REAL POWER//Epic Off-Grid Power System Build From Scratch-Episode 137

[@Andy_Hunter]

Glad to see you back on the boat.

[@starbucksgirl652]

I can't wait to see all the fabulous things to the 50.

[@MichaelrennieG]

worked in Telemetry for 20 years and we built electrical Panels for all different type of Systems Controllers, PLC RTU, and many other functions, we also had to troubleshoot older systems, if there is one thing I learned is you can build anything but can a person after you troubleshoot the system, Schematics are the most important maps to get you back home, really appreciate these videos and what it takes to build panels, Thanks for all your videos..

[@walterhiegel3020]

Every time I see a Victron install I learn something. Thanks for sharing. Good luck on your test!

[@tonespeaks]

@Sailing Dauntless This is an awesome series. There is so much to learn and the design of this system is very intriguing. The level of workmanship is inspiring and this is a quality that people sometimes overlook in their to be expedient. Can't wait for more in this series, it is really showing the depth of this rebuild.

[@paulp3814]

I think I will die before this boat gets back to cruising.

[@SailingDauntless]

😂 I’ve had that feeling.

[@anthoneyking6572]

Wow Loved This Vlog really enjoy learning new stuff even at 70 you never Stop Learning that if you want to of course Thank You Looking forward to all the other Vlogs re Wiring thanks

[@svStargate]

This was a really good video I’ve never seen anyone explaining that clear on how to,test a galvanic isolator.

[@SailingDauntless]

Thank you

[@bettywithrow9268]

wow impressive knowledge and capability ty. keep driving fwd..

[@EdwardTilley]

Great intro! An A to Z guide to rewiring a modern solar cat is a real treat!

[@MikeC19100]

Very Nice Work on that portion of the retiring. I didn’t know you were a licensed electrician until this video. The whole setup looks very professional and efficiently done.

[@rickhudson6890]

This is one of the parts I've been waiting for!

[@dudispudis]

Love the detail. Well done.

[@kptbillburkett8735]

Fastest 30 minutes ever. Can't wait to see more! Ok I will be on my lanai waiting for the next video! So until then, Aloha from the Big Island of Hawaii!🌋🍹

[@ianfuller-mx8fl]

great. that's a lot of work.

[@johnbigglestone6416]

Great video. Worth mentioning perhaps that in Europe, brown is live, blue is neutral and green (or green with a white stripe) is earth. In the old uk colour set, black was neutral and red “hot”

[@timgore1487]

Good video

[@jnjentinc]

Power time baby !! Lets get the lights folks 💪💪

[@ChrisHarding-lk3jj]

50hz is 50 cycles per second not 50,000 cycles per second. A split phase system is single phase, they are not seperate phases. They are splitting the single phase in half which makes each of the lines 180 degrees apart. So 240v equipment is taking advantage of using the full single phase. With split phase single phase there is no overlap between the two halves because they are 180 degrees apart

[@MagivaIT]

so youre wishing him luck on his exam then hahahah

[@scottwheeler2494]

I was going to respond on why this not exactly right, but said “screw it, it’s close enough” when my response got to be half a page in length. So I just erased it because there would be zero number of readers besides people who already basically understood the differences between the North American system and the European system. It would resolve into a game of “gotcha” on everybody’s post. It’s not worth going thru the pedantic back and forth. So close enough.

[@scottwheeler2494]

@@kj5905 lol...

[@stevenlanoue9526]

Wrong is wrong! People will believe the incorrect information. He probably misspoke but he could have corrected it in the edit.

[@stephengreen2898]

Wow… He is just taking the exam SO he really is a NOVICE Professional… Better get a SEASONED Pro to check all your work AND he probably will… Right??

[@brianbjork8822]

I’m so looking forward to this electrical part

[@SOTENZ]

super nice job Ty

[@andymarshall2201]

Great video Ty

[@SailingDauntless]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@marcelocheves]

I´m very pleased to see a professional doing a good electrical job and very worried to look other refit channels doing horrible and insecure wrings and installations. Every one need to follow you advice and hire or be supervised by a professional. Sorry for my English guys.

[@Theyrun]

Thank you for this video, I have learned alot from it.

[@tracynichols7206]

well done, extremely clear reference

[@paratyshow]

👍☑ Love the electrical series, tks guys!

[@cstayton7427]

For clarity for you may want to reidentify your white wire to red using either red phase tape (red electrical tape)

[@jrmilchling9215]

Ryobi makes a great cordless heat gun that works great I make lots of batteries on RV's

[@patrickabas1112]

Great explanation even for a European guy like me

[@peggykm4977]

Great video- I know it’s almost too hot to think in Florida now! Hope you get done soon so the A/C can go in- people across the country are suffering in this Heat Dome event- be careful and pace yourselves! 🙏

[@kempenaar32]

At 27:30, the bus bars are pretty close and exposed. What is the danger of an unintended short by a screwdriver or other conductor?

[@georgecarney3083]

Ty nice interesting video, just at 12:09 I know that it is a mistake but "50Hz is not 50000 cycles a second" a small but important error.

[@SailingDauntless]

Lol oops

[@Lana_Warwick]

Nice work. Been looking forward to this (overkill) update, thought maybe you had regrets going that far with the $trip-out & zapped yourself 😉 Au is 240v red black green. How easy would things be if the world did things the same, especially for consumer manufacturing > end user costs. Metric OR imperial, same power/plugs, steering wheels on the same side, etc.... Considering the high salt/corrosive environment, recommend protecting all your raw points (etc) with dielectric grease.

[@ianm2719]

Awesome work, thanks for another great video. A small (non-electrical) observation, being that the natural environment of the boat in general is a damp one, is it not an idea to paint/treat the raw particle board/timber sections that you've cut with hole saw for cables, etc. to limit exposure, rotting and swelling in those areas over time? Cheers and thanks again

[@SailingDauntless]

Thank you! If I was using regular lumber or ply I would agree. The lumber is actually meranti marine grade plywood which is extremely water resistant and actually does not require a finish. I only put the gray gel coat on for appearances.

[@kevinholmes2707]

The Victron install info states that the galvanic isolator is to be mounted in a vertical position. You mounted it horizontally. I know it will function in any orientation. I'm assuming Victron's direction is for optimum heat dissipation. Does it matter?

[@hansjensen7823]

Great video, and I understood what you were teaching. So my WAG for this electrical system is, 75k in materials and 75k in your labor, and I very well may be low. As much of this upgrade was not planned from the start, did you still make out ok on the boat purchase price, after the enormous hull repair job and now this 150k electrical upgrade?

[@DanAnton]

@SailingDauntless. Loving this series. One thing I don't understand though is how you are charging your 48v batteries with your current configuration of panels to individual MPPT charge controllers. Wouldn't you need at least 2 panels in series to obtain the necessary voltage to charge properly?

[@SailingDauntless]

Good question, actually, we need three in series for each charge controller.

[@DanAnton]

@@SailingDauntless Thanks for clearing that up. You must have a lot of panels judging by the number of mppts you have.

[@WilliamAArnett]

Why won’t the isolation transformer work with both voltages???

[@SailingDauntless]

Apparently single phase toroidal transformers cannot run split phase from Victron at least

[@bill2292]

Hi Ty, maybe I missed it, but why did you opt for 3x5,000va Quattros?

[@SailingDauntless]

Redundancy, there is no room for multiples in the other boat. Also, they all run 240 V versus running in parallel 120 V each. This allows us to lose up to inverters and still be able to operate a boat.

[@scoutshoe9913]

Love your work and videos. Just a silly question. How well does your galvanic isolator work, when you only isolate the ground and not the neutral? In the USA, they are both the same.

[@SailingDauntless]

They are only connected after they are on the boat and our system make a neural so we don’t take one from shore.

[@scoutshoe9913]

@@SailingDauntless I'm not trying to be an ass, I'm just going down this road myself and trying to appreciate what your saying / implying. I assume you're only bringing 120v on board, in which case you will need a phase and neutral. I'm not sure you can create a floating neutral. If you're bringing on 230V you would also have trouble as you would have a floating neutral, unless you have an AC to AC converter. (I'm not sure of your system and I could be completely wrong. I have been wrong more than once, ask my wife) The other part of the equation is the neutral and ground are tied on both the cat and the shore, so (assuming no leakage) the grounds will be at the same potential, and isolating them achieves nothing. If there is leakage, then the neutrals will create a potential difference and the galvanic corrosion will start. The only simple solution I have found is to have an isolation transform, then the cat is in control of it's galvanic potentials independent of the power supply. That's my 2 cents. Curious about how the ground isolator works.

[@SailingDauntless]

No offense taken. We are not pulling 120VAC on board we bring in 240VAC in the form of two lines and a ground. The ground and neutral are tied together on the shore, but due to the fact that we are not bring a neutral in, and the galvanic isolator isolates the ground so there’s no continuity back to the dock, when we create our neutral through the isolation transformer, we have an isolated to the boat neutral. you have the option to bond or not the neutral to the ground on board. the common practice for safety is bonding the neutral to the ground, which can provide additional corrosion, (even when not plugged into shore)but is suggested in the interest of human safety in the water around the vessel.

[@hansjensen7823]

@@SailingDauntlessis this the equivalent of a residential subpanel, in which you do not connect neutral and ground together? And the main panel (in the home) would be the shore panel?

[@SailingDauntless]

Sort of

[@Ulrik_Hejdenberg]

How much AC do you need? Three big inverters is a lot.

[@SailingDauntless]

We use about 9kw at most peak times and could potentially need the 3rd inverter during heavy loads. We mainly installed 3 for redundancy in case we loose one (or two) to failure

[@bill2292]

So if you plug in to 30 amp "American 110", one of your inverters will be unpowered, is this correct, or is there a box we have yet to see?

[@SailingDauntless]

We can only take 240v 50amp service

[@mannohneschuh]

1:34 that's normal, it's called Talcum. What is talcum powder? And what role does talc play in cables? Talc not only absorbs moisture, but also serves as a separating agent and lubricant. In the cable industry, for example, it separates the jacket and the cores from each other. Similar to the sports sector, talcum reduces friction and helps the cores in the cable to last longer. The reason for this is that they can slide under the jacket or against each other in the longitudinal direction. The plastic of the insulation is well separated from the jacket material during production. First the cores are stranded and then the liquid plastic of the jacket is injected around them. Without the talc, there is a risk that the heat of the jacket will soften the insulation surface and cause it to stick to the jacket. This then leads to poor durability in motion and also to poorer processing options. The use of talc makes stripping much easier, because the jacket can be pulled off after the round cut.

[@SailingDauntless]

I have seen this before with wiring it was definitely helpful with that type of wire. Interestingly, marine grade tinned copper cabling does not use talc at all, this particular type has a 105c rating for the insulating jacket. What you may not of been able to see was the oxidation of the copper on that cable. The dust was actually oxidized deplated tin that came off the wires from the dead shorting as the boat sank.

[@kaskl5403]

That's a lot of controllers.

[@jnjentinc]

Ya it is !! 😂 was a fun project

[@lee8652]

Great content thank you. Question for ya.. The regular quattros, in the manual says nothing about 240v split phase on the input like you did. Do you know if I can wire my quattros like your quattro-II? Or is this a new feature for the newer quattros?

[@SailingDauntless]

This is not a new feature, but you have to have the ability to get in and the adapter cable to reprogram the system. Additional equipment is required, it will not just be the reprogramming to 240 V.

[@Rob-ee1im]

Have a look at: www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/AT-1-split-phase-240V-to-120-240V-with-Quattro-240V.pdf

[@JeromeLoman]

I don’t think it was super clear but intent is to have 240 shore power 3 wire so 2 phase at 180degree and ground. Ground has DC isolated thanks to galvanic isolator. Will use auto transformer as step down to get 120vac by creating a neutral? Quattro won’t have internal ground relay and instead instruct step down transformer to tie ground ti neutral when inverting. On shore power neutral coming out of auto transformer won’t be tied. These auto transformer are a bit confusing

[@SailingDauntless]

Your close, the ground relays will be disabled on the inverters and the auto transformer will handle that function. The autotransformer will also provide the neutral so we can run our 120v circuits.

[@JeromeLoman]

@@SailingDauntless thanks for reply. Can’t wait for the whole system hook up. Eventually will refit my boat would ice to go to 48v system. I wish the 2 way dc to dc system were common already. The auto transformer step down is like finding a midpoint between the 2 hot split phase but essentially it’s just another hot and doesn’t relate to shore power neutral so makes sense to not tie it to ground when on shore power.

[@MichaelJohnson-ql3qp]

50 amps into a 12-gauge wire? Am I missing something if you have a short or malfunction you will have a fire. The 50-amp breaker will not pop before that 12-g wire catches fire.

[@jimlofts5433]

heat gun ?? hmm a hair dryer

[@Rob-ee1im]

Strange you did not put the 120/240 Volt bus bars in an isolation box... A hazard is easy made by a tool that falls on these bars or people touching these bars!

[@SailingDauntless]

As I said in the video, when the wiring in that are is complete I will build a cover for safety

[@rockcityfpv9117]

heat gun is better for this job vs a lighter.

[@marccohen5477]

Even length wires on A/C in not necessary unlike D/C.

[@PanelsUpSolar]

In a regular split phase system it is not as important. But the way these are going to be wired in parallel it is very important.

[@SailingDauntless]

Absolutely

[@licencetoswill]

I'm sure you didn't mean to say 50 000 cycles per second, its not 50khz, but no one noticed. ;)

[@SailingDauntless]

Lol, brain fart

[@allan80supra]

ummmmmm, is the shore power breaker rated more or less than the wire to a single inv/charger? (imagine one fails dead short) I think you should have run the shore power into the isolator and then a distribution board with breakers for each inv/charger (and a spare outlet / cabinet light)

[@SailingDauntless]

It is rated for the wire feeding the three. Each unit is separately programmed to take a specific amount of amperage. Also the the run from the bus bars to the inverters is short enough that it precludes the need for separate breakers/fuses. Also, no power can be used in 120v until the 220v passes through the inverters and the isolation transformer to pick up a neutral

[@allan80supra]

@@SailingDauntlessIt might only be 2ft of wire that melts if an inverter dies but I still think you would be better off with a breaker per inverter so it fails in a non damaging way if an inverter dies and it can all be done in one din rail breaker box without the "bus bars", it's probably fine as-is, I'll be interested what a marine surveyor thinks.

[@cascadesouthernmodeltrains7547]

I love the wire can be too big lesson. I have tried to tell people this so many times and they simply do not understand how too big can be wrong in many ways. I try to use the garden hose and fire hose analogy. A garden hose is too small to carry the volume of water the fire hydrant will put out, but using a fire hose to water your garden also won’t work, even though the fire hose is capable of carrying much higher volumes of water. Wires are the same. A 18g wire is great for a light bulb but won’t start your engine, but the 2g wire won’t light the lightbulb effectively either. Will the 2g wire light the lightbulb? Yes it will, same as the water from the spigot on the side of your house will eventually get to the end of the fire hose, but neither one will do the job as well as the wires/hose for the job.

[@MagivaIT]

this is simply not true

[@charlesplewes48]

You made a little slip. You said that 50hz 50,000 cycles per second, but it is actually 50 cycles per second.

[@SailingDauntless]

Good catch

[@MarkJones]

50 Hz aka 50 cycles/second. Not 50 thousand cycles/second, that would be 50KHz

[@SailingDauntless]

Oops, brain fart

[@michaellaporta6844]

Why not use velcro vs zip ties for cabling? I come from a data center world, and cringe when I see zip ties...

[@SailingDauntless]

I like them but they don’t fit into the cable tie mounts well.

[@nooneanybodyknows7912]

As many tools as you have and no heat gun? You risk damaging the heat shrink with your method, if you're not extremely careful. Why risk it? Get a heat gun. They are handy to have. Balancing the load is imperative, too. I hope you are going to install protective covers over your bussbar. 🤞

[@aklogcabinfilms9214]

He has a heat gun. Multiple times through out the video he said he was out of gas for his heat gun.

[@nooneanybodyknows7912]

​@aklogcabinfilms9214 He says he has a butane torch that he usually uses, but it was out of butane. He was using a lighter. A heat gun is a totally different item. It operates off of AC voltage. It looks like a hair dryer. A heat gun is the proper way to reduce heat shrink. It heats more evenly and is less likely to damage the conductors insulation, and it evenly shrinks and seals.

[@artzi_ip]

12:08 50 hz isnt 50000 cycles in second. it is 50 cycles in second meaning 100 transfers from negative to positive in 1 second ! basic knowledge, i hope that was a mistake from you..

[@SailingDauntless]

Lol, yeah. I have no idea why that came out of my mouth. Brain fart lol

[@SeanHenderson-gn8if]

Personally I can't stand victron equipment, I have installed victron equipment for customers and I believe it's low quality junk. I started building off grid power systems in the Mojave desert communities of southern California 20 years ago and I have tried many brands of equipment and outback power had always surpassed all other equipment manufacturers. I never take a manufacturers word for it so I test and verify every piece of equipment myself. The oscilloscope and power analyzer do not lie.

[@alimitchell5346]

Lost me at 13 minutes..... electric is witchcraft...je ne comprende pas.... Love what you have done.. but an explanation of electricity.... still not understanding... Look forward to next week!🤣 It's not a negative!!..it's me...I don't like Lecky...I prefer gas!