Epoch Lithium 920AH!! Daisy chain hook up with Victron Comm to Cerbo GX. Plus 10% off code below! 

Yeah. These Imo are the leader for features vs price. Pretty impressive.

Be sure to use a discount code Mvintrigue for 10% off, too! I agree, though. BB amd Dakota and the like really cant compete. I dont know if you saw but the 460aj Epoch has class T fuses built in. That will save another couple hundred.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 Yup I put the code in before I made the comment, you rock, thank you!!!! My van builder will be thrilled to have even more room to work with the rest of the solar system. Space and weight is super precious in a van!! I just watched the other video you listed in your description talking about the fuses, way cool! Wonder why they didn't advertise that feature as well....

@braxenaeurasiers3474 very nice. Thats going to be a monster system.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 Yeah not too shabby for a van! Il have 710 watts of solar on the roof (which is a ton for a van) and a second alternator to charge the massive battery bank!

Good for you. Thats quite an upgrade. I had heard about the fitment of the on/off switch and was going to look at it. I was thinking the lock ring may slide off the plug but I need to look closer. Another solution is to just cut and recrimp/heat shrink. Another is to make a switch plate out of something like thin black starboard and use two halves. Let us know if you come up with anything creative. I noticed the same on the bluetooth after I made the videos. Hopefully they get an update for that.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 My solution was cut and butt splice some small water proof RGB lighting connectors. 24 gauge wire is so fun to work with!

Thanks brother. Let me know when you want it.

LOL. Apparently my screwdriver pointer scared a few people.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 😳

You can use the two cables you got and use one to connect to the Cerbo and use the other to connect one battery to the other. Its just 2 wires.

Well there are gender issues between the two cables but I was able to pick up two pairs of the appropriate weatherpack connectors from which I could make a male-male jumper. So now I have a host/guest arrangement and the Cerbo reports just one value of 920 AHr from two modules. When we are back in the U.S. I'll order the appropriate cable so that I can still power the battery meter. As you mentioned, we do lose the ability to see the guest battery on the bluetooth app. Hopefully that, and a few other improvements will be forthcoming from Epoch.

@@LittleCunningPlan Very cool. Glad to hear it! Hows everything working? Plenty of capacity? Im in mid install right now. Thanks for the update.

Grumpy cat 🐈

Thats correct!

Very glad I could help. Enjoy. Im installing mine in the boat as we speak. If you havent already go to the Epoch Marine facebook page. Many of us over there.

The first part of the video is for a single battery as you can see it reports to Cerbo fine. Essentially the dips can stay the way they came from the factory.

Definitely. I was confused too. But in doing research on new Victron capable batteries its pretty common with batteries like Pylontech and many others as well as several people who are running the Epochs. I haven't had those warnings since.

Apologies Ross. I am in Yellowstone and cell coverage is spotty. You absolutely need the smart shunt. What I have discovered about Epoch and most built in bluetooth soc meters is the parameters for reset to 100 are set very high and of course can not be changed. This SOC data from the Epoch BMS is what is exported to the cerbo. The ability to set the smart shunts up for full charge detection makes them much more reliable, especially since the 460 Marine does not like to be charged above 13.9. Also the onboard shunt does not detect amps in or out of less than 1 amp. So even at float when the MP drops into float after a full charge the Epoch shunt does not detect the .2 or .3 volt momentary up and voltage fluctuations as lights and other items go off and on. This results in the Epoch soc being off over time. But the victron shunt is still 99.x%. I actually ended up not using comms for charge control. I use the standard MP2 programming and smart shunt for control. The comms work, but will result in charging the voltage to the voltage set in dvcc in limit charged voltage, which you have to set to 13.9v it will reach 13.9 and stay there and not drop to float. Similar to some other simpler batteries that import data to dvcc right now my boat is sitting on SP most of the time so I want to float it. I have watched your channel many times. I suppose you may be doing something with these soon. If that's the case, when I get back from Yellowstone Tuesday if you need to chat about some particulars let me know. There are a few other must know point such as FCP or full charge protection that the Epoch and newest Litime and others are begining to use. If not set right can result in uneven discharge by huge margins.

I am sure Epoch will have ot on thier website soon. In the meantime, just call them, and they will send it to you.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 Thank you. I will check with them. On a side note, do you have any thoughts about alternator charging these big Lithium batteries. Typically the alternator will connect direct to the started AGM battery and then a DC to DC charger used to charge the ECHO batteries. The problem I’m seeing is that Victron DC DC 12V chargers are only 50A max. For a single engine that would mean about 12+ hours of motoring to charge the Echo bank up. Do you plan to use Victron DCDC converters or are you looking at alternatives providers for this. Sterling Power has 70A and 100A but not sure if introducing them causes any issues with the Victron coms etc. Appreciate your thoughts on this.

You should be able to leave the dip switches in the position they come it. And you wont need the extra cable. Its going to be pretty much plug and play and very simple. Its good having the smart shunt too IMO. Its amazing how much SOC meters wander at times. So having 2 is a good way to compare things over the long term and double check each against the other. Dont be alarmed if things arent exact between the SOC and voltage of the smart shunt and the Epoch. They will never marry perfectly.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 Thank you, I'm unhappy with the batteries I have, they are completely isolated and still lose a lot of voltage as soon as the charger shuts down. No way there can be a parasitic draw. Less than 3 years old. Oh well, live and learn. Appreciate the response. Fair winds.

@@cabracove are the ones you have lithium with bluetooth? When you put your Epochs in place dont toss the old ones. If they werent isolated by disconnecting all wiring then they may be ok, and when you put the Epochs in it is possible they too will drain if everything hasn't been eliminated with careful troubleshooting. But of course I dont know know what kind of troubleshooting you have done. The only way to troubleshoot a draining battery is to pull it out and put it on the bench for testing or to disconnect all wires and check it with a multimeter over time. Also if you have a multimeter there is typically a function to test if you have a draw. Most multimeters can measure up to 10amps of draw before they blow an internal fuse. You would have to disconnect the positive battery terminal and connect the two multimeter leads between the battery terminal and the battery post and put the meter in the setting to measure amps. it should be 0 of course. be sure to turn all breakers and systems off and isolate your systems as you said you did. And do not turn anything on or you could quickly blow the fuse in the multimeter. See if you do in fact have a draw. You might be surprised. If you have already done this then of course the battery or batteries could be at fault. Of course if the ones you have are lead acid batteries they have a much higher self discharge than lithium.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 Yes, they are lithium bluetooth. The bluetooth and my smart shunt disagree though, by a lot. And when in use one battery will get depleted about 20% faster. There is a breaker and a fuse coming from the alternator, and one on the inverter and 12v fuse panel, and also one on each side of the DC to DC charger. My multimeter goes up to 75 amps or somewhere around there. It's in a van, way simpler than your setup. Or any sizable boat system, really. The thing is, I've taken it up to Alaska twice with no problems, and nothing has been added or changed. I don't know enough about this to know if it's possible for one bad battery to draw down the other and it seems unlikely they would both be bad. However I have read about this company getting a lot of returns. I am going test them though. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I very much appreciate that. Have a great day.

Thanks. Just wanted to pass along info. Because when I first set out to do this everything was a bit fuzzy.

Sorry to hear that. Mine were just fine. You can power it up and double check how many cycles are on the battery via the app to make sure it wasnt used.

Interesting. I did check today and app says 1 cycle and at 27% I just bought a load tester and will check to make sure I have 460Ah or hopefully more Ah than rated for such as in your case and if everything is balancing and healthy I suppose it should be okay to keep and move forward with my project. Looking forward to your progress and excited to get started on mine. Just have to buy the victron goods and waiting to order the arco zeus regulator @@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101

Arc flash on 12 volts is not likely. In addition, the SC Protect feature on the BMS work fantastic. I have actually tested it and its quite anticlimactic.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 You tested your battery with a dead short between the battery + & - terminal? You are a braver man than I.

@haydenwatson7987 well not this one. This one is too expensive to risk..lol. I did it on a 100ah 12 volt version with a high amp carbon pile tester. One thing to add that I just became aware of. There is a Class T fuse inside the Epoch 460 ah battery case. Pretty incredible. Pretty mindblowing really. That another level of safety most battery manufacturers had not even considered.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 That is very nice. Can you access it to replace if your screwdriver pointer shorts it out? ;>). I have a couple of Basen Green 460Ah and have also tested them to well above rated. I got 480Ah from one and a bit less from the other. It had Bluetooth but not the com ports. They were the first offering that I had seen in the 460Ah range and where in a standard 8D case which fit perfectly into my battery tray.

@haydenwatson7987 lol...yes its accessible. The top is held together with allen head screws. Next time ill use my coated electricians screwdrivers just for you..lol

Unfortunately I have not tried that configuration so can confirm. The dip switch config does have a setting for parallel and series so I believe they intended for it to be capable. But I havent seen anyone show it reporting to Victron in that way yet. I did see a post a while back that Epoch was working on it. Sorry I dont have the details.

It appears that both can be true. The Epoch still has its basic parameters set using the BMS. But along side that are another layer of protections and warnings. For instance you might get a cell imbalance warning on the Victron Touch 50 that comes from the Epoch, but does not trigger any of the Epoch BMS hard faults. Its hard to know what they all will do. But I have done a discharge pulling 150 amps down to 1% SOC and then used a smaller load till battery disconnect/shutdown. The Epoch app reported some items and the Victron reported other items and shut the inverter down. Everything seemed to work flawless. The bluetooth remained on to acess the battery but discharge mosfet for batt was off and as I said Victron shut down inverter. It would take a bit more testing to know who is doing what and when. But just casually observing it just appears to work.

I called Epoch and got the answer to my question. If you're going to use Alternator Charging for the batteries then you must use the Marine Batteries with the Victron Comms! Thanks for the discount code. It saved me $549

@@kendallartusi Be sure to set all your chargers parameters to 13.8 bulk/absorb voltage and 13.4 or 13.5 float. If doing altenator charging I recomend uding the Victron Orion 50 amp DC to DC charger. If you want to direct charge the Epochs from the alternator you really should use something like the Wakespeed 500 or the Arco Zues external regulators to ensure you dont overcharge the batteries causing a charge mosfet disconnect that will cause voltage spike. You would set the external alternator regulators to the same 13.8 bulk/absorb and 13.5 float.

The grey and black units are fantastic as well. I have the 36 volt 100ah in my golf cart and its a great battery.

You will need both. They are still independent.

This video is now somewhat old. Epoch now includes the cables on thier harness when they ship all batteries. If you didnt get one...just call them and they will send it out. Dont leave a message...just keep calling until someone picks up.

For parallel you would just continue to add to the daisy chain in the same way. Just repeat the same step I outlined when adding the second batterry. Obviously you would need another daisy chain cable. Also Epoch just put out a video showing dip switches for all configurations, including series connections to make a 48 volt 460ah pack.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 Thank you!

At the time of making this video we had not discovered they had class T fuses. But even with the class T fuses you will need to fuse the battery for the size cable and load you plan to use. But since it has the class T inside you can use something like the MRBF that mounts to the terminal and is much cheaper.

Happy to help. Thanks.

Obviously I dont have more than 2 to do a real test but I am assuming...at the point in the video at the end when I hooked up the final harness, you would then need another short cable and that would hook up from batt 3 to batt 2 in the same way. Wish I had another just to test this.

Hook one of the 300AH v2 batteries and see.

@@drtywhat I would need to order another daisy chain cable to do that. The short one with the GM weatherpack plug. But someone just commented they have 3 of these online with no issue.

I believe, on the last part of the video when I hook up the power meter for the unused port on batt 2...you would then get another H05-4505 and plug it into batt number 3 in the same way we did batt 2. Then hook uo the other end of H05-4505 into the open GM weatherpack connector now plugged into batt #2. You should be able to daisy chain continously.

Nice.

Yes..just call them and they will send you one.

I answered your question on the Epoch forums (Allen Jones). Yes, the Epoch comms currently only provide a single stage charge profile. Or really a CC then CV but the they essentially stay in absorption at the voltage you program into the DVCC as max voltage.. Which is 13.8. Not ideal/ I turned off the comms and use the Victron profiles now and it works great.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 You did answer it!! Thanks. Your video and help in the forums have been very helpful.

Yes there is. I have not had the chance to completely set up the Essentials 300ah batteries completely though. One thing to note is a 300ah version of the battery covered in this video will be released soon.

It looks like to 300 is a standard battery, while the 309-V2 also supports the Victron V2 coms. I’m guessing but I think for a second battery the cable B12300 A H05 -4505, will be needed instead of the B12460 A H05 -4505 mentioned in this video.

The main harnesses came with my batteries. I had to call Epoch to get the daisy chain harness. However I am told that epoch is including the daisy chain harness with each battery but is no longer including the Anderson plug thick cables since so many are not using those. So you should get everything you need when you order. Even if for some weird reason you didnt get everything you just call Epoch and they will send it. They are pretty good like that.

Actually ill have to look. On the device list everything appears as one battery Im sure the home screen does too. Really, i need to do the Cerbo gx GUI mods. It adds a ton more info. I bet that would help with more detail.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101another question, is the epoch still only registering amps in/out if they exceed 1 amp? I have one of these batteries now too (and getting my Victron equipment soon, including a Cerbo and touch 50), and I see the epoch App on my phone is measuring to the tenth of a volt.

@@murp0443 So on your first question. It does not alternate but shows 2 batts online and 940ah. The batt icon on the main page just shows SOC. Nothing else. It still does not appear to register anything less than 1 amp. But again, I dont know if this is going to be an issue or not. It would only be an issue if you are in a situation where your entire boat or camp was drawing less than 1 amp. Seems unlikely. Same goes for charging. Seems unlikely you will be charging at .7 amps.

*capacity is the second number next to the 460 in the app/ Such as 458/460 or 472/460 and add each battery for the capacity. *charged voltage should be set at 13.8 and you should also set 13.8 as your max charge voltage in the dvcc. * Discharge floor- set to your desired lower limit * tail current- since the conditions to disconnect the charge mosfet are 14.0 volts or greater > 3.5 charge amps or lower > for 5 seconds, you can set tail current to 2 or 3%. Even 4% will work fine. * Puekert exponent- some say 1.05 but you might try 1.02. Some even set to 0. Id probably use 1.02. * charge efficiency 99% * Discharge floor is what you want to lower limit to be for calculating time to discharge. I set mine at 0 so I can do my own calculation. ***Please note- the SOC meter in the Epoch will not register loads below roughly 1 amp. It also is not as accurate as the Victron Shunt so generally use the victron shunt for a better SOC determination. But get used to looking at voltages because shunts in general have errors.

Actually in the beginning both batteries could be pulled up on the app. But lately only one comes up. I havent had time to mess around with it lately but plan to. Let me know if you figure it out.

@@mvintrigue-trawlerdiy1101 I am guessing it stopped when you changed the dip switches and daisy chained. I spoke with Epoch and they are looking into it - it seems that once the dip switches are set to indicate master and slave etc. the software treats it as one battery. It's just a shame to loose the per cell detail. The Cerbo just tells me the battery and cell with the highest and the lowest voltage (which, I guess, is sufficient). I'll let you know if I learn anything new.

@@SVHolokai Thanks...as will I. Much appreciated.

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