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Moving & Converting Boat Batteries To Li Ion!
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Sep 18, 2024
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View Video Transcript
0:00
So today we're going to be converting from an old lead acid battery to a brand new
0:04
epic batteries lithium ion dual purpose cranking and deep cycle battery. We're also going to be moving it from back here in this wet, dirty compartment up to
0:13
this dry, nice, clean area up here in the console, which is also going to help with some weight
0:18
distribution. But weight distribution is only one reason why someone would want to move their
0:23
boats batteries. For us, it wasn't the main reason because we are converting from a lead
0:27
acid, which is much heavier than our epic batteries lithium ion dual purpose battery
0:33
These are much lighter so the weight isn't as much of a factor, even though it's a good
0:37
plus of putting more weight up towards the middle of the boat and losing weight by converting
0:43
to a lithium battery. But the main reason was because that compartment was so wet and dirty
0:49
We wanted it to be more usable for like storage tackle, stuff like that that I can keep
0:54
in a dry, wet, resistant, or waterproof box. opposed to having our batteries back there and the battery's always being wet. That's not a good thing
1:03
So that is the main reason why we move them to the front and whenever you move a battery the biggest thing is making all of the cables
1:10
Because you need new cables in order to move the battery from one location to another this cable right here
1:16
Which is our battery cable you can see the distance that we have here is very limited
1:21
So this is not a very long cable and that is going to be the biggest thing when it comes to moving your battery
1:27
from state of the back of the boat to the front of the boat. Now our first task to do here is that
1:34
we need to get from the engine up there to the console where our battery switch is going to be. So
1:38
the distance between the engine and your battery switch is the most common problem when moving a
1:43
battery. For us, we're getting rid of the battery switches that we're back here. We're putting it up
1:49
in the console so we need to go from the battery switch all the way back here to the engine
1:53
So in order to do this, we can no longer use these cables and then not
1:57
And then not to mention these cables are kind of messed up already because whoever put these in
2:03
they kinked them in order to tighten them up or straighten them up
2:07
So they were back here and they were kinked like this, which as you can see, look at that cable
2:13
That is a legitimate concern. That cable is going to be, I mean, it's going to give you all kinds of problems when it comes to the amount of amps that this cable can pass through it
2:24
So that's a problem. We're going to be getting rid of this cable
2:28
So let me go ahead and pull those cables through to the engine
2:32
and then we can move on to moving this over, and I'll tell you what you need to know about before you want to convert
2:39
from lead acid to a lithium ion battery setup. and just like that we've got our cables to the back so now i'm just going to continue to kind of wind them around and then pull put them up in here to the engine take the counting off here so pull pull them up in here to the engine so pull pull them up here so pull them up into
3:26
to the engine here where the old ones were and I'll just run them to the same place
3:31
I'll probably reroute them a little bit, make them a little bit cleaner. But as long as I got enough cable, I can run them in there
3:37
And then once they're in there and hooked up, I mean, I really don't have to hook them up yet. I can just run them in there because I'm just getting my links right now
3:43
but in all this rigging up. So that's nice and clean. And then I can take these to where they're going to go and then cut them to link
3:50
So that way it's going to look beautiful when we're done. All right
4:26
so we got our ground cable on here that's all hooked up and then over here i go in ahead and
4:31
we've got our battery cable positive going in here nice and heat shrink nice and clean got the
4:36
boot on there as well as this other wire this main one on the harness that one has to go in there
4:41
so that's hooked up ready to go on there The
5:01
Okay, this is looking beautiful. here the only thing I really got to mess with still is this water line here for the Pito
5:37
just because when you turn the engine you gotta make sure it doesn't click on anything
5:41
so I just need to I tried zip tying it here and it's getting caught up there so I
5:45
probably need to zip tie it to that or maybe a little bit like this I just need to
5:49
turn the engine back and forth play with that a little bit fuel line that's looking
5:53
good primer ball vertical everything's off of the floor so you know you can get
5:58
back here and actually brush around and clean that way rigging's got a full sweep left and right and then in here you got both of our fuel lines ready so these are just sticking like that as well as like this so actually these are going to be flip like that the intake is on this side and the that is the output so those are going to sit like that perfect and then the rest of this goes all the way down to that spire app now we are up here into the console so we've got our battery cable up to here I'm not going to cut them yet because we need to now put in
6:31
in this battery switch right here. So our battery switches are gonna go in there
6:36
I need to get that set up. And then I know what length
6:40
once I get that in, I can actually put this back in and cut our battery cables to length
6:45
with the batteries in there because we'll know how long they need to be. So I know I wanna run my power cable up
6:55
probably with that drain. And then I'm gonna bring it over along the bottom of the panel there
7:01
And then I'm gonna bring it over, going to have it cut right there at the switch but I want to have a loop that droops
7:09
down a little bit so that way I can pull that panel out without having to
7:14
disconnect the wire so that way I can connect them from the back so let me just
7:18
pull out enough wire to go across up over down a little loop and then up to
7:24
that post that's on the battery switch. Well that is the power cable is all done so now let's just go ahead and do the ground cable for that I need to stick my battery in to here so that way I know where it's going to go I think
7:51
I think I'm going to actually position this like with the positive in the back because the positive's going to go up to the battery to the battery switch negative is going to be over
8:01
here and I'll probably bring the negative up around the back of the battery through the middle
8:07
of the two batteries and then up over the top to the negative post so that way my power button is right
8:12
here like on off right here for the battery on this side of the battery and then it's right here in
8:17
the front so let me go ahead and stick this in there and run this around the back so that way it'll
8:21
look good So now I need to make the cables to go from the batteries
8:39
So I got my ground here. I need a ground cable to go around the battery over here to my ground bars
8:46
And then I also need a ground strap between the two bars. So just a little loop as well as I need a power cable from here to go up to my battery switch
8:55
as well as a power cable from the house battery up to the house battery switch
9:00
So I'm just going to kind of run some wire, get where it needs to be, and then I'll cut it and label it
9:20
And the reason that we converted from a lead acid to a lithium is because lithium just has so much more to offer as far as features and the way that you can use them and the ability to drink
9:30
them a lot lower and still be able to get a 100% functionality out of the battery than you would with a lead acid
9:37
Like our dual-purpose epic battery, that thing will be able to use it a lot more because it's a starting battery and it's a house battery
9:45
So on our house side of stuff, when we're using the trolling motor and we're not running the engine
9:49
we could use our charpotter or sonar GPS, we could use the live well pump, we could use the lights and the radio
9:56
and we could use all of our accessories for a longer period of time with the air. period of time without having to run the engine to keep the power and the battery up
10:04
So that is a massive thing on why I would go from the lead acid over to the lithium and not to mention that they just last a lot longer every two three years we buying a new battery so this battery here the epic dual purpose is a 120 amp hour
10:20
and this thing's got an 11 year warranty so 11 years and the battery is 700 so at this point in time
10:27
this is 2024 for 700 dollars this battery has an 11 year warranty whereas our other batteries we're
10:33
replacing every two years or so and so for us the price and the
10:38
longevity of being able to put one battery in the boat and not have to mess with it every other
10:43
year is just that was a key feature for us and converting to the lithium and then plus not to mention
10:49
all the other features but we have two other videos that go over all the features of lithium ion and
10:55
epic does have a really good bms so we don't have to worry about explosions or anything like that because
11:00
they use life p.04 it's not an mc or anything like that but you can watch those other videos if you want
11:07
more in depth of the features and the chemical makeups of a lithium ion battery
11:12
Now when it comes to making your battery cables, it's pretty easy. I mean, it's just a bigger cable, you get lugs, and then you need to get a crumper in order
11:20
to crimp the ends on there. The hydraulic crimp that you can get on Amazon is probably the best thing that I would suggest getting
11:27
These hydraulic crimpers that you can get on Amazon, they're fairly cheap. I'll go ahead and link them in the description below
11:32
But these, you just kind of turn them on, you can crimp them down. They come with all kinds of different ends that you can put
11:37
put in here for different size cables, but making them are, it's pretty simple. So you just put the
11:43
end on there and then crimp it. You can use a solder flux, like dip your cable in the
11:52
solder flux, and then put the end on there, crimp it, and then solder it if you would like to
11:56
Here is our cable. This one's all nice and done. I just soldered them on the front. You can do
12:03
them either way. I mean, there's a lot of people that don't even ever solder them, but you
12:07
could either solder it here at the back or you could solder it on the front on these because these
12:11
connectors here have a little spot right there in the front where you can solder in from the front
12:21
And then you just put a good heat shrink around the cable, something that has a nice adhesive layer
12:26
to it. So when you heat it up, the adhesive squirts out the end of the insulation, which gives you a
12:32
good solid seal that will last for a very long time. All these have the ends on them
12:36
They've all been soldered and now what I need to do is heat shrink them and then once
12:41
their heat shrink then I want to do a little bit of changing to my battery tray. Now
12:46
the reason that we made this battery box is because we wanted the batteries to set
12:50
level and we wanted them off the floor and we wanted we have a problem with the
12:55
access to the fuel tank. So this box gets our batteries up off of that access. The access is
13:02
right here and then this gets our batteries up off the floor which kind of helps us out
13:06
but since this is PVC and it will eventually pull out these screws I mean I'm sure
13:10
this would hold for a very very long time as it is but since I'm going to I want
13:15
this to be a long-term thing I'm going to add another little leg right here and then
13:20
we're going to be welding all of this together or putting adhesive this is well
13:25
done which is a tap plastics tap so this is a tap plastic this tap poly weld we're
13:30
actually going to be using this with the trolling motor video because we're going to be using that on some starboard but that's a different video
13:36
this is the weld on this is for pvc it's very fast very quick we're going to be just gluing these
13:42
seams when we put this thing back together before we put it in and we also need to drill a hole up
13:48
here and then back here so that way i can stick my drill my screw bit for my impact through this
13:55
so that way we can get down to the bottom of it where we're going to put some screws to screw this
14:00
to the deck so we'll put four screws one here two back here and then one right there that
14:05
will attach this to the deck of the boat and then the batteries will then screw to this piece
14:11
of PVC and that'll be the full install of the batteries And there we go. This thing is all sealed up, nice and tight, screwed together. Everything has been glued together with weld on. And I've got these holes ready for my screws. Same thing here. I just drilled a bigger hole. So that way this bit can go ahead and stick through there. And then I'll be
15:00
able to drill the holes, you know these holes right here into the deck. And then I've got
15:05
screws and washers here. That way I can screw this thing down to the deck and that will be
15:11
secured in place And with that secured in place then we will be able to go ahead and install our batteries Now when it comes to the actual conversion from the lead acid batteries to your lithium ion batteries it actually pretty simple depending on the complexity of the electrical system that in your boat If you don have any
15:30
AC power of any kind in your boat and it's all DC, for the most part, if you buy a top quality
15:36
battery like our Epic dual purposes, they have a very good BMS built in them so you don't
15:41
have to worry about converters or anything like that. If you're using solar
15:45
chargers or something else and you have a cheaper battery that doesn't have a very good bms you can have
15:51
complications with using a lithium ion with your engine but again we covered most of that stuff in
15:57
the other two videos that we talked about lithium ion and using it safely in your boat so you can
16:02
check those out if you want more about the lithium ion aspect of putting it in your boat all right
16:08
so now we need to go ahead and stick this in here and screw it down so I just need to kind of put it in
16:13
place. I got everything basically ready as far as the wiring goes. So all that's ready
16:17
I've got this kind of just laying here because I'm going to run that around the back that is going to be for the automatic float switch. So I just didn't tie that to anything
16:26
But I'm going to stick this shelf in here. We're going to place it together so I can then screw
16:31
my, you know, holes right here through the deck. I've got this apparatus right here. Again
16:39
let me get in here and be able to screw that so that way I can mark the
16:43
deck screw that and then I'll be able to screw this thing to the floor once that's
16:47
true down to the floor then we can get our batteries into place and then with our batteries into place we can hook up all the rest of our wires because pretty much
16:54
everything is done except for hooking up the batteries we have our tray all
17:01
bolted down now what we need to do is get our batteries in here and get them screwed
17:05
down all of our cables are kind of like hanging around with the exception of this
17:10
one I need to you know figure out what link to do this one this is the automatic
17:13
float switch. I just need to kind of figure out which way I want to run it. I might run it with the
17:18
ground cable over here that's going to go around the back back there. So I just need to kind of
17:23
maybe zip tie a little bit of it and then have it run across the back. But I want to put the
17:28
trolling motor battery in first, mark the holes where the bolts are going to go. That way I
17:32
can drill them and screw them and then all this stuff can go in around it
17:43
Trulling motor battery is in place, all screwed down, nice and tight, secure, looking great
18:09
I guess while in here I might as well hit these right here and put my
18:13
lugs on there I just need to grab my ground and then my charger wires so I'll hook those
18:18
up tighten those down on the battery and then I can go ahead and put the case or the tray
18:24
for my house battery engine battery and get that one all screwed down once that screwed down
18:29
then I'll be able to install my house battery and strap it and hook up the wires as well
18:43
Okay, we got a tray strap down. We got our strap in there ready for the battery so we can go ahead and put our battery
18:49
in there. I'm just going to snip this wire here just in this location
18:54
That's fine to have that much excess. This is for our automatic float switch for the bilge
18:59
So I'm going to go ahead and attach this one to this wire right here, snip this, attach that
19:04
and then I will put the battery in and hook up all of my cables
19:07
This is going to be for my actual engine. That's going to the engine
19:11
And then this one goes over to the house, which is all the grounds for the house electricity
19:17
So we'll put all those in. And then I've got my power wire up there for the battery switch
19:22
And there we go. Now that we've got our batteries all in there, I can go ahead and go to my pro app, which you can see
19:29
Kind of hard to see here, but 49% showing me that we got 0% no draw, nothing like that
19:35
Zero cycles on the battery. It is 120 amp hours, 13 volts, 28
19:41
degrees Celsius. I don't think I can change that to Fahrenheit. Pretty hard to see with the sun. But now you can see all the data from about the battery on the app and I'm just going to leave that on like that. So you can just press the power button. It's on. It tells you what the charge is with those two lights, but you can see on the app that there's no draw on the battery. So as long as I've got my battery switches turned off, then that battery is going to last for quite a long time. It is tight in there. But of course, it is a 17
20:11
14 foot boat and yeah that looks great this is a phenomenal build super happy about these batteries
20:19
that's how you move your batteries and convert them over to lithium ion from lead acid save yourself the weight and let these things last forever
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