As I prep for the winter trip south this season, I wanted to add more battery capapcity to Hemispheres. As the days are shorter in the winter, there will be less daylight for solar, or cloudy days so….swapped out the single 300ah lithium for a pair of Epoch 460ah batteries. Yup, literally trippled the capacity, now up to 920ah with the ability to discharge up ot 400amps at a time if needed (they’re in parallel), though would never need that. Max of pushing anything based on current stuff on board has never been over a 150amp draw. I have the charger set to 100amps and the inverter is set to 1800 watts, there’s nothing on board that would draw anything close. Had new cables made, sized 2/0 as I’m sitting just under 20 ft. with the runs, perfect.
It was a full day, overall about eight hours with most of that time being a contortionist running and pulling and pushing, yes, pushing cables. Took apart the aft berth, took out the floor in the lazarette, extended the platform underneath the berth to hold another battery. In reflection, glad I did it all myself, learned a lot and mostly, saved a lot of money. Could have hired various services to do it at one of the yards. I’d estimate two techs @ $100/hr for five hours. I pretty much saved myself a boatbuck 😉
Got some zip-tying and general cleanup and presentation to do early next week to satisfy my OCD. The old Rebel Batteries 300ah Lithium-Iron, group size 6D will be hitting Facebook Marketplace in a couple of days.
L u k e n . o r g 