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harrison123 avatar image
harrison123 asked

Charging Batteries with different chemistries

I am designing a system for my sailboat. I will have 3 battery banks:

  1. BANK-1 (Lithium) Main House (1,380 Ah)
  2. BANK-2 (AGM) Winches/Thruster/Windlass Bank (400 Ah)
  3. BANK-3 (AGM) Start Battery (100 Ah)

I have a 170 AMP alternator and will be adding about 800 Watts of solar. I was going to have a Lynx Distributor and put all charging (alternator/solar) there. That should charge the Lithium batteries. To charge the AGM batteries I was going to add two of the "Orion-XS 50A DC-DC Battery Chargers". Is this the right way to do it? I will have both lithium and AGM's to charge. Is there a better way to do this? Thanks....v-pic.jpg

battery chargingAGM Battery
v-pic.jpg (255.1 KiB)
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nixklaus avatar image nixklaus commented ·
I would like to do the same configuration on my Oceanis 46.

Is it ok to connect the starter battery via Dc-DC xs to Lynx power in?

I thought the Lynx power in is only for the Lithium batterys, nothing else.

Should the Victron xs DC-DC connected to the Lynx distributor?


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pwfarnell avatar image pwfarnell nixklaus commented ·
@nixklaus @Harrison123 The Lynx Power In can be used for any supply power, but any cables connected to the Lynx Power In need to be fused separately because they will always be powered up.when the system is on, i.e. the MPPT, Orions, etc. should have fuses on the oupruts to protect against short circuit. In this case a Lynx Distributor would save adding extra fuses.
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nixklaus avatar image nixklaus pwfarnell commented ·
Thank you for Your reply.
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4 Answers
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pwfarnell answered ·

Using DC to DC to charge the AGM batteries is the best way to go to obtain good charging parameters on all 3 banks. The Orion XS 50 is probably more than you need for the starter battery as starting typically uses only a few Ah, consider something smaller for this duty. another solution woud be to have a battery combiner between the 2 AGM banks to combine them when charging.

You show a Balmar alternator, is this really the case, does the Balmar regulator provide adequate control for lithium battery charging or are you using another controller with better control such as a WS500 or a Zeus.

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harrison123 avatar image
harrison123 answered ·

Thanks for your reply. The Balmar alternator has a regulator with it that has charge parameters for lithium batteries. So it should be all charging to the "Lyncs Power In" and then DC/DC chargers for both AGM banks. I am not sure I can use the "Battery Combiner". Max AMPs on it is 80 and it has to power a bow thruster which draws over 150 when in operation.

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pwfarnell avatar image pwfarnell commented ·
When the thruster operates, it may reduce the voltage on the thruster battery to say 10.5V so there is not full voltage drop available to push the full amps from the starter battery to the thruster battery, but I understand the desire to make sure it is OK in all circumstances.
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kevgermany answered ·

You have 2 GX devices shown. Cerbo and the Multiplus GX. You can't use both together. Either get the Non-GX multiplus or drop the Cerbo. There's a third alternative - disable the GX In the Multiplus. Expensive and needs an engineer.

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harrison123 answered ·

The Multiplus GX was a mistake. Is should be a Multiplus II 3000.

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