Progress with Lithium Battery Installation

[El Borracho]

Tinning a wire very slightly improves its DC conductivity. Tinning greatly improves the wire’s useful life in damp or corrosive environments. Except for increasing weakness due to corrosive effects, tinning probably has little effect on a proper crimp connection (made on corrosion free new wire).

Tinned wire costs considerably more: 30% ????

 

[caius]

Personally I wouldn't worry about tinned wire for battery cables. Properly fitted lugs will have decent conductivity and minimal resistance, and they are probably going to be installed in a location where exposure to moisture is kept low anyway. There's no need to tin the cable before you crimp it, and definitely don't tin it with solder as that will interfere with the proper fitting lugs.

We've used tinned cable to run to most of the electrical items on board, but all of the heavy duty stuff is just copper.

 

[Second Row]

For year 1 I might just run another 110V ac circuit from the panel to a dedicated 30A LiFePo4 charger for the House Battery using the selector switches to make sure the start battery does not provide any house loads. I will have to see how many days I can run the fridge, pumps and electronics from the 300AH house battery as it will only be charged by the dedicated charger, not the engine. If it can go for 3 days I should be good for my expected cruising.