Lithium Upgrade
- The Captains Blog
- Mar 11, 2022
- 1 min read
Updated: Jun 10, 2022
I've got a secret I've been keeping since early February.
This upgrade was not only expensive, it was very time consuming and extremely technical in nature. But I'm glad I did it. We took the boat out last weekend, two days of no shore-power, for sea-trial to test out the new house battery (and really, my entire electrical system).
I'm also asking for your help. LaZina and I are working on a video for our YouTube channel (Let's go channels surfing) and thought we'd solicit questions from you, to make sure when we record the video next week we don't leave any important details out.
I've just published to our web site a ton of photographs of the upgrade (a slide-show). It's a visual story of the upgrade. I also did a technical write-up which illustrates the design drawings I created for this project (electrical schematic). I don't want an unsupportable boat. Thus, every change I make must be documented. ABYC standards were also very important to me as I want to make sure my boat is safe and would easily pass a marine survey.
Many folks have asked me about lithium batteries on our Ranger Tugs. RT offers (6) 100ah Dakota Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) on their Luxury editions to run air conditioning as an option, but not on their Northwest Editions. Channel Surfing is an RT27-OB Northwest Edition and came with AGM batteries. I went with a UL approved Lithioncs 320Ah single battery.
Please drop any questions you have about this LFP upgrade in the comments section and I'll be sure to answer them when we record the upcoming YouTube video. Thank you!
Once I’m smart enough to be able to turn things on, I’ll have a ton of stupid questions.🤢 Heading to Lake Hamilton (Arkansas) on Friday for the weekend…goal is simply to not break anything.
Thanks for the great videos and website. Much appreciated.
Danny
btw, the link to the tech write up is 404
doing a similar upgrade on 2020 r27ob luxury edition. I have a generator so we're pulling the 2 105ah agm batteries that are already tired and installing a 205ah SOK lithium. Plan to re-program existing oem charger (20 amp), replace solar charge controller with victron unit, add secondary 25amp 120v charger and 30amp dc to dc charger from the thruster battery. Will also be removing acr from thruster to house. All components other than the oem charger are bt capable.
As I start to implement this I read your note regarding boat electric course, will be enrolling this week. Knowbody knows everthing...
Martin, Interesting decision to go to LiPO4 and abandon the Firefly's. Your logic to go to Firefly's in your video made sense. given that the R27 NW edition has 3 AGM, 100 Ah batteries. My questions regarding your upgrade would be 1) Why the change of heart ? 2)What distinct advantage have you found with Li vs Firefly batteries? 3) What technical hurdles did you have to overcome when going to LiPO4 ? 4) additional components/parts needed ? 5)Will the factory still honor your warranty? Thanks for sharing. We get delivery of our 2023 R27 LE OB in August and as previously stated will add 2 additional 100 Ah, Dakota LiPO4 batteries with two 225 Watt solar panels (simila…