Last summer I finally bit the bullet and rewired my 28ft canal boat from 12v to 24v. Had two tired 100Ah AGMs that couldn't keep up with the inverter overnight, so I rebuilt the whole bank using four Fogstar Drift 100Ah LiFePO4 cells paired in series-parallel for a 24v/200Ah setup. On paper it looked tidy. In practice, the first week was a comedy of errors.
The obvious stuff I expected — swapping the Victron MPPT from a 100/50 to a 100/20 to suit the 24v bank, re-labelling every fuse, hunting down a 24v-compatible Sterling alternator-to-battery charger. What I didn't expect was how many small 12v loads I'd completely forgotten about: the bilge pump, the horn, the nav lights, the depth sounder. Every single one needed either a Victron Orion 24/12-18A DC-DC converter or a full swap. Cost me an extra £340 in parts and two weekends of faff.
The payoff though — running a 600W inverter for the kettle and a small fan heater in the evenings, I'm barely touching 30% DoD overnight. The old 12v setup would've had me rationing by 9pm.
Has anyone else made the jump to 24v on a narrowboat or cruiser? Particularly curious whether anyone's found a slicker way to handle all those legacy 12v accessories rather than just stacking DC-DC converters everywhere.
