Tasemu

Prestolite Electric is the manufacturer. A127 is the generic model

We do have one, can't remember if we tried to bypass it weeks ago. But definitely worth a shot. Cheers!

Could you please elaborate on what a master switch is? As we haven't seen any.

Hi all, have another issue with a close friends boat and was hoping to get some advice from you. We have a new alternator and have installed it as per the manual. We are running into an issue where, when starting the engine the battery charging indicator light is on, however when we increase RPM with the intention of starting the charge cycle, instead of turning off the indicator light is dimming. As we increase the RPM the light dims further (to almost off) when RPM is exceedingly high. However when lowing the RPM, the light increases in brightness. Also we have noticed that the battery voltage is increasing roughly in sync with the RPM of the alternator from 13.5 at idle, up to 14.9 at full RPM. We have also tried to diagnose a dirty ground by placing a extra ground cable from the alternator bracket directly to the negative of the battery, only for diagnostic purposes, however we have no change in results. We have been told one of the field wining phases has been damaged, however upon inspection the windings appear to be in good condition, visually at least. Thanks in advance for any and all advice!

Seems to be working decently for him. Though i think this is probably not a silver bullet solution as I could imagine more solar and/or a bigger lithium bank could keep the voltage drop dropping enough when engaging the glow-plugs. Food for thought.

On further inspection it appears to go into overload for no particular reason after 30 mins, then the revs go out of control. Honestly kinda not that bothered with it. Was just a spare I loaned out.

Impax 2500w. Yeah it could well be toast. i thought maybe it was something to do with the carb/solenoid rpm controller. Though unsure why that would stop output unless there was a safety...

Hi all, ran into an issue today when lending my suitcase generator to another boater. We started it up and it seemed to run fine for about half an hour. Then (and i heard this from by boat next door) the generator started revving extremely fast and loud like a jet plane. We stopped the unit and gave it some time to settle, however on restarting it the speed issue re-appeared. We are also getting no output indicator on the unit. I was hoping someone may have some advice on the issue and possibly run into something similar in the past. Cheers!

Ah Excellent! This is really good to know. I guess it could just work then.

So you're saying the act of actually cranking the engine will drop the voltage enough to disengage the VSR and splitting the banks before there is a chance to draw any real power from the lithiums?

Unfortunately the BMS does not have separate charge and discharge connections. This might sound silly, but is there like a big ass diode you can just put in line with the VSR to make sure charge can only go one way? lol

Yeah I am using the long cable method. I will admit i didn't think about it also limiting cranking current. Correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't the long cable method only work because the alternator can be 'limited' by it? I imagine the starter motor will pull what it needs regardless and a longer cable would just result in more heat but the same amperage drawn?

The VSR cuts-in at 13.3v and wont cut-out until the voltage drops to 12.8.

This is how we currently have it set up, the solar is connected to the lithiums. It appears that once the VSR engages it 'combines the batteries' which makes sense. This allows voltage of the Lifepo4 pack + the solar to be able to charge the starter too. Once the engine is stopped, because the VSR is engaged for a second or so and the batteries are still combined, this then allows the 'leisure side' of the VSR to feed power into the starter and never let it drop down below the VSR dis-engage voltage.

Sort of, all i'm really worried about is that the VSR is not disconnecting on engine shutdown, so the next time I start the engine it would be cranking off the lithium bank. And I've heard that's a no-no.

We're using a BMS to control what gets into the cells. EDIT: Sorry if i'm misunderstanding and I do appreciate the help. The alternator is charging at ~14v but the BMS itself is what is cutting off the charge before it can do any harm. We don't have anything that is effecting the alternator itself. I've seen this setup before and am fairly sure there isn't anything wrong with it. Its just a standard hybrid LA/Lifepo4 setup. Though we just don't want to crank off the lithiums with this VSR connected as i've heard thats not a good thing to do with them. EDIT 2: We have set the tolerances on the BMS quite low, so when the pack voltage hits 14.2v it disconnects from the system. This still gives it enough SoC to efficiently work on passively balancing the cells, and anything else can be trickled in by the solar over time.

Ah sorry forgot to saw we are running the lithiums through a BMS which has been configured for hybrid, so shouldn't run into those issues theoretically. Thanks for the info, yeah we have all charge parameters set up and the BMS is set up to stop the engine overcharging or floating it at high voltage for too long. Also the one we have does technically only sense on the starter side for activation, its the disconnection that is the issue it seems.

I ran into an interesting issue recently when I was installing a lithium battery into a friends boat. He wanted to go hybrid which didn't seem a problem to me at the time. The thought process we came up with was as follows: Alternator -> Starter Battery -> VSR -> Lithium The logic being that the engine will use the starter battery to crank until the alternator kicks in and the starter battery voltage rises. This then activates the the VSR and parallels it with the lithium bank. When the engine is stopped then the starter voltage will drop and disconnect the VSR. What we didn't realise is that the VSR units don't only detect one side for disconnection. so while cranking worked fine, once the engine was stopped the lithium bank and even the solar was propping up the starter voltage through the VSR. As such we were uncomfortable trying to crank the engine again with the lifepo4 bank paralleled. I've seen plenty of hybrid setups on dual-alternator systems utilising lead acid leisure batteries in parallel with lithium, but haven't seen much in the say of a single alternator system using the hybrid model. They tend to use B2B chargers. My question is: Is this the reason why? Or is there a modification I can make to this that i'm missing? Thanks in advance for any and all advice! EDIT 1: We are also using a BMS configured for a hybrid setup to ensure no mistreatment of the lithium battery while on charge.

I'd like to second the ninja foodi, I have one on board, can run it with my generator or off my 1500w inverter. Its an absolute life saver! I have one of these models:

Ran the generator this morning to make breakfast and to see how it handled. Overheated within 10 minutes. This time I definitely see a coolant fault light on the control panel. Also the coolant was boiling out of the overflow hose. I've got a mechanic headed out tomorrow, figured better safe than sorry for this particular job. Thanks for all the advice everyone, will report back with what the issue was when it's over.

Just checking do you mean impeller? If so then yeah I have cleared out the while circuit I'm afraid I have no idea regarding the air cooling. I know the Markon SL105 is air cooled and that bit doesn't seem to be having any issues. Also an update: I checked the coolant levels since topping it up and running the genny, it has dropped to where it was previously. I assume that means it was full and ejected the excess from the overflow tube. I guess this means topping it up didn't fix it and it will overheat again, as essentially nothing is different now.

The hissing as stopped totally now that i've filled the coolant up to the top. The old jabsco impeller was pretty torn up, i went through the pipe and the heat exchanger and removed all fragments of impeller from the line. Also there was no major wear on the impeller plate.

I'm going to try looking for that, the leak only happens very briefly. So next time i stop the engine i'll have a helper ready by the engine to try and find the source of the drip.

This was my first thought but chucking my head in there pointed me towards the area of the engine with the belt, so i thought water pump or maybe the impeller pump.

It appears to have resolved after topping up the coolant, no stalling or hissing. I'm going to continue to keep an eye on it as there appears to be a very small drip from the impeller pump which stops shortly after turning the generator off. I'm going to hesitantly say its fixed for now but will continue to monitor it. Thanks for all the help Mine has this panel, but didn't notice any fault lights on when the engine stalled. However it may be that I didn't get to it in time to see the fault light. It's a long boat and I move slowly. Yeah I'm thinking the same. Going to keep an eye on it for now and check it regularly when I turn it off