# Electric Catamaran needs some help



## HYPRDRV (Aug 20, 2009)

Hi all,
New guy here and fairly new to the EV world. I recently purchased a 41' Sailing Catamaran with the Solomons Electric Drives. The system has been "upgraded" with a few items, one of which is the BRUSA NLG5 battery charger. Since this isn't part of the original system Solomons has no idea how to control or how it works. Brusa has been no help and to add insult to the whole issue, after looking at their site, the program profile loaded is in German! With this in mind and the understanding I'm new to all this I'm hoping a few questions or clarifications can be given.
The general system.
12 AGM batteries hooked up as 144v system providing all power on board.
144v to 2 electric motors capable of 50A draw each under full throttle.
144v to a Sansata inverter 144v to 120v
144v to a Solomons charger for 12V house power and Genset battery.










In general the system is working great. I have some issues with the Genset but other than that I'll return to the dock with more power than I started with do to the regeneration at the props. An issue I'm having is with the charging. On shore power (240V/50A) I'll see the voltage run up to 177V at the battery bank then fall off to 164V once it goes to trickle charge. I'll leave the boat for the week and come back to find the voltage has fallen to 149-150v. Not all the time but enough to concern me. I'll unplug the shore power and reconnect it and the voltage will slowly climb back up to 164v. Again this doesn't happen all the time but I'm trying to keep from eating 12 AGM's do to a setup or owner issue. I guess the question is.. Is there a setup issue with the BRUSA? Is it normal for the system to shut down untill a preset minimum is met, say 145V, then kick back up to a full charge? I hope I'm making sense. 

Another area that is a major concern is proper battery monitoring. I have a LINK-10 that I dislike not only for it's irregular operation but also for the lack of info as well as the small readings in bright sun. I've tried to find something that monitors up to 15 individual batteries with a bar graph for each and have seen a couple on line but not manufactured. I would really appreciate any input on monitoring systems you all would recommend.

I know this isn't a car but I will hope there was some interest from a few of you and you would see the applications in another form. There were only 3 41' Lagoons built with this system and "Electra Glide" was one of them. The issue is I don't have anyone to compare notes with so thanks in advance.

Steve on the Chesapeake


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## madderscience (Jun 28, 2008)

Sounds like you have a pretty unique boat.

I can't answer any of the BRUSA-specific questions but your overall charging behavior sounds pretty normal to me. Lead acid batteries will spike to a higher-than-normal voltage at the peak of their charge, and then the voltage will drop off to around 2.1 to 2.2 volts per cell depending on brand, type, temperature, age, etc. within an hour or two after charging ends. And over the course of days to weeks, you can expect a slow self-discharge of the batteries. (at least for flooded lead you lose 1 or 2% per week typically) If your BRUSA charger has a 'maintenace' or 'float' charge it probably will hold the batteries to a certain voltage that is lower than the peak voltage of a cycling charge, and periodically bump them up again. Unplugging and plugging back in the charger will cause it to start charging more agressively regardless of how full the batteries are, until it figures out they are already full.

If the BRUSA doesn't already do it, For a boat like that which may not get used for a few weeks at a time, a charger with a float charge setting is a good idea.

A very simple but fairly effective way to monitor your batteries, as long as you don't have too many of them, is to get a cheap digital panel voltmeter on each one, and mount them all on a display someplace in the cabin where you can watch them when you are running under load. You can find such items all over ebay. If while under load, any one battery is more than a couple of tenths of a volt off from the others, it is either out of balance or weak.


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## HYPRDRV (Aug 20, 2009)

Over the last 3 weeks I've tried to down load the profile off my Brusa with no luck. For some reason the charger won't communicate with the laptop through the rs232 port. I even went out and bought an old computer with a 232 port so I didn't have an adapter and could load win98, the design op system. All I get is garbage. I'm 99.9% sure that the software, Hyperterminal and Chargestar are installed correctly I know there are a few of these chargers out there so can someone give me some support?

Thanks,

Steve


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## madderscience (Jun 28, 2008)

Having some familiarity with RS232, If you are getting garbage then the most likely scenario is that you have set up the baud rate/parity/stop bits wrong. The specs for the charger's RS232 port should say something like "9600 8N1" which would be interpreted as 9600 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit. This is a very common setting. The terminal emulator program you are using should be configurable to set this. If you don't have any other information to the contrary, try this one first.

Also, try VT100 or something similar for the terminal emulation type if the program you are using allows you to set this.


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## HYPRDRV (Aug 20, 2009)

Thanks Brian,
The numbers you show are the ones that Brusa has in their manual. I've tried those and probably a few dozen other combinations with no luck. I'll try and see if the VT100 is an option on the Hyperterminal program. I've also tried the Putty program but it's got to many options that I know nothing about. The thing is there are 2 different programs, both Hyperterminal and the Chargestar (programs the battery profile to the charger) that are not connecting to to the charger. I was hoping someone had had the same issue and knew the fix. 
By the way I went to your site and saw the Monitoring system you designed. Wow! Have you had any experience or looked at the PowerChk or PakTrakr systems?

Thanks again,
Steve


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## madderscience (Jun 28, 2008)

Thanks for the compliments.

If 9600 8N1 isn't working, then the next question is if your RS232 cable is correct. It should be a null modem cable. what that means is that the transmit pins on one side of the cable are routed to the receive pins on the other side, and vice versa. Same idea as a crossover cable in computer networking terminology.

If you don't know for sure what your cable is, or where it came from, then it is possible that it is not correct. It may be a regular "straight" cable, or also there are a lot of weird proprietary computer cables out there that use the same DB9 connectors but are wired in some incomprehensible fashion.

That's the only other thing I can think of why the RS232 would not work, if the assumption that both ends (charger and computer) are working holds true.

I don't know much about either paktracker or powercheck systems, having just built my own for "fun" as they say. I do know from listening to other people on this site that the paktracker setup seems to be prone to having issues resulting from controller noise on the line. May or may not be a problem in your case.

good luck.


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## BMI/LiFeTech (Aug 12, 2009)

Nice to see another electric boat enthusiast here!

We are busy finishing an electric conversion to the 55ft racing catamaran "Room With A View".

The two Torqeedo Cruise 4 motors being fitted to this boat were originally going to be powered by a battery bank made of Trojan T105 lead acid batteries. The lead acid bank would of weighed in excess of half a ton. Instead the boat has been fitted with a much lighter bank of BMI LiFePO4 batteries with the total weight of the battery bank now less than 200kg (436lbs).

There is a great article on electric boating in the upcoming edition of Multihull World magazine.


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## HYPRDRV (Aug 20, 2009)

Thanks Brian,
I believe the cable I was using was a straight through one and will purchase a "null" cable and give that a shot tonight when we get down there. I've run out of ideas and have probably tried a few dozen combos as far as the setup goes with no difference in output. I really do appreciate the input on this. I'll keep you posted on the results. 

BMI,
The Torqueedo motors are retractable correct? I've seen several manufacturers developing inboard/retractable to limit drag. Electra Glide is a cruiser with all the bells and whistles that make her a floating Condo. The Admiral wouldn't have it any other way. I can tell you the Solomon electric motors work perfectly. The Advanced Tech controllers and converters, inverters I have seem to work well together and I have few issues with the system other than the Genset. The main complaint is support from the manufacturer HFL a German company that supplied the 3 prototype cats with gensets. Everything including the dc output is manually adjustable and requires to much attention to insure smooth operation. It's a 16kw with a 90a output which I believe is undersized and could really use a 22kw with closer to 150A. Since the motors are capable of eating as much as 80a each at full throttle (more with a few mods) and the admiral likes her microwave and hairdryer I believe the larger genset would work perfectly. I haven't done a full load test yet to determine what I really need but at this point at 8 knots I use around 25a per motor which is plenty around port.


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## BMI/LiFeTech (Aug 12, 2009)

The Torqeedo motors are just an advanced electric outboard motor. Different boat owners are coming up with different methods for retraction of their motors. One such method is by a linear actuator which is the retraction method used on "School's Out". 
This method works really well and you can see it in action here-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJv-lGPXxHc

On our racing electric cat project "Room With A View" we are still deciding on the best retraction method for the motors however I think it will be simpler than that used on School's Out. 
Our motor drive system will however be far more complex. We are using two Torqeedo motors (mounted on each hull) and are considering fitting a 9kW Thoosa (Lynch motor) to the centre leg. The Thoosa motor is a brushed motor with a 4 quadrant motor controller so we should be able to have a small amount of regeneration while sailing in strong winds.

We are fitting a Yanmar diesel motor which will run a triple alternator setup for battery charging. The Prestolite alternators have had their regulators set for optimal charging of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
The 48V battery bank with supply a sinewave mains power inverter to run all the electrical appliances like 3 fridges, freezer, microwave etc. on the boat and a DC/DC converter will supply 12V house power.


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## HYPRDRV (Aug 20, 2009)

BMI, I thought you said this is a race boat, 3 frigs and a micro??  I assume this is a long distance race boat and and an interesting power system to boot. 
Well I found out what my issue was on accessing the Brusa charger through Hyperterminal. The charger had a short cable on it to a rs232 connector. I added another cable to extend it to the computer and it turned out to be a "null" cable, switching the wires around. The Brusa needs the wires straight through and once I removed the cable and set the computer directly from the charger it jumped into action. Thanks for the help Brian, I wouldn't have tried it without the input. I'm still having an issue now with the ChargeStar software but I ran out of time before I could explore the options of getting it running. I'll keep this thread updated with issues and progress if there is interest. Plans for this winter are the addition of the PowerCheq and PakTrakr monitoring systems. The Link-10 I have now isn't working properly and isn't enough info for me so I'll give it a shot. Long range plans are for a bigger Genset to maximize the motors capacity for long distance sailing. 

Thanks again,
Steve


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## HYPRDRV (Aug 20, 2009)

Well I finally got the ChargeStar software to download. it wasn't real clear but the notes sheet gave me a hint. The Brusa has an AMP plug on the top with pins 2 and 3 connected which feeds the charger 12v power to run from. here's the procedure:
1. Disconnect charging power (In my case shore power)
2. Remove AMP plug from the top of the charger.
3. Remove jumper from pins 2 and 3. (I have since ordered a second plug)
4. Install RS232 plug to pins on Brusa 11,12, and 15.
5. Connect RS232 plug to computer and start ChargeStar program.

The program recognized the installed profile and I was able to save a copy to file. Printing is another matter I'm still working on, it's not as straight forward as hitting a print button but at least I was able to see what the Brusa was set to. 

Steve in Solomons, MD


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## HYPRDRV (Aug 20, 2009)

I haven't updated this string for a while so I thought I would give some info I have found out about the Brusa, Paktrakr, and ask a few questions about the PowerChek Equalizer system I'm contemplating. 
It turns out that the Brusa NLG5 doesn't have the capability to "step back", meaning go from trickle mode to maintenance mode or above. This was a big issue since unlike you wheeled folks I have much larger loads on the boat (frig,freezer, pumps and such) when on charge mode. This could easily exceed the trickle charge rate and was shutting off the charger. I would then come back in a week and find the batteries down to an unacceptable level. I thought about running a loop in the program such that if the trickle charge pack voltage ran down to a certain level it would run the previous program but when I approached Victor with this he suggested a time clock in line which would then shut the charger off at a set time over a 7 day period. This is ok but seems to be kind of a band aid. For some reason Brusa's older model (NLG4?) could step back so I don't know why they thought this was an improvement. 
I've installed the PakTrakr and am VERY pleased with it's info. That was the good news. The bad news is it showed I probably have 1 bad battery and possibly 2 others that were not up to speed. So at a cost of $600 ea. I'm now looking at an Equalization system. I had been looking pretty hard at the PowerCheq but found a few things that were bothering me. One was the fact that it seemed to be built to a max of 10 batteries and some have reported that the longer strings were having problems balancing the last 2. Since the last 2 batteries in my 12 battery string seem to be having a little problem then I thought this may be an issue. Since then I have found a little info on the HDM EQ battery Equalizers. Any input on these? Longer use input?

Thanks again for the Help 
Steve


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