New Outback 3232 thread

[OBXTucker]

There are a zillion Outback Charger/Inverter threads here, but this one is relatively simple:

I've gone ahead and bit the bullet. Order 2 Outbacks today, along with the Communication Hub and Mate.
These will power three 32V banks (2 of which are starting and 1 is house). The starting banks are set up to parallel, which is typical, and will charge off of one Outback. The other will power the house bank.

I don't plan to change out this configuration, so all I'll be doing is pulling my 2 old Sentry's and installing these new units. I'll also run the Mate up to the pilot house.

QUESTION: Is this a reasonably easy/straight forward install (other than the sometimes confusing programming) that I can do myself? I'm pretty adept at electronics and have all of the tools aboard to handle everything except crimping the large cables. For those of you whom have done this yourselves, how would you rate this on a scale of 1 - 10?

For those of you whom had it professionally installed, can you let me know what you paid?

Trying to weigh the DIY vs. time saved having the pros do it.

Thanks!

 

[Boatnut]

Providing you are comfortable, and understand the correct wire sizing. It's about a 5 on the 1 to 10 scale, not including the programming, which I am not familiar with. As for the crimps on the heavy cables carefully measure the distance need, then take the stuff to a battery shop, most of the have the necessary crimping tool. Another alternative, is let me know what wire size you will be using, I have a large set of crimpers I can lend you to the job.

 

[GJH]

For me the most difficult part was breaking out the AC circuits and creating the AC panels for the circuits that I wanted to power by inverter. I got a couple of guys, a supervisor and a workman from Hatteras' electrical shop to help me as I was in New Bern to help me with that, especially the wire routing. Since it is by-the-hour work, a cost estimate is useless since boats and owners vary so much in their demands. If I were to do it again knowing what I know now, it would have been more expensive because I would have powered some additional circuits that would have required some time to reroute to the inverter panel. Whatever you do, get someone who knows what they are doing. There are a couple places in Annapolis with good reputations. Marine Electric Systems and Peter Kennedy come to mind , there is another I forget right now, though all these are second hand, no direct experience. Edit: a little web search reminded me of the third, who I considered doing my installation when i still had the boat in Baltimore: J. Gordon. Ask around or interview them and look at some of their work.

The DC side is the easy part. I don't subscribe to Sky's approach of setting it up like a generator; we can debate that later.

If you don't have one, get a copy of Nigel Calder's "Boat Owners Mechanical and Electrical Manual" and read the first few chapters, and the chapters on inverters. Invaluable and much clearer than any advice you will get from us. It will help you understand, plan and install your system.

It sounds like you are going to use one of these purely as a charger for the start banks? Seems like one of the Sentrys would have been just fine for that purpose.

As for the cables if a local battery shop or NAPA isn't set up, you can get high quality custom cables made up by GenuineDealz, which is a great place to get all your cabling and connectors.

 

[Vincentc]

Hope you will continue to report your progress. Are you going to run two inverters?

I've had good experience with Genuinedealz. Good quality, work, turnaround and price.

regards,

 

[MikeP]

The Outback manual has a lot of info on multiple unit stacking and installation which should be very helpful. I agree with the degree of difficulty being around 5-6 but totally depending on your comfort with elec circuits/installation. It's not what I'd suggest as a first attempt at DIY electrical work!

I also agree with the suggestion re large cables - Years ago I tried the "hammer operated" crimpers you can buy at any hardware store and they are really not suitable for the job. The last time I was at West Marine, they had a real crimper available to use when you bought cable/fittings. The staff would not make the crimps for fear of lawsuits but you could use it and DIY. NOTE - I am NOT suggesting you get anything from WM though they will match prices so in theory you SHOULD be able to get it there for the same price you can get it for anywhere else.

As noted, the most difficult technical part is setting up the AC circuits that the inverter(s) will power. You don't just wire the hot breaker to the inverter; the neutral for the circuit also has to be connected to the inverter's neutral buss. SO most likely you will be adding an additional neutral buss inside the breaker panel for that purpose. You will end up with a fair number of breakers that will be in their normal position in the panel but will not be connected to the standard hot buss bar in the panel. You will set up separate bars for the inverter-powered breakers. It sounds more complicated than it is - I tried to find some pics of the interior of my panel showing the separate neutral buss and the breaker buss but I don't have any on this laptop. I have to go into town but if I get a chance later I'll take some pics of the panel and post them.

 

[OBXTucker]

Yes. I'm going to pull the 2 Sentry's and two inverters - and replace them with 2 Outbacks.
The wiring should be pretty straight forward since I won't be changing any components that are being powered (lights, nav computers/monitors, fridge and a few other electronics/items). So basically I'll be hooking all of those up to the inverter side of the Outback. The charger side obviously goes to the batteries and the input from shore power/gensets is my incoming power.

Calder's Electrical Manual is an excellent reference. Have had it for years!

Bottom line, I'm guessing it'll take me a day to wire it all up. Toughest part will be pulling new battery cables and feeding the communication wires to the pilothouse. I'm sure there will be a surprise or two (what project doesn't have a few of those!), but I don't think it'll be that difficult - especially given the current set-up.

 

[OBXTucker]

Also, thanks for all the advice everyone! Mike, I would appreciate seeing some pictures if you happen upon them. Honestly, I haven't spent any time analyzing how my current inverter is wired up to the fuse panel. I would assume this wiring can stay in place, but if that's not the case, I'll probably bring in an electrician to either help or do the job. That's going to add more time to the project than I can afford.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Programming the Outback is pretty straightforward. The installation/operation manual takes it through step-by-step. You can use the defaults, but I suggest calling the battery manufacturer and getting their recommended charge settings. I did this for my Rolls batts and have been very pleased with the results, ie very little water usage and quick recharge.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Also, be aware of the amp draw of the Outback while charging. Since most Hatt OEM chargers were 240v, it wasn't much of an issue. But, the Outback is pulling 120v off of one leg and it can cause issues at full charge amperage when combined with other loads. You may have to watch your ammeters for a while and switch legs if it causes you to draw too much.

 

[OBXTucker]

Sky, that's one of the main reasons I'm going this direction.
I continue to cook my Rolls battery banks and really don't have an easy way to monitor power consumption.
I'm not on the boat often enough to assure they don't cook entirely down either.

Yeah, I know I can put the Sentry's on a timer. It's been done many times. But I'm also trying to keep Kismet as state of the art as possible. Well, if you consider 4-71's state of the art!

 

[GJH]

If they are really Sentrys then they absolutely don't need a timer. They can be calibrated by most factory authorized CruiseAir Dometic techs, you can even DIY. They shut themselves off when properly calibrated. I got my Sentry redone a couple of years ago now and it has been perfect, charging two banks, one w/Rolls full size and one w/Deka 8v195s. Nice thing is they are field serviceable.

I didn't catch the part about you having inverters already now so would need more info on that. Why aren't they charging the batteries they draw from? Just straight inverters?

Aren't the Outbacks like the Magnum where they will automatically adjust the charge amperage so that it will not take away from the loads?

 

[MikeP]

Here's a pic of the circuit panel that contains the circuits in our boat that are connected to the inverter. The inverter neutral buss is the vertical buss at the far left with the white wires. The standard neutral buss is the horizontal buses with the white wires.

It's hard to see but you may be able to discern that the hot busses/breakers have several separate connections as opposed to a single bar to which all breakers connect. There are individual "bars" for the relevant breakers which are connected to the inverter hot lead. Not sure this pic helps all that much but it's the best I have. You can purchase various configurations of buss bars from several different suppliers or you can make them yourself. Essentially you will need to separate the inverter-powered circuit buss bars from the non-inverter buss bars. You could move all the inverter breakers to one side of the panel and use a single common inverter buss bar or leave the breakers where they are and make up individual breaker connections to the inverter hot. The latter is how are panel is set up.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

Or just power everything off of the inverter and make it easy.

 

[Boatsb]

Or just power everything off of the inverter and make it easy.

That requires spending the extra to get an inverter or two capable of doing that and installing it correctly.

For some reason most see that option as too expensive especially if its to be done correctly.

 

[SKYCHENEY]

That requires spending the extra to get an inverter or two capable of doing that and installing it correctly.

For some reason most see that option as too expensive especially if its to be done correctly.

As long as you size the inverter breaker properly, there should be no issue. But I know what you're saying. For a top notch installation, stack inverters, buy the fancy switch gear, and run everything seamlessly, without ever knowing what the power source actually is.

 

[boatguy123@aol.com]

There are a zillion Outback Charger/Inverter threads here, but this one is relatively simple:

I've gone ahead and bit the bullet. Order 2 Outbacks today, along with the Communication Hub and Mate.
These will power three 32V banks (2 of which are starting and 1 is house). The starting banks are set up to parallel, which is typical, and will charge off of one Outback. The other will power the house bank.

I don't plan to change out this configuration, so all I'll be doing is pulling my 2 old Sentry's and installing these new units. I'll also run the Mate up to the pilot house.

QUESTION: Is this a reasonably easy/straight forward install (other than the sometimes confusing programming) that I can do myself? I'm pretty adept at electronics and have all of the tools aboard to handle everything except crimping the large cables. For those of you whom have done this yourselves, how would you rate this on a scale of 1 - 10?

For those of you whom had it professionally installed, can you let me know what you paid?

Trying to weigh the DIY vs. time saved having the pros do it.

Thanks!

geoff geier # 336 shendoah
we installed a 3232 last yr. i had a elect eng help me and it took 2 z7 1/2 days. as everyone says, the circuits can be tricky. and don't forget the elect box in the eng rm. but it has been the neatest thing i have put on the boat to date.

 

[Nonchalant1]

Also, be aware of the amp draw of the Outback while charging. Since most Hatt OEM chargers were 240v, it wasn't much of an issue. But, the Outback is pulling 120v off of one leg and it can cause issues at full charge amperage when combined with other loads. You may have to watch your ammeters for a while and switch legs if it causes you to draw too much.

As you may know, the Outback can be programmed fairly simply to limit its own draw. I once left my 53MY in a warehouse in Key West over hurricane season and they let me use a 15 amp 120V plug to power my battery charging and a dehumidifier. I programmed the Outback to draw 8 amps max because the dehum could draw 6 max. It worked perfect for months while I was there.

Doug

 

[Angela]

Sky/MikeP,

Where did you locate your Outback? Is the genny room too hot when the genny's running for that to be a suitable location?

 

[dastahl]

Jeff,
I had an older Trace 3225 behind the pilot house. I could not get it to run correctly. I bought an Outback and ended up finding the Trace was just fine but wired incorrectly. SO I wired the Outback to the B panel and the Trace to the C panel. (perhaps the other way around??)THere is a rotory switch to flow 110v to the inverter or the Hatt panel or not. This is one of the harder things to figure out, but once its set to inverter it stays there until there is a problem with inverter or charging. That way all the 110v AC panels are energized and the batteries get a double charge. If one Inverter were to die I can simply wire up both panels to the survivor in a hour or so.

Its worked great for a year now. All the lights are low watt and we have never tripped a breaker on the inverter or boat. The batteries charge real fast but I need to get the smart box so I can watch how many amps are charging from the Trace. When we run the ICW many nights we anchor and leave without running the gen sets at all.

I have 16 8V AGM 220AH batteries.
I did have help from a great electronic friend for the install, but 1-10 I would give it a 7. Its easier if you have a step in the forward stairwell to get thru the door access to behind the pilot house.
Good luck, feel free to contact me if I can help.
Skooch
Sassafras River MD

 

[OBXTucker]

Thanks David! I've decided to hook all 3 banks together into 1 bank, which gives me a theoretical 3,200 amp hours. I'm also going to stack the two Outbacks. These will produce up to 60 amps of charging power and 6,000 watts. PLENTY of power on both ends.

Interesting comments on the Inverter switches. Kismet actually has 2 inverter switches, one in the galley and one on a breaker panel. I'm ashamed to say that I've never messed with either one, as the current set-up (inverters) have worked as they should.

We do have a prefabricated ladder for the area behind the pilothouse panel. I've spent many hours back there cleaning up old wires. It also helped to quickly get back there when I melted the main lead coming from a generator to the breaker panel. Fortunately, there's a lot of room back there and it's easy to sit down and work for many hours - if necessary!