Leaderboard

Initially when first on the water with our solar and new batteries the SOC became a bit of a worry almost to a point of paranoia LOL, I could have well paid £100 +++ for a battery monitor around that time, fortunately I didn't. Now having lived with the system for 8 months I can pretty much judge how the batteries are faring by looking at the original analogue needle gauge on the 12v panel. We do have a fitted amp meter too and don't take too much notice of that either. Just through a couple of months trial & error I reckon I can judge the batteries SOC as well as any gadget gadget. I do try not to let batteries go over 50% SOC, but in reality I'm not going to lose sleep over it, we went 4 days a couple of weeks ago with poor weather and hardly any input from solar, batteries would have been well below 50% SOC but I didn't need to burn expensive fuel to recharge them either, so I might lose a tiny fraction of battery life, but how much would the fuel cost and wear & tare on engine against a possible tiny amount of lost battery life. Our analogue volt gauge has in the past read Empty but ample power on the boat, if I disconnect all loads from the batteries, within a couple of hours they're back up to 12.4/5v I really don't think spending money on these type gadgets gains anything. Our MPPT controller also logs how many amps gleaned so some simple maths keeps us on top of things, learning how you use and judge your own energy use accordingly is much more interesting. Having not ever drained batteries to the point of setting of inverter alarms I reckon we're doing pretty well. We do use a clamp meter a lot through the winter though for charging purposes, really useful for assessing amps input to better select appropriate charge methods.

Maybe they are merely concerned about their grandchildren being killed by motorists who don't have the sense to drive at an appropriate speed.

Ha!, fame made in the press It reminds me of a boat I passed on The Thames in Richmond last weekend. A 25" Sunseeker Cruiser called "Attention Seeker". We had a giggle

...She has explained why she closed the VMs and I for one can have some sympathy with her viewpoint - there are unfortunately a few very inconsiderate people about who - in this case - certainly spoil it for everyone else. Rather than just condemn her, why not set about persuading her of an alternative solution such as VMs available by prior arrangement, then she can disallow anyone who has previously caused her grief. Ed to remove comments relating to a deleted post.

Since June is new to this forum..... Here is her reply to gazza, from the introductions thread: Edited to remove commentary.

I have to say I think it is rather unhelpful to the OP, who (and I hope she will forgive me if I am wrong here) doesn't seem to have much knowledge of battery electrics, and probably not much interest in gaining such, when posters can't resist saying how clever they are to be able to know their battery state by performing complex differential calculus on the number of hydrogen atoms in their batteries (that they have personally counted), applying a factor acquired by oberving their tea leaves, and then running the whole thing through an analogue computer that uses seaweed as the ALU. For someone whose hobby is not staring at their batteries all day, the Smartgauge is the obvious choice for a fit-and-forget solution to having a pretty good idea how the batteries are doing, at a glance, without needoing to have a degree in subatomic physics. Clever:yes. Helpful:no

i have a black prince 1997/98 that had also never been out the water since it was launched, this is a pic after the survey. we still bought the boat and are now liveaboards, if you like i,t get it surveyed it could be ok.