Victron 48 volt system with Safiery 48 volt Li-Ion
Printed From: myHanse.com
Category: Hints & Tips
Forum Name: 460
Forum Description: Model Hints, Tips and News
URL: https://www.myhanse.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=14869
Printed Date: 27 March 2026 at 03:40
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Topic: Victron 48 volt system with Safiery 48 volt Li-Ion
Posted By: 460AUS
Subject: Victron 48 volt system with Safiery 48 volt Li-Ion
Date Posted: 20 October 2024 at 01:03
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Hi All, My H460 arrives in March 25, and the local dealer/ Hanse are unsupportive of a 48 volt solution for solar/house batteries. We have a Qld based battery and electrics genius who sells a Victron based 48volt system that works with his own IP66 48 volt batteries and a device called “Scotty” that tunes your existing alternator and a temperature sensor with an AI. They have successfully installed over 200 of these systems in Rv’s and 50 in marine applications. First time for a Hanse and they have resisted firmly. The 48 volt system proposed is a games changer and will become I expect the norm in ten years time. It saves a fortune on inverter chargers and MPPT’s even the wiring is smaller and cheaper. Both Hanse and the local dealer have only proposed 12 volt systems, almost like their heads are in the sand. I have tried locally to no avail, feeling perhaps that Hanse is restricting them because of the fire issues with Li-ion. Has anyone had success in dealings with Hanse on “new” concepts like this? Perhaps an electrician contact in Germany? Cheers J
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Replies:
Posted By: Arcadia
Date Posted: 20 October 2024 at 02:27
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How would they propose to operate all the 12 volt devices installed on the boat on a 48 volt bank ?? ------------- Leon / ARCADIA 2018 Hanse 588 Sag Harbor, NY |
Posted By: 460AUS
Date Posted: 20 October 2024 at 02:43
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Easy peazy. It’s the same question the local agent asked. And they could not fathom the answer. The 48 volt bank is connected to the Victron Lynx distributor which passes through to the Viltron Smart battery protect which is connected to 12v loads. Alternatively the battery train can have a “Scotty AI” which has a 12 volt output. Once connected to the 12v loads nothing changes. 48 volts have one quarter the amps for the same power so wires are skinny devices are smaller too.
The systems are not cheap but 48 volt devices but the costs in halfish. Victron marine have circuit diagrammed that spell it out Cheers J |
Posted By: marsella
Date Posted: 20 October 2024 at 04:12
Lynx Distributor is a couple of copper bars and some fuses, and the battery protect is the circuit breaker, how the voltage steps down from 48 to 12 in this sequence?
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460AUS wrote:Posted By: 460AUS
Date Posted: 20 October 2024 at 05:16
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I am not an electrician. You can look up the specifics on the Victron site. They have a marine brochure. It is one of the last diagrammes that covers shore power generator and solar.
It is a simple concept that should be self evident in the circuit diagrammes. Cheers J |
Posted By: marsella
Date Posted: 20 October 2024 at 06:05
You can easily get 48 to 12V converter but those are low power devices. The boat wiring is done wih the idea to carry large loads, 1kW for anchor windlass, 1kW for winches, and so on. If you sum all this, the max load could go up to 5kW, thats why wire gauge is 400A at the batteries. Assuming we are not replacing anchors and winches, you will likely want to keep the same power ratings, therefore you will need 48 to 12V converter rated at 5kW . Not even sure the industry makes those. RVs dont have these problems, hence life is much easier.
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Posted By: Arcadia
Date Posted: 20 October 2024 at 15:35
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My point was exactly as Marsella describes. All the 12 volt amps and wires will be unchanged and you would have a hard time converting the 48v down to 12v in the process. There would also be heat losses as well. The only advantage I can see would be on the charging side of the equation. But again, it would require all dedicated 48v chargers and alternator. ------------- Leon / ARCADIA 2018 Hanse 588 Sag Harbor, NY |
Posted By: 460AUS
Date Posted: 20 October 2024 at 21:12
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The problems that you are anticipating do not exist. If you look at the circuit diagrammes nothing needs to be changed in the 12v loads, nothing. Bow thruster batteries, and engine battery are unchanged. Over 50 boats have this system running today. You have to approach this laterally. The 48 volts are only for solar, inverter charger, house batteries that’s it. Thank you for raising your issues, as they are the same ones the agent raised. If it doesn’t gel, and you’re interested in understand why, then visit Victron and Safiery web sites. I see the change is similar to when tyres went from cross-ply to radial construction when lots of smart people opposed the change. Cheers J
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Posted By: marsella
Date Posted: 20 October 2024 at 22:04
| Problem with this is when you mention house batteries because winches and windlass are powered from there and if you wire 4 12V batteries in series to get 48V (you just need 4 batteries and a piece of wire, right?) you will need to step down the voltage back to 12. Solar is usually not a problem at all, their currents are small anyway. If you want a powerful 5kW something inverter, 48V setup will help but I am not sure what application needs 5kW inverter. At the end if you really need 5kW interter you can also wire the inverter to bow thruster batteries, those are usually connected in series to deliver 48V since bow thrusters take 7kW or more. |
Posted By: mr-ludi
Date Posted: 21 October 2024 at 08:30
How many watts can you use in your 12V system?
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Posted By: Mark_J1
Date Posted: 21 October 2024 at 09:15
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460AUS you made me curious. Short response is this stuff has been done before. It’s not really that unusual but needs presenting to dealer in a way they can engage and help you. Longer response below. I’ve just taken a look at the “Scotty AI” system you are trying to get incorporated into your build. That’s a very neat product set, and I’ve dropped in a link below if anyone is interested. It mentions ‘canbus’ as it targets the automotive market - RVs as you say - though some newer direct injection boat engines could likely link up. However, like other alternator controllers such as Wakespeed it has alternative algorithms if required in the absence of canbus data. Re Hanse & their importer in Australia. I think you may need to translate the Scotty AI stuff to get them to engage. What you are proposing is not that unusual. In essence you want to run a 48v LiFePO4 battery bank alongside a high-power alternator. An alternator controller manages the alternator load by measuring load, temp, volts etc. Not unusual except for the voltage. That controller works together with a high current (3Kw+) DC-DC buck boost converter to charge the batteries at 48v while alternator is supplying loads at 12v. Alternatively, if the alternator is not supplying power then the DC-DC Buck Boost converter provides 12v from the battery bank. Bi-directional DC-DC conversion is relatively unusual with step up/down in voltage so that will be new to them I suspect. I’ll bet you’ll get some further conversation around failure modes but I won’t dive into that now. In dealer speak you need to delete the standard batteries and supply your own. Likewise you may need to delete battery combiner elements from the order, which may impact on DC switch panels etc. Engine should arrive with a standard alternator which you either swap out for the high power one or fit the necessary extra mount & belts solution to have 2 alternators (if you are going to these kind of costs that makes some sense. You might even want to run one at 12v and the other at 24v). Running loads at a different voltage to the batteries is what’s confusing I guess but this is not new. The idea has a great heritage in fact! Look up boat maintenance guru Nigel Calder’s Integral boat power system which supplies 9Kw :) It’s even linked by Victron themselves in their blog - see https://www.victronenergy.com/blog/2018/10/03/nigel-calder-and-the-integrel-9kw-alternator-on-steroids/" rel="nofollow - https://www.victronenergy.com/blog/2018/10/03/nigel-calder-and-the-integrel-9kw-alternator-on-steroids/ . 48v DC for loads ( or in reality about 51v ) is not common yet sadly as it will make wiring for high load devices much simpler and cheaper. Things may change as more boats go electric with nominally 48v battery packs (or higher). I note Selden are now running their latest winches at 40v plus to make it easier to fit in the cabling. They also use a DC-DC boost converter. If you really want to go for it change everything to Mastervolt C-Zone switching using the 48v DC as an end-to-end Bus in the boat. :) This kind of thing would be fairly easy to arrange on a custom build (at a price) however as you are finding out a production boat builder will likely limit your options. Hence your changes need to be either done pre-delivery at the dealer or as post delivery updates by yourself. Sounds fun! Mark Ps for some further reassurance you are going down a sane path, listen to the recent Nigel Calder episode on 59North Sailing podcast where he talks about the electrical systems on his own boat. ( https://safiery.com/product/scotty-3kw-24-48v-canbus-bi-directional-dc-to-dc/" rel="nofollow - https://safiery.com/product/scotty-3kw-24-48v-canbus-bi-directional-dc-to-dc/ ------------- Hanse 400e "Grey Goose" Hull #31 |
Posted By: marsella
Date Posted: 21 October 2024 at 16:11
Just checked their website, they do offer their own SCOTTY AI 12-48V converter but the unit is maxed at 3kW. Seems at the very edge for a modern 50 feet something boat. The price tag is 3,000 USD plus. |
Posted By: mr-ludi
Date Posted: 21 October 2024 at 19:08
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As 460AUS wrote, the 230V inverter is integrated in the 48V system. If you have 3kW for the 12V system, it‘s not less. But it‘s less than a regular 12V system gives you. I see the main advantage if you have most of the devices switched from 12V to 48V.
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Posted By: Wayne's World
Date Posted: 22 October 2024 at 01:34
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All sounds good. But what happens if one battery goes us? In a multi battery 12V system you just remove the problem battery. How many batteries in your 48V system? We changed to lithium in 2019 and fitted two 12V/3000W/120AMP inverter chargers which work together. This gives us up to 6000W of 230V and up to 200amps of charging from either shower power or generator. We can run our 8kg washing machine, water heater etc with this setup. We can't run the dive compressor but could if we changed a few things. It also means that if one inverter/charger goes US we still have one operational to provide redundancy. Look forward to see how you go with your system. ------------- Wayne W Cruising, currently in the Pacific until the end of 2026. |
Posted By: marsella
Date Posted: 22 October 2024 at 03:20
Safiery sells their 48V 2.5kWh Lithium batteries (they are packing 16 of 3V cells into a box ). Around 2KUSD per unit. Pretty much double for what you can get from equiv. Victron Li 12Vx200Ah=2.5kWh, currently around 1KUSD.
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Posted By: Lhsrris218
Date Posted: 12 November 2024 at 10:25
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Hi. Any update? Would there be any advantage to going 48v on a retrofit to a 460?. I am planning to change to lipo and add solar when boat arrives so all wiring is already high current thick gage anyway. Thanks
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