Divecompressor on a Diesel Duck 462

South Pacific Familyadventure 2008
Claes Brodin
Fri 25 May 2018 08:39
One of all projects this season was to install an electric dive compressor onboard Dora Mac.
After research I choose the Italian Nardi Atlantic 100P single phase compressor with 100lit/min capacity. Nardi has a good reputation for quality and the size of this compressor was ideal for installing in the starboard aft dunnage box.
Installation was/is quite a challenge. The main issue is the high "start up current" all these electric compressors demand and also my wanting the 9KVA Northern Lights genset to be able to handle this.
After thorough research reading all different cruisers forums on the subject I realised a softstarter+motorprotection needed to be installed in line with the Victron Multiplus inverter.
After installation the compressor works on shorepower (with the Victron shorepower limiter on maximum at startup and around 12-14A while filling up the tanks) but the genset is still not able to handle the start up demands. I´m in contact with Odelco which is a Swedish marine electronic company working on these kind of problems. They believe the Victron Multiplus needs some reprogramming for running the compressor. Subsequently I downloaded Victrons V.E config program+teamviewer and together we tried to connect the Victron Multiplus for faultdiagnosis and reprogramming. It all ended with my laptop having a com port problem we couldn`t solve.
As a cruiser of today you don`t only deal with analog "in real life problems" but you also have to solve software problems from the cyberworld. For me that´s a completely new dimension on cruising.

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