I just perused the standard. The word “shall” is in the first sentence of every section after the definitions.
I didn’t count, but I would say the word “shall” is in 90% of the statements in the standard.
Upgrading Inverter/charger
- Thread starter HoosierSailor
- Start date
I didn’t count, but I would say the word “shall” is in 90% of the statements in the standard.
Ahh, yes. TE-13 became a standard as E-13 in 2022 I believe. Prior to becoming a standard it makes sense they would use the word “should“ instead of “shall”.
Confirmed on shall/must vs. should/recommended/encouraged.
Back to audible alarms - I don't have access to ABYC specs. All my sleuthing on the internet has resulted in the BMS shutdown audible alarm being should/recommended, not a shall/must. From: ABYC Ratifies E-13, their first lithium battery standard
The use of an alternate power system makes sense as well. It would be highly unusual, but having everything all go dark suddenly in a bad situation would definitely not be a good thing. There is a balance in all this stuff from a risk management point or view. Needing to cover everything from naive/newbie boat operators to the traditional cascading sequence of small failures and the BMS will never shut itself down on your boat until its oh-dark-thirty, bad weather, and a few other things have gone wrong and you really need that battery working right now
I guess if they ever make this a requirement, there will need to be some kind of nominal minutes on that warning, etc? And in practice it will require broader industry wide adoption as well? "Approaching" - is that a 15 minute warning, or a 15 second warning...
By the way - thanks all for the discussion on this.
I have a little raspberry Pi project that I want to get back to as part of my battery upgrades. I might put in some audible alarm (plus remote notification to my phone when I am far away) logic at some sort of top/bottom voltages, temp and and overall current in/out levels.
Back to audible alarms - I don't have access to ABYC specs. All my sleuthing on the internet has resulted in the BMS shutdown audible alarm being should/recommended, not a shall/must. From: ABYC Ratifies E-13, their first lithium battery standard
The use of an alternate power system makes sense as well. It would be highly unusual, but having everything all go dark suddenly in a bad situation would definitely not be a good thing. There is a balance in all this stuff from a risk management point or view. Needing to cover everything from naive/newbie boat operators to the traditional cascading sequence of small failures and the BMS will never shut itself down on your boat until its oh-dark-thirty, bad weather, and a few other things have gone wrong and you really need that battery working right now
I guess if they ever make this a requirement, there will need to be some kind of nominal minutes on that warning, etc? And in practice it will require broader industry wide adoption as well? "Approaching" - is that a 15 minute warning, or a 15 second warning...
By the way - thanks all for the discussion on this.
I have a little raspberry Pi project that I want to get back to as part of my battery upgrades. I might put in some audible alarm (plus remote notification to my phone when I am far away) logic at some sort of top/bottom voltages, temp and and overall current in/out levels.
A lot in the ways in which lithium batteries are approached should have also existed with lead batteries. The attention on lithium stems from when they used to be very expensive, and everyone was sensitive to losing such an investment. Probably coupled with their chemistry properties and operation being relatively unknown. Now, they are cheaper than lead, and their operation very well known.
So I find it odd to recommend a backup power source for lithium, when stories of lead batteries suddenly going dead are legion, yet nobody thought twice about it. For a lithium battery to go dead and shut itself down, one would have to drain it to 10% minimum - and everything will operate perfectly until then. A lead battery will give up the ghost well before getting to this level, and any higher draw equipment will have stopped operating beforehand.
Similarly for a BMS shutting down for overcharging. Again, legions of stories of smoking acid-spewing (and exploding) lead batteries from overcharge, yet nobody thought twice about this. Even though overcharging lithium is safer than overcharging lead - particularly gel or AGM.
I have two personal experiences to compare. We took a lightning strike with flooded lead batteries - loss of electronic and electrical equipment. Two of the batteries turned red hot, blew their caps and spewed boiling acid and fumes, and the terminals began to melt. Luckily I had installed external switches on each battery so they could be individually disconnected from each other and the electrical system, because without that, there was no way to approach the batteries for several hours, and the other batteries would have continued to discharge into them, and the risk of fire or explosion was very real. It was a total mess to deal with. Afterwards, the remaining batteries were also pretty much toast, as even though they "worked", they have little capacity left, and would boil when they charged.
Fast forward several years, and I had just completed a change to lithium. At that time (almost 10yrs ago), they did not have a BMS. We experienced another lightning strike - loss of electronics and electrical equipment. The lithium batteries also died. Their manner of death is they just stopped providing power. We were off the boat at the time, so I don't know if they ever got hot on their way to death. There was no evidence of any damage to them - the vents were still intact, no spillage, no melted terminals, the cases looked fine, etc. When I removed the cells from their retaining clamps, all of them swelled into footballs. That was the only indication of damage. The cell voltages were 0.0-0.5V, so these were truly dead and had passed well beyond the "safe" point of discharge.
Outside of isolated small starting batteries, I will never have dangerous lead batteries on a boat again.
With this irony staring them in the face, the ABYC does not change their recommendations to be similar for lead batteries. Even with countless examples of damage and loss of boats caused by lead batteries, and no examples of such with lithium (LFP).
Mark
So I find it odd to recommend a backup power source for lithium, when stories of lead batteries suddenly going dead are legion, yet nobody thought twice about it. For a lithium battery to go dead and shut itself down, one would have to drain it to 10% minimum - and everything will operate perfectly until then. A lead battery will give up the ghost well before getting to this level, and any higher draw equipment will have stopped operating beforehand.
Similarly for a BMS shutting down for overcharging. Again, legions of stories of smoking acid-spewing (and exploding) lead batteries from overcharge, yet nobody thought twice about this. Even though overcharging lithium is safer than overcharging lead - particularly gel or AGM.
I have two personal experiences to compare. We took a lightning strike with flooded lead batteries - loss of electronic and electrical equipment. Two of the batteries turned red hot, blew their caps and spewed boiling acid and fumes, and the terminals began to melt. Luckily I had installed external switches on each battery so they could be individually disconnected from each other and the electrical system, because without that, there was no way to approach the batteries for several hours, and the other batteries would have continued to discharge into them, and the risk of fire or explosion was very real. It was a total mess to deal with. Afterwards, the remaining batteries were also pretty much toast, as even though they "worked", they have little capacity left, and would boil when they charged.
Fast forward several years, and I had just completed a change to lithium. At that time (almost 10yrs ago), they did not have a BMS. We experienced another lightning strike - loss of electronics and electrical equipment. The lithium batteries also died. Their manner of death is they just stopped providing power. We were off the boat at the time, so I don't know if they ever got hot on their way to death. There was no evidence of any damage to them - the vents were still intact, no spillage, no melted terminals, the cases looked fine, etc. When I removed the cells from their retaining clamps, all of them swelled into footballs. That was the only indication of damage. The cell voltages were 0.0-0.5V, so these were truly dead and had passed well beyond the "safe" point of discharge.
Outside of isolated small starting batteries, I will never have dangerous lead batteries on a boat again.
With this irony staring them in the face, the ABYC does not change their recommendations to be similar for lead batteries. Even with countless examples of damage and loss of boats caused by lead batteries, and no examples of such with lithium (LFP).
Mark
One more thought on BMS's. The forums are full of stories of failed BMS's where the underlying cells (battery) are just fine but unaccessible. This IMO is more dangerous than foregoing a BMS completely, as I suspect the probability, as well as the number of causes, of a BMS failure is higher than those of a cell failure.
A solution is an external BMS that can be bypassed, but that is not what is available with "drop in" batteries that are becoming the norm. This is likely why ABYC recommends a backup battery, but they paint too broad of a stroke with that.
Mark
A solution is an external BMS that can be bypassed, but that is not what is available with "drop in" batteries that are becoming the norm. This is likely why ABYC recommends a backup battery, but they paint too broad of a stroke with that.
Mark
While the recommendation for a backup battery for critical functions is couched in the language of lithium batteries. Having a back up power source for critical electrical functions is simply good system design and is required by CFR46 for commercial boats inspected by the USCG. (sorry, don't have time to look the exact CFR.)
Sure, but it is not a component of the E-10 (primarily lead battery) recommendation, nor mentioned anywhere else. I was attempting to point out that there really isn't much difference between lithium and lead, except that we are all used to the risks of lead and mostly ignore them. The fact that ABYC still ignores this, or makes so much different hay around LFP, is strange. Seems like it's time to update E-10 to address the real dangers with lead.
Or just make E-10 cover "Storage Batteries", like its actual title says, and encompass all types. Lead batteries are at least as much in need of a BMS as LFP.
Commercial requirements are apples to oranges and not applicable. Some of them would decrease safety on a small boat, or at least be a bad idea.
Mark