Back to electrical... House batteries are now installed and wired together to form one big house bank. The cable that connects the batteries is 4/0 which is about the size of a garden hose. Fortunately I had the use of a huge ratcheting crimper for installing the lugs on the cable which made the job relatively painless. The left part of the cabinet will hold all the inverter, charger, wiring, and electrical distribution stuff. These are gel cells and should not gas off during normal conditions but I am incorporating good ventilation just in case. I also designed it so that the batteries are easy to access for maintenance or removal. Our boat is DC/Inverter based which requires a lot of juice... we'll have about 1250 AH (amp hours) at 12 volts. We'll only use about half those AHs before recharging in order to limit the wear and tear on the batteries from deep discharge cycles. With our modest power requirements, this should give us many days of clean quiet power when anchored in some beautiful remote spot. Next up is hooking up the AC from the shore power inlet so we can install the inverter/charger and get the batteries topped off.
Hi
ReplyDeleteI don't see any paint , on the wood for the batteries cabinet , is it treated wood .
Red,
ReplyDeleteThe ply I'm using is exterior grade (or so it says)so I'm just relying on a basic sealer over the unpainted areas. The batteries are sealed gel cell so I am not expecting any leakage that would need serious containment as in a traditional battery box.