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Oi! I have had my licence plates in my windows for years. As it happens, we did this today :

There's been loads of discussion on various threads on the use of lithium batteries on canal boats. None have however really looked at an affordable way to do ie get the benefit of lithiums but at a realistic cost. We've now had LiFePo's on our boat for 3 months and so I now understand them....something that is not easy if you have never tried them. This post therefore is aimed at the peeps who would benefit from Li's ie CC'ers or CM'ers who don't spend a lot of their time on shore power. Is it possible to get all the benefits from Li's for £500? ….........It may be!!! I am not going to go into all the benefits of Li's here. Suffice to say that during Oct/Feb when the sun is on strike and the solar isnt doing its job, you could reduce your engine running to 1 to 2 hours a day and save 6-10 hours engine running a week.....much less noise.....much less diesel....much less faffing. They should last 10 years. They are really easy to look after and even in the summer I am so much more relaxed about power now. I am sure that will generate a big debate. Bottom line is the benefits are significant and much less faffing. OK. Lets for a second, accept that and see if the cost/benefit stack up. Option 1 is to go to Victron and get them to put in their commercial system. £6K. Ouch! No way. Never going to pay back. Too much to go wrong. Option 2 is a DIY system like T&B or Moominpapa put in. They chose a hybrid system retaining the start lead acid battery so when the batteries are full, the charging sources have something to 'dump' into. Very important that! Option 3 is sort of similar to that, which is what I did, but my hybrid system retained the whole 660Ahr of lead acid and just added the 480Ahr of LiFePo4 in parallel. My system is described in https://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?/topic/99667-another-lithium-battery-thread/page/9/ …....its all good info with Peter, T&B and Moominpapa all putting in their designs. Look at post 212 on page 9 for what I ended up with. Effectively then I have my LiFePo4s sitting 'on top' of my LA's. The way it works is that the Li's work between 13.3V and 12.8V. If say I am sitting at 13.2V (rested) then the Li's will be 80% full and the LA's 100% full. As I use power, the Li's will drop to 12.7V (at say 30% SoC) and then the LA's will start to provide power as well. You can run the two banks down to 12.0V and there is still power in the Li bank. Think of it as a water tank on top of a water tank. The top one empties first, then the bottom one. When you fill them back up, the bottom one fills first then the top one …..but and it is a big BUT....when filling the top tank it can be filled at what ever rate you can put it in until the last 3%. With this hybrid system you can always fill it full blast until the last 3% AND you never need to fill it that much anyway and it is better you dont. The unlimited fill rate is the key benefit of the LiFePo4 for me. Now, my system cost me £1000 for 3* 160Ahr cells (3 * 4 cells) plus around £500 for control electronics to stop me wrecking them. When I put them in, no one had suggested this 50/50 hybrid. Everyone was thinking replace all the lead acids. The ability to 'fill the top tank' however leads me to believe there is a simple and cheap way to do this. So ….....Option 4. Keep all your LA's ...say a 440/550/660 Ahr bank and just put one Lithium battery on top. Hence you buy a 2nd hand 160Ahr LifePo4 (cost around £330) and bolt it on top of your LA's. It will be exactly the same as mine but just with a bit less capacity in the top tank. So, lets assume at the end of the day you are 60Ahrs down off full, you have 660Ahrs in your 6 lead acids and 100Ahr in your LiFePo4s. Overnight you use 100A. Your LA's are then over 90% full and your LiFePo4 will be around 30% full. Start charging the following day and you can get full charge in to replenish your used 100Ahr. None of this waiting round to get over the slow LA tail current. My alternator will put 50A in this range. It could get 90A in if I tried. There is no problem at the bottom end as the Li can go down to 12.0V (and lower) without damage so you have at least 100Ahr usable capacity out of the lithiums and 300Ahrs from the LA's. I cant see what can go wrong here with the Li's keeping the LA's fully charged. It is what I am doing but with less 'top tank' capacity. The LA's should last for 5 years plus....I will report back on how mine are doing...far too early to tell yet. You do then have the issue of how to stop overcharging but it is not so desperate to prevent wrecking £300 of LiFePo4's compared to £6K. It however looks quite simple. I use my BV712 to switch off charge to the Li's when the voltage gets over 13.7V (80% SoC). I am using a BEP motorised switch but you could use a simple high power relay as T&B and Moominpapa are using (£30 from a car breakers yard?) but you would need some sort of electronics to switch that relay. I have got cell monitoring for £70 connected to the BEP but I dont think you really need it and a £25 meter from Amazon will give you cell voltages. I bought a cheap board from Amazon (£10) to monitor over and under voltage with a loud alarm. For less than £200 you should be able to put in place something that will stop you overcharging the Li's. If you are CC'ing though, you will get into a rhythm and cycle between your 'full' and 'empty' limits and know where you are. It is not easy to look at a lead acid system and see voltage and current draw and decide what the SoC. With Li's it is easy with a bit of experience. I now keep my voltage between 12.8V and 13.1V. If I am at 13.1V at the start of the day and about to do a 5hr lock passage, I will isolate the Li bank and then reconnect later in the day as I prefer not to go over 80% SoC. It is set though that it will disconnect automatically at 80% SoC (at 13.7V). I know that at 13.1V I am near 70% full and every hour of engine running will put that up by 10% more. With a small Li bank, these numbers change and the Li will charge quicker. For less than £500 it should be possible to augment your current 4/5/6 *110Ahr LA system with a 'top tank' that is reasonably robust and should allow much much less engine running. That would pay back for itself if it doubles the life of your cheapo LA's plus all the savings from running the engine 100-150 hours a winter more. I will know a lot more on how long the LA's will last and each year will try and assess how their capacity is decreasing. In the meantime, I spend far less time looking at my power than I did with my LA only, as it is far more predictable. It's also nice that the 12V electrics are sitting at near 13.0V under load in the evening and the lights dont flash anymore when the water pump cuts in. It's an interesting concept and a different spin on a hybrid system.

Last Saturday we took our narrowboat, Leo, across the Wash from Wisbech to Boston. Anyone considering this journey may find it interesting to read our blog on this here: https://ianhelencanals.blogspot.com/2019/05/crossing-wash-from-wisbech-to-boston.html

I really wish you all the best but would suggest that what you have bought is not an ideal boat for someone new to the world of boating. Good luck.

But only need to run my engine for 1 to 2 hours per day anyway. I think there is another option: Get a decent set of lead/acid domestic batteries and set your boat up for low power consumption when away from shore power. LED lights throughout, gas fridge, small flat screen TV that draws 1 - 2 amps, 12v car stereo that draws an amp, etc. I don't use my laptop when I'm away and just go online on the phone. It's all about reducing electrical power consumption, but I really don't feel that I'm deprived in any way.

In summary yes. Once you start charging at 50A, with an at rest voltage around 13.0V (60% full), the Li's will immediately rise to 13.4V ish. As the charge goes up, the voltage rises so you can disconnect the bank at 13.5V (say 70%) at 13.7 (say 85%) or at 13.9% (95%). Watching voltage is all you need. No need for a smartgauge. It is totally different to Lead acids where you get to the constant voltage state of 14.2+V. Voltage rises as SoC increases. I am not sure yet about solar and if your solar was putting in 20A, would that take you up to and over 100%? For me its easy. I just estimate how much is likely to go in and disconnect if you are away for the day and think too much would go in. My solar MPPTs can be set for a max of 13.7V bulk and 13.2v float. I dont let my Li's go above 80% SoC with the alternator so lots of room for solar to go in. I would use an over voltage cut out and the BEP switch coupled with the BMV works great......but there are cheaper solutions to keep the cost down.

Mine is mike and it works well, I have a cheap MPPT controller on my electric truck and that turns off the solar as well when fully charged. John V has his LifePo4s in parallel with his LAs and that has been on the go for the same amount of time as mine, and its working very well,so go for it! Today solar wise its been a scorcher here so my immersion heater has got the water that hot its turned on the central heating!! so I have lashings of hot water and hot towels as well, I think I will alter the stat on the central heating though................. Forgot to say whispergen is easy go into settings and alter them to 27.6 abs and 27.2 float will work fine like mine

It strikes me that when the dust gets into the water (and it will) it will sink to the bottom. It will consist mostly of dried paint and particles of iron oxide. There is an awful lot of both already in contact with the water all over the place -- the stuff that is still attached to a boat -- so I can't believe it is particularly harmful to the environment. I'd say just go for it, but don't do it near anyone else's bote.

And At Westminster:

A quite amazing trip, though running up a gravel bank in Putney at 7 mph was a somewhat unexpected extra. All canals should be supplied with rising tides to easily resolve such situations. I was far too busy steering to take photos, but my brother-in-law got this perfectly framed example as we passed Tower Bridge. MP.

IF you haven't seen it already, the complete BSS requirements for private boats can be downloaded here. A lot won't apply to your boat. Go through it methodically and if there are any questions then please ask here. The electrical system you have is relatively simple, so replacing the dogs dinner that is there with something that complies shouldn't be as bad as it at first seems. Jen

I agree with Blackrose that a good set of LA's with low power usage is a good solution....if you want to live with low power. I'm with Peter on this. Why give up all your mod cons when you move to live on a boat? We havent. We have most stuff we had at home except for a dishwasher. Ok, the washing machine only works on cold water (unless you bung some hot in before you close the door) but otherwise we are pretty much all 240v. A lot of peeps on here seem to think that you must go 12V (and gas fridges etc) to conserve power and eek out that scarce commodity. We use 100-140 Ahr per day and thanks to LiFePo4s we can put it back in quite easily and not worry about replacing LA's every 2-3 years.

Not if the boaters he is comparing against has a CRt mooring with a tap.

Your fuel tank vent is lying on the floor beneath the fuse -box. You will probably find a bollard at the stern of the boat which has a screw thread in the top of it - screw the vent in and Robert's your Mothers Brother. The electrics need total removal and replacing correctly.. The wiring is domestic Twin & Earth and should not be used on a boat. No more needs to be said. Is that an electric water heater with the 'European plug and adapter', connected to the inverter ?

There was a "CCer" based on the Tring summit in less strict times, two boats strapped together and one of the boats had a full sized bath. They used to cruise down to the water point every Saturday and have a bath whilst filling the tank. (I presume/hope they used the shower on board the 2nd boat on other days) . I would think that they would have done this if they had a mooring with a tap too so the story is a bit pointless and doesn't back up Slims assertion.?

Way more than you need to. With a small but decent solar setup you will not need to run your engine for nine months of the year.Your neighbours would be delighted!

Interesting and thoughtful post, Dr Bobble. I was broadly intending to do much the same and connect my 200AH 24v Li bank in parallel with my four knackered Trojanoids, then I rather lost interest as the Whispergen performs so well keeping them charged as it does it quietly, and the heat it delivers at the same time is broadly needed the most when the solar works the least, so peak whispergen use in winter and not much in summer works really well. The thing that prevents me from connecting up the Li bank is needing to put the effort in to designing exactly how to stop it over and under charging. From what you say I don't need to worry at all about undercharging as I can just keep an eye on the volt meter. Stopping the Li bank overcharging strikes me as almost as simple given I'm happy to keep a weather eye on the volt meter. All I really need is a whopping great Li bank master switch next to the voltmeter if I understand you correctly, and the terminal voltage barely rises during charging, so can be relied upon to indicate SoC even during charge. The bits I still need to think about are what charging profile to set on the solar Tracer and on the Whispergen. Given it's not easy for me to turn the solar off when I'm not there, I think I still need some sort of over-voltage automatic cutoff. Or maybe the solar can be programmed not to go over 13.7v...

That's their fault for using the wrong boat for the river.

Another 'brilliant invention' I've come up with that someone has beaten me too...

Same here Bob except I have even less controls than you do, as I watch 37amps are going in, its up to 13.6 V per battery, and my immersion heater is heating water for the day using the drive solar perfik As an afterthought I fitted 3 solar panels to the electric truck yesterday 300 watts each, when I connected them up they were putting in nearly 900 watts!! they came from a guy that fits solar farms these panels are the business, wish all the panels on the boat were this type so good

I didn’t type “we are”, I typed “we’re” which, when shouted out, sounds like “where”.

After eeversing for a mile or so we found a handy winding hole ?

We've now had LiFePo's on board for 3 months......and I am blown away with how 'good' they are. I went into this thinking that they would take a lot of managing. How wrong could I have been! Siiiiiimple. Dont have to worry about getting them full. EVER! I check em once per day (just a quick look at the voltage and current draw) and guess the SoC. Now we are in a routine it is simple. We are a heavy power user and now using circa 120-140Ahr per day. The debate about are lithiums good for boats, to me, is about 2 things. The benefits and then the costs. You have to understand the benefits first before trying to compare costs as they are VERY different to Lead acids. However, I would NEVER dream of getting a pukka Victron system in as the cost is ridiculus. A DIY system using 2nd hand Li's is doable. I posted a thread in Jan which has the details of my system. The benefit to us is not having to run the engine for hours to fully charge the batteries. On our cheapo lead acids, we used to try and get to 100% every other day or at least twice a week which is quite difficult when the solar is on strike (Oct-Feb). We managed to keep our capacity up to 90% on the 6 LA's over a two year period (so not too much deterioration) but it took effort to think about when to run the engine and DMR's tactic of running the engine once per week for 6 hours is typical. We probably did it more. This has to be an issue for CC'er (and more so CM'ers). Li's get you out of this rut. If you are using 100Ahrs a day then less than 2 hours per day is needed. You could save 100-150 engine hours over the winter. That is a lot of noise to stop making - and diesel - and engine servicing......and faffing. With Lithiums, you know exactly what is going in. Start the engine and 50A is showing on the gauge....and keeps showing. On ours, I know 2 hours engine running will put in 100A. I dont need to think about 'when will they be at 100%'? If I set the alternator at a higher output then it would take less time (just cautious about overcooking the alternator). We cycle ours between 20% and 80%. Maybe I should back off a bit and stop charging at 70%? I wont bore any of you here with my views on cost comparisons as I have some ideas on an affordable way of using lithiums. My system cost me £1500 for 480Ahr (at 12v) of which £500 was for the wiring/switching/protection which is way over the top of what would work. I will start another thread when I have time later in the week on that. There is no doubt to me that lithiums are the way to go if you are CC'ing or CM'ing, but not if you spend months on a land line.

Not as bad as the alleged Singapore duck photo.

T'aint a stud. it's a stainless bolt through a hole drilled in a rib of the boat followed by the wiring lugs, a spring washer and a nyloc nut. That lot isn't going to come loose. However, just to stick with convention I may separate AC and DC by drilling a second hole

Believe me, some of the CRT employees try their best to get some movement of boaters, or action moving against those who are determined to do nothing to help, or achieve that minimal amount they signed up for. They face not only their own organisation HR structure, but also management who have as one of their yearly KPI,,'s "less than x percent of complaints" By cruising past them for 6 months, you achieve nothing of information about the said boaters. They may well have a short term agreement locally or with head office that illness or other good reason means they have moored there. There is nothing in the licence T&C that you have to stick up notices stating your reasons for overstating to the local towpath walkers.

If you are a non smoker and can smell even the slightest smell of gas anywhere in the boat, then there will be a leak somewhere . When I was employed, part of my job was being leader of a team that had to survey about 50 lpg installations annually. The vast majority of these installations were for dispensing lpg on service stations into cars and bottle filling. The procedure was to get lowdown at the base of a dispenser and get someone else to remove the cover on that side. If there was any smell of gas at all, it could often take a couple of hours with leak detecting fluid and mirrors, flameproof torches checking every joint and spindle to find, just the trace of a bubble every few seconds. Every joint needed watching for up to a minute. Yes we used bubble testers, manometers, and flammable gas testers and we routinely soap tested (using the right stuff) every joint and spindle. Included on the team was a fitter from the maintenance contractor, We would not leave the site until the leak was either fixed and the installation rechecked, or locked off until repaired and I would have to make a return visit to certify rectification. Every 5 years the pipework was pressure tested for 24 hours, and every ten years the tank was degassed, internally inspected and cleaned. A major job taking up couple of days and a large team of certified staff and specialised equipment. It was a nice way of seeing a nice part of the country except in poor weather. My annual checks were in addition to the daily operator checks, and independent scheduled checks, (I think 3 monthly by the maintenance contractor) that I had to monitor. My checks would always pick up some failures, if gas could escape it would. Any smell of gas, or imagined smell of gas must be followed up, firstly isolate the supply, and then progessively check from the supply to furthest burner. A danger is that the stenching agent is less persistent then propane and butane and boat bilges are just as effective as collecting any escaped lpg as they are at collecting water. They don't cancel each other out but the water will absorb the stenching agent.

The lock gates will be reinstated after the show, until then lock28E is closed UFN

google states: "The Silver Snoopy is an award given by NASA to employees and colleague agencies for outstanding contributions to mission safety or success. First introduced in 1968, the honour was back by Schulz himself, who was an avid supporter of the US space programme—and the Peanuts-NASA connection doesn’t end there. The Apollo 10 mission, which was the second mission to orbit the Moon, used Peanuts characters as calls signs during its journey into space. "

I disagree, they are fairly high, only the Pennine ones are higher.

Caldwell Windows and Channel Glaze (to name but 2)n seem to think it's feasible - they make windows with a groove in the frame for this purpose. I have these and it appears Matty (see above) does too - in fact, I thought this idea was so ubiquitous I'm wondering if anyone here doesn't have this feature in their reasonably modern narrowboat windows.

Ours has this feature, once a year we clean the drain holes out. Dacia DUSTER

I think you can do that with any FLA's - its the next 10% that takes the time, then the last 5% takes 'forever'.