Lost Bens? Nope, we’re in the lithium mines, finding gold!

The caption is serious, because right in front of your eyes is the most basic — and possibly dangerous — mistake anyone could make while setting up and bench testing a fully integrated lithium-powered marine electric power system. And it’s a mistake I made even though it was truly right in front of my eyes during the many hours I spent trying to figure out why Victron’s brand new and quite amazing Lynx Smart BMS would not power up. So if you didn’t spot the problem immediately, please take another look before reading the very polite way that VE USA’s national sales manager Rich Shea answered the same question:

I hate to say this, Ben, but from the photo it looks like you have positive and negative reversed on the battery. Assuming you are following red+/black- cable color convention?

Reading that email — along with the zoomed-in crop that Rich attached — nearly caused me to fall out of the chair in my chiropractor’s treatment room (where working in an “engine room” that is definitely not a room can get you). But I tried to give my replies a positive spin:

OMG!  So embarrassing, but simple to fix. Thanks

{Then shortly thereafter, once I got the Smart BMS running back in the lab, no damage obvious… }

And with correct polarity, the BMS seems to be working fine 😉
I’d like to pretend this never happened, but the Lynx Smart did survive a test I never would have attempted otherwise.

In truth, I feared that I’d bricked a wildly innovative product so new that they shipped it directly from Holland even though Victron’s U.S. warehouse is somehow just down the road. (Well, actually I’ve learned that there are now three warehouses around the country, but the U.S. HQ is still here in Thomaston, and apparently the very large Rockland warehouse needs to be expanded.)

Moreover, as this bench test expanded well beyond any I’ve done before, I made more dumbass mistakes that further tested the growing array of Victron electronics in ways that shouldn’t happen. Including 120v AC mistakes that blew shop fuses, in one case beyond a simple reset. But all the tiny processors and typically delicate whatnot inside the blue boxes seemed to take it all in stride, usually just responding with visual and/or audible alarms in multiple places, including the phone in my pocket and the VRM site open in my office.

There are two points to this tale: How did I make those mistakes, and what does this have to do with the long pause in Panbo entries? My conjecture on the first: Aside from old age befuddlement, I got so focused on all that’s new to me in these photos that I became blind to things I learned when I was about 10. Watch out for that, especially around unusually powerful boat batteries (and, yes, I’ve determined that personal embarrassment is a fair trade for a possibly valuable story).

Answer #2: It’s spring in Maine, Covid spring too, and Ben Stein is even busier with lithium boat battery projects than I am. But patience, please, because we are learning a lot that we plan to share. Besides, I’ve got more techy sexy pictures to show you right now.

So this is the state of the bench as of yesterday evening. And how about that custom gray 3D Lynx rack (currently the Cerbo’s too)? I’ve already half drafted a whys and hows entry regarding its future value in Gizmo’s “engine space.” Also, as large as that Lynx combo looks, I’ve already removed a heavy bag of terminal blocks, shunts, fuses and so forth that it will replace.

That’s because you’re looking at the first BMS I know of that also positions a 500 amp shunt and a safety contactor right in between an individually fused battery busbar and up to three fused distribution/charging busbars. In fact, they’re all bolted together, though you could use cables, and all the fuses are monitored and can be custom named. And the 1,000 amp rated Distributors will very likely be joined with a 1,000 amp Lynx BMS model eventually, and all are designed for 12, 24, or 48 volts.

I was hoping to get the trusty old Garmin GMI 20 to simultaneously show the Voltage and Current for both the new Smart Lithium house bank and the simulated starter bank — note the Victron SmartShunt at left — and it actually does if you could see the video. Good enough, as I’m confident from prior Venus GX experience that at least the Maretron and Simrad displays on the boat will be able to show a lot of the NMEA 2000 data streaming from the Cerbo, custom labels included.

Meanwhile the actual load on the LiFePo — cooling one can of beer — is neatly shown by the Balmar SG200 gauge thanks to their SmartShunt, seen to the right. A third shunt, aka belt and suspenders lithium battery monitoring, was not in the plan, until I called Balmar about how to protect Gizmo’s main alternator using my 612, since part of this whole deal is allowing some software to completely shut down the lithium bank if it sees fit (though in this case, even the batteries are crazy “smart”).

Finally, testing the Cerbo with that old white tank sender has me about 90% sure that I can remove the CZone module that’s been bridging all four of Gizmo’s impedance-based Wema sensors to NMEA 2000, with no cons and several pros. The Cerbo’s four temp inputs also seem much more capable than when I first tried these seemingly extra goodies on the Venus.

But just setting up the test bench is not yet done. Of particular interest is that almost-out-of-beta Balmar MC-618 regulator. Aside from several improvements on the venerable 612 — some of them oriented to lithium systems (they’re hot, on boats, in vans, and elsewhere) — it can network with the SG200. And that means that I’ll be able to see what the main alternator is up to, either on the bright little color gauge or via Balmar’s Bluetooth app. Plus — praise the Lord, Hallelujah! — I will also be able to program and fine-tune the 618 on those same interfaces, instead of using their still-included, yet long infamous, magnet tipped screwdriver. If I understand what’s going on correctly.

Meanwhile, the only contact I had with Ben Stein last week was when he called from this boat cave for some quick Victron tech support. No lie. I tried, but he was in hurry, hoping to soon test this new system alongside his recent all-Mastervolt lithium install. At least he inspired this entry’s headline, the “gold” being valuable future information for readers (and ultra-modern power systems for long testing on our own boats).

Moreover, I’m pleased to point out that I’ve almost completed a Panbo entry that’s quite light on the excruciating tech details and relevant links. Can I get another Hallelujah!? But the excruciating detail will come, though not because I think this area is suitable for DIY installation. In fact, wise readers should even be careful of trusted boatyards, in my opinion, unless some of the crew are, say, already also part of Victron’s vast global network of trained pros, or Mastervolt’s. But I also believe that many wise readers want to know a lot about systems like these before they make the significant investment and then go to sea with them.

Also, you too can monitor the bench testing, usually in real-time, thanks to the public share pages that are part of my new VRM installation.

And just one more thing. If you’ve already been zooming around the hi-res versions of these photos (and sorry about the limitations, but please take them up with our webmaster, aka Young Ben); or if you’re about to dig into the very fresh details of the Lynx Smart BMS or the MC-618 regulator; or even if you just enjoy puzzles or the embarrassments of old boat guys, check out this early draft diagram of Gizmo’s future power system (a 5mb PDF). I only fully appreciated the value of Victron’s many ultra hi-res sample system PDFs when I hacked one up to make my own. And mine includes a cable error that has so far gone unnoticed even by some Victron developers (I think, or they’ve been too busy to look). Can you find it?