Hull Yeah!

When we purchased our Excess 14, there was a lot to manage. There was a LOT in the category of: “We don’t know what we don’t know”

Throughout the season, as we became more and more comfortable with the systems of the boat, we had one common nagging issue. The Sheiber portal into the energy management systems.

Our Excess 14 came commissioned with HVAC units, and a pre-configured, but not installed generator. When we added the generator, our problems began. Not with the generator, but how to configure the Scheiber to interact with the generator. The Scheiber could be configured to manually start/stop the generator, but there were “magic codes” required, just to get into the configuration mode. There was “magic wiring and switches” needed to configure the Scheiber panels to interact with the generator, and nobody to help us get it configured. I poked and proded, and found the magic codes. When it worked, it was conveinent to start/stop the generator from the touch screen, but it still wasn’t configured properly and I coudln’t get a straight answer from Excess.

This was a nagging frustration that continued for several months. As we started our energy system updates, and how we’d monitor the solar panels, it was clear we’d need to add a Victron panel. Many other boats had both a Victron and the factory provided Scheiber panel, which seemed strange.

This was not the easy to use, integrated system I wanted for us and our crew. There had to be a better way.

The more we looked into this, we realized, it was time to consolidate. We even found a Victron Cerbo-GX hidden behind a closet panel.

Over the 2025 sailing season, we added, then replaced the Scheiber panel with a Victron Cerbo-GX, Cerbo-GX Touch, MPPTs, new batteries and a new 5kw Quatro that dramatically simplifies our systems.

If you’re looking to simplify your life, have automated energy systems with remote access, I’ve written this article for how to convert an Excess 14 from Scheiber to Victron. This article is likely applicable to an Excess 11 and Excess 13 as they all use the same Scheiber systems.