Today I’ve been busy sanding down rust on the keel and painting it with primer, to be ready for the anti-fouling paint. I have some things to finish first, but I hope that I can at least get as far so that I can paint this weekend. The only thing left with the underside of the boat is the rudder, that still haven’t been fixed. I talked to the owner of the ship yard and we will have a go at it in the beginning of next week, and if everything goes as planned next week will be the last week in the boat yard, wohoo! Soo excited about that!
While I was sanding, the brother of the owner came over and asked me if I had ordered some batteries. Well, yes, and they should be on their way. Well, no, they are actually here. Also very exciting!
I knew that they were quite sizable, but even if have have visualized them in my head, using the measuring tape to aid me with that and trying to measure how they would fit in the battery compartment I wasn’t prepared of their size when I opened up the box and pulled one out. And the weight! 21kg each. I reckoned that they would weigh approximately as my moving boxes, since they had a weight limit of 20kg, and some were dead on the limit. But still, lifting one of those monsters was a shocking experience. So massive!
Okay, I realize I’m coming on too strong, seemingly a bit obsessive, but they are massive, for sure. I mean.. they are just four cells. Four! A cell is the equivalent of one AAA battery, only slightly larger. Alright, todays understatement, but anyway. I got them. They are here, now I have to order a BMS and I think I have settled for the ABMS by REC since it is a nice fit for what I am setting up.
Oh, but I wrote “deliveries“, right? Yes, I finally solved my internet issue too, by getting a mobile wireless access point, that takes the cell phone card from my iPad and can now host all connections through it to the rest of internet. It only took three days from the UK to get it here, so I’m really pleased. The mail service is really picking up the pace, which is a blessing for me since I order most of the things I need online. Even if I’ve learned to stay away from Amazon for now, since they seem to be at least 2-3 weeks away regardless of what store you try to buy from. That really sucks.
The best thing with this little router – it isn’t even as large as a normal sized wallet, or large as a iPhone 5, give or take. A little thicker maybe – is that it actually hosts a fully fledged router, with DHCP, ports that can be opened, routing can be set up and so on. A quite capable little router! A cool feature is that it is battery powered, so if I need internet on the go I can bring it and share it with others if needed, or connect my DSLR to it so that it can save photos directly to a wifi-enabled harddrive. Hmm… Possibilities!
So, was that all? Of course not. I did order a flag some weeks ago and it finally arrived today. I just have to fly the Swedish colors! I still need a flag pole though, the place where I found a suitable one was closed for the pandemic. Well, it just has to live on the back stay for now.
Wait, were there more? Yep. I did order a battery charger as well. The idea was that I wanted to have a charger that could balance my cells prior installation, but somewhere in the ordering process I walked astray and didn’t order a charger with 3.6V that is necessary for that task, but one that is 12V that can be used for charging the battery pack once it is all assembled. So, it’s time to send an email and ask if I can return it. It was a bit pricey but I thought I needed it, but I have asked the REC team if their active balancing feature can handle doing an initial balancing and they said yes, even if it might take some time. I have a 12V charger already since I have a Victron MultiPlus that can deliver 120A charging current, this charger delivers 100A, so it is quite superfluous.
I will put the batteries in storage for now though, there are still pieces missing in the lithium-puzzle and I have to order them. What I still have to order are things like the BMS (will happen soon), breakers, fuses, contactors and of course cables. I also want to get the alternator into the puzzle so that I can use it to charge the batteries when needed.
I did, by the way, have a nice conversation with the seller of my Victron stuff. I wanted to get a solution for connecting my MPPT-chargers to the Color Control MX and there is none by using Victron-only parts. They don’t have extension cords for their VE.Direct interface (with male-female connectors) so the solution that i came up with is to use a powered USB-hub instead and have the MPPT-chargers connect to it. The benefit is that I get one USB port available on the CCGX, which might host a wifi-dongle in the future, so that it can connect to the world and upload statistics to their site. I’m not a hundred sure if I want that though, I want to minimize the information trail I’m leaving behind.
None the less, it was a fun day today! Just one more picture of these bad boys! See the companionway step in the background? They are huge!
Bye!