Batteries and Solar Charger

[jd1923]

On 10/7/2023 at 5:57 PM, SeaDawg said:

Well, those grommets aren't doing a thing for you, right now. Nylon or some other type of plastic, useless if not seated in the opening. Rough fiberglass is abrasive.

Now's a great time to replace with a barbed grommet, or cable glands, that will stay put, since you're pulling the batteries, etc.. Material of your choice...

I would definitely check all 4 batteries. Your system will only charge to the level of the weakest, and if you have a bad cell in one, you'll have issues. 

Thanks @SeaDawg I'm not sure re a "barbed grommet" ... I just not a grommet guy. In most of my installs, I go without so I can drill a smaller dia drill hole and instead wrap the wire sufficiently. 

I removed the batteries today, how heavy are these? My old body can still just lift each, likely 65 LB each. I also cleaned the bay and it came out nice. I will put some toolbox ribbed rubber under these. 

I'm thinking on the two main cables, coming off the left side, I may check my old supply of automotive heater hose and cut about a 4" length to wrap each cable snug fit the two holes. On the other side, I will epoxy the original grommet.

Question for you OTT experts... Check my picture above on the RHS. Please let me know what the 2 smaller + red wires are and the black and yellow ground wires. I know one red is for the stabilizer jacks, but not sure yet on the others. Thanks!

[jd1923]

Was REALLY, really hoping to get some help on this thread! Asked about the grommets, no comments. Asked about the additional wires, the 8GA wires, two + red ones and two grounds, a yellow and a black, yet no comment again. OK, I'll figure it out for myself, like most things in life. So many times, people ask for help, when with a little testing or research we are able to and can figure out so many things for ourselves. (I tell my PM students that almost every day!)

Going to finish and close this post. Grommets epoxied into place, not my idea of the best solution, but it is the OTT design. Got rid of what was referred previously as an elegant solution, perhaps, but battery posts mounted too high is NOT a good idea, not near an adequate solution. As another great Greek once said 🤣, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." (Archimedes). You do not want the lever to pull you battery posts out of the casing.

I am not interested in elegant solutions, as KISS, Keep It Simple Silly, is a long-lived and currently viable design philosophy. Most of you will not like my solution, fear may engage your mind. 

I found 100 varied electrical bus solutions for this need, ranging from $40 to $200 on Amazon and professional sites. Why? I just bought a piece of copper. Copper is about the best affordable conductor. For $20 taxed and delivered, I received a 1" wide, 1/4" thick, 8" bar of 99.9% pure copper. I guarantee any manufactured bus you would buy would have more resistance than this copper.

Decided to mount the + connections on the left side, so they would not be stressed into the corner like the previous install (as @John E Davies had warned of earlier). Like it or not, here it is. So, we're done here. Thanks for reading and I would certainly appreciate your comments! 🙂

[Ollie-Haus]

Wow that is so much better than what you started with. I like your solutions far better than the previous owner's method. And the extremely clean and proper connections are very well thought out considering the objective and the budget considerations. 

I think a lot of folks tried to help, but as you stated it truly falls on the owner to make the hard choices. You obviously had a mental picture of where you needed to end up. 

Often when trouble shooting folks start making assumptions and end up way off course. I think you went about working the problem in a very logical and practical way. Now the question remains, have all your objectives been met? I'm guessing you are much closer. Well done. 👍

[jd1923]

3 hours ago, Ollie-Haus said:

Wow that is so much better than what you started with... Well done. 👍

Thank you so much @Ollie-Haus!

I also placed ribbed rubber toolbox liner under the batteries for cushion, came up with a better solution to fill the 3/8" extra depth in the box.

Looking again at my pics, on next maintenance, I may drill a recess in the copper bars where they mount to the battery posts, so that I can mount the nuts deeper so that all threads are holding strong. First, we may just take an outing to see how this install holds up. Thanks again 

[Ollie-Haus]

I like the idea of spot facing the copper bars where needed. I also like the flanged nuts. If you could spot face a large enough area to allow for the flanged nuts on the battery studs that wouldn't be a bad idea. Like your idea and I too would run a test period to find out where you stand now. Knowing your connections are improved, any other issues could be traced to their true source. 

Electrical troubleshooting can be challenging. Here's an example. We had a relatively new front load washing machine, you know, the kind that have a hundred bells and whistles. The kind the average Joe can't work on. Just out of warranty I got an error code on the screen that indicated a failed main control board. You're talking $300 plus for the part. I was doing a little research and stumbled onto a discussion about failures due to poor connections on the connector plugs on the boards. The solution was to pull all the connections, clean inside the tiny spring sockets, clean all the wire pins on the board side, use a micro screwdriver to bend the inside of the plug socket contacts to increase their "squeeze" on the wire pins when plugged in, and finally smear a thin layer of dielectric grease on the contact surfaces. Sounds like a lot but actually took 20-30 minutes to do to all the plugs. Reassembled and tested. All was well and no more failures for the 5 years following the "repair". The new owners are still using the same washer and dryer. 

Now when I'm trouble shooting electrical, especially the new stuff with built in diagnostics, I always start by checking all connections and improving as described above to eliminate false error codes. 

[Geronimo John]

    I like your nuts better!  GJ

[SeaDawg]

On 10/7/2023 at 10:14 PM, ScubaRx said:

At Oliver's request, in late 2013, I designed the first solar system that would go on to be installed in all the OEII's from 2014 and beyond from Hulls #050 thru #199. I included the best equipment on the market at the time. Blue Sky was the cream of the crop. Victron was just a future dream. Victron does not work any better than the Blue Sky stuff, it's just slicker, has more bells and whistles and better integration.

Sort of.

The first  blue sky Oliver system was originally designed by Technomadia, in early 2008, for their wonderful Ollie. I'm sure Steve's design follows their designs, as did we, with our spin. With their knowledgeable input, and permissions.

We followed their component recommendations when we asked Oliver to install the side-mount system my husband designed, and Oliver (amazingly well!) fabricated and installed for us in September, 2008. 15 years later, with upgraded 2 x 200 panels, installed by us, and an additional slave blue sky unit, we are still thrilled with the rooftop solar capacity of our little Elite. 

Is Victron better? In the marine world, definitely.  More exposure, more support, worldwide. More connectivity, with other integrated marine systems. Great customer support,  according to my tech friends in the sailing and boating world. Better ip waterproof rating.

Doesn't tempt me to change what works in our 2008 Ollie. The support we get from Ryan  @  BlueSky is absolutely stellar. He spent hours on the phone with us, when we were doing our upgrade, and helped us select and program new unit.

Like Jason at Oliver, there's no replacement for a dedicated and knowledgeable caring  human at the other end of the line.

[ScubaRx]

On 12/9/2023 at 7:36 PM, SeaDawg said:

Sort of.

The first  blue sky Oliver system was originally designed by Technomadia, in early 2008, for their wonderful Ollie. I'm sure Steve's design follows their designs, as did we, with our spin. With their knowledgeable input, and permissions.

You state that the first  blue sky Oliver system was originally designed by Technomadia, in early 2008 and installed onto their trailer. I have no reason to doubt that this is an accurate statement since I do remember seeing pictures during construction and there were solar panels on the roof. Also, you say that you and Paul copied their design for your 2008 with 'their knowledgeable input, and permissions', apparently using the same equipment, since it was the best on the market.

I, on the other hand, have seen that trailer only once when we ran into them at a campground probably sometime in 2009. We spent about three minutes saying hello, we did not go inside and I have no idea how they designed their solar system so I'm perplexed as to why you think I followed their design.

As I stated in my Original Post, "At Oliver's request, in late 2013, I designed the first solar system [for the new Elite II's being built] that would go on to be installed in all the OEII's from 2014 and beyond from Hulls #050 thru #199. I included the best equipment on the market at the time. Blue Sky was the cream of the crop.

In 2017, with Hull #200, Oliver switched to a Zamp system.

[MAX Burner]

We used a similar approach for the upgraded copper bus battery terminal: