heat
- limited space so probably the charger is mounted sideways what lowers
airflow.
- long wires

I customized widened the switch area and drilled ventilation holes to the
alley.
I install 120mm thermocontrolled fans with heat alarms to blow fresh air
into the cabinet.

The 120A5000W fits vertical.

The lifepo is smaller than batteries before with same capacity so i could
install a new separation.

The starter batt is now behind the onan in the engine room.

No more dirty lead in the cabin. Hydrogen Should not be an issue as most
other yachts place the starter batt around the engine room.

Oliver from Vela Nautica

A54#39

Portugal

Sent from my Huawei Mobile


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [AmelYachtOwners] Amel is going lithium
From: Scott SV Tengah
To: main@AmelYachtOwners.groups.io
CC:


I guess this is a reminder that I still owe the group my writeup. :)

Oliver, how do you vent the compartment where you've installed the Victron
24/5000/120 inverter/charger? I mounted mine in the engine compartment
(connected with the recommended 2x pair of 50mm2 wires - not 95mm2 as I
previously mentioned) in the same location as the old Dolphin 100amp
charger, with the same ventilation from outside as the original Amel setup.


Even then, the charger/inverter gets damn hot especially when we are cooking
and the induction, microwave and boiler are drawing tons of current. Or when
it's charging at the full 120 amps.

Part of the reason I ask is that the electricians installed the Victron
150/35 MPPT in the same compartment where you installed your
charger/inverter (where the main battery switches are) and I'm getting very
high temperatures in that closed compartment after a full day's charging. If
you've figured out a good cooling solution, I'd rather implement that than
try to move my MPPT!

I was considering adding a little timer controlled 24v fan on the vent in
the battery compartment and connecting the two compartments, but haven't for
two reasons: (1) Amel kept the two compartments isolated. I am loathe to
violate that as they probably did that for a reason (2) The fan is just
another part to fail and I have enough things to keep up with already!


--
Scott
2007 A54 #69
SV Tengah
http://www.svtengah.com

Kent,

I know it's Martinique, but I have had good experience with Caraibe Marine
in Le Marin. They generally know Amels quite well. I had them redo my
standing rigging and while all was not perfect, they fixed the problems
without so much as a complaint. They really take pride in their work. I
still had to double check everything but found far fewer problems than with
other contractors.

They do almost everything through their different "divisions" and while
there's an argument that a monopoly is not good, having everything under the
Caraibe umbrella means they can't point fingers at other contractors when
something goes wrong.

They have a decent relationship with and are very close to the Amel office
down there. The Amel guys are very busy and don't do everything, but will
gladly give technical advice to Caraibe Marine. The Amel guys aren't perfect
at English so it's good that everyone is French. :)

Let's just say I am literally sailing all the way back to Martinique for a
few more items before heading through the Canal.
--
Scott
2007 A54 #69
SV Tengah
http://www.svtengah.com

I never considered adding more heat to the living spaces by venting it into the passageway/alley.
 
Perhaps my thinking is influenced by the high heat and high humidity I'm dealing with right now, but that passage berth, which is perfect for the off-watch crew member, gets warm enough as is. I'd be loathe to do anything that makes it even hotter.

But you're right, the charger/inverter is mounted sideways in the engine compartment. We directed outside air right near the charger/inverter intake, similar to the old Dolphin setup. The Dolphin lasted 12 years, so I presume the "salt air" won't cause damage. And we don't see output tapering even after running it near capacity for longer periods. We followed the Victron recs for line size and used some online calculators to verify, so I'm not too concerned about voltage drop. 

That said, neither solution is ideal, imo. Boats are always compromises, I guess!
--
Scott 
2007 A54 #69
SV Tengah
http://www.svtengah.com

On Aug 20, 2019, at 3:44 PM, Scott SV Tengah <sv.tengah@gmail.com> wrote:

had no idea you're supposed to connect charger positive to the load and not the batteries, and especially not one of the batteries.

Like many, I have used contractors to do work on our A54 that we either don't have the time, skills nor tools to do ourselves. This is simply delegation and leveraging our time because we don't want to spend our lives working on the boat full time. We bought the boat to go sailing, not become boat technicians!

However, as I've been reminded again and again, always know what they are doing, why they're doing it and check to make sure they did it right.

This is a bit of a venting post because I had some electricians work on Tengah in southern Spain and they literally did almost everything wrong. And the work was far from free. I won't name them publicly, but if you're in southern Spain and considering electrical work, feel free to private message me and I'll let you know whether you should avoid that particular electrician.

A partial list:

1) They refused to read posts from this forum that I provided to them about the Amel isolated ground system. Their response, "I've been doing this for years, I don't need to read that." Well, installing the solar panels, they connected the solar panel negative to the arch, causing the Amel electrical leak detector to go nuts. Luckily I caught it before too much corrosion occurred.

2) From the MPPT controller, they connected both positive and negative directly to the batteries. For negative, this bypassed the shunt, so the battery monitor completely ignored the solar power output! Worse, for the positive, they wired it to ONE of the batteries. At the time, I had no idea you're supposed to connect charger positive to the load and not the batteries, and especially not one of the batteries. Luckily I caught that before too much damage occurred.

3) Yesterday, I noticed significantly reduced power output from my panels. I have a nearly 1kw array and the MPPT controller was outputting around 250w at midday into lithium batteries that were at 50% SOC. I spent a few hours checking everything, frustrated as hell because solar is just supposed to work without much maintenance. Turns out the culprit was that the electricians put bare wires into and out of the MPPT. So they either were too lazy or did not have the tools to put ferrules on the bare wire ends, which then slowly corroded enough to eventually limit power output. Moreover, one of the positive wire strands was very very close to shorting out!

4)  I asked for a neg/pos pair of wires on the arch from the 24v batteries so I could install a wifi extender in the near future. They provided those wires and two weeks later I was ready to install my wifi extender. For kicks, I put the multimeter to the wires and saw 35 volts! Turns out they connected those wires to the panels and not our 24v battery system. If I didn't check, the panels would have fried the wifi extender. And if they didn't, the wifi extender would have mysteriously turned off at night.

5) Finally, they put the MPPT into the enclosed space where the main battery switches are. With nearly 1000 watts flowing into the charge controller, it certainly heats up. By 4pm, that enclosed space gets over 50c! Now I have to find a way to move and re-wire the MPPT to a location with more ventilation.

I'm sure you have all either had or will have this experience. It almost seems that it takes more time to hire someone to do work on your boat than to do it yourself. But it's a necessary evil, so going forward, I generally educate myself about what they're doing before they're doing it and watch every step of the way to make sure they do it right. Easy for those of you with engineering backgrounds, a bit harder for those of us from the business world. :)

/End Venting


--
Scott 
2007 A54 #69
SV Tengah
http://www.svtengah.com