This summer we’ve been having a bunch of dinghy adventures.

Sadly not the fun kind.

IT started when our dinghy would intermittently and randomly cut out. Troubleshooting we discovered that we’d set our solar charge controller for Lithium to charge our AGM batteries and thought we’d cooked the battery. No such luck. Although we did replace the battery with a 100ah lithium for good measure and since I figured the 50ah AGM would make a great starting battery for the big boat which would give us more ah for the house.

Nope, the problem, which I discovered after taking apart the engine control unit for no reason was the 50amp breaker. It was a simple fix and in retrospect, it should have been obvious.

I’m very glad that we made the breaker change.

Then today. I was reminded once again that lithium batteries work on different voltages than AGM batteries. I looked down after about a week of overcast weather and said “OH 12.9 volts we’ll be fine for a run at full speed to shore and back”

We’ll with some fun I was reminded that 12.9 volts on lithium is basically just about time for the battery protection circuit to kick on and turn the battery off so you don’t damage it by draining it too low.

Luckily it died on a day with zero wind about 100 feet from the big boat. I now have her charging off the solar but it will probably take a day or three to charge with the limited fall sun. And of course the way the weather has been,.

Always an adventure. And I suppose even these have been fun learning adventures. And our little dinghy is coming together nicely. A solar panel, a lithium battery, an electric motor, and even now a massive bilge pump. I decided to get the same pump as is used on the big boat to have a secondary spare if we ever had the primary backup fail, but that is a story for another day.