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Rubbish. Even when correctly adjusted, the bluish light destroys peoples night vision and the power saving is irrelevant because the engine is running when the tunnel light is on and thus powered by the alternator.

Got my 4 layer boards back from China just before Christmas, pretty quick really considering it was the cheapest postage. Also done a bit of work on the software and sleep modes to minimise power consumption so now, once the display times out, it uses just under 2mA. And if it has to do emergency disconnect of the Tyco relay due to cell under-voltage it goes to sleep and only uses 0.2mA. Eat your heart out Raspberry Pi users! You wake it by pressing the button, which also makes it reconnect the relay (hopefully after you’ve put a bit of charge in). Here’s a pretty pic to pass the time, also showing in the base of the plastic box it’s going to be installed in. Yes I know I haven’t finished soldering in a couple of chips, they are just the CANBUS, RS232 and battery temperature probe interfaces and I know that all works. And the buzzer, that works too. Yes that will increase the power consumption, but only by a few 10s of micro amps when they are sleeping. I managed to unsolder many of the components including the AD7280 (the tiny square chip) from an earlier prototype and resolder it onto the new board. Which was fun (not!). It must be quite resilient because it still works! yellow wires go to the Tyco relay, other connector is to the cells (via the little fuse board) and the other 2 small connectors (not yet installed) are for the cell balancing and interface to the BMV712. Cant remember if I mentioned it but it now looks like it might be possible to write a new value of SoC to the BMV using the VE.Direct Hex protocol, which would be good because it would allow a hybridised SoC based on Ah counting and cell voltages to be displayed on the BMV. I need to investigate that one further.

If the paint on approaching boats is blistered and smoking, or if oncoming plastic and wooden boats catch fire, or if your forward vision is being restricted by steam boiling off the water, or if the tunnel brickwork behind your boat is still glowing red and making plinking noises as it cools, then your tunnel light is too bright.

I scream, you scream, we all scream, widebeam!

Haha yes. But just for clarity, this is the BMS not the alternator controller. I decided early on in the project that they would be separate entities, not quite sure if that was the right decision as they share a lot of data, but it now is what it is!

or someone who it seem has not yet realised manufacturers and marketeers spend a lot of time getting as close to lying as they can in their own rather than a customer's best interest.

Your understanding is wrong -- OEM LED (and HID, and laser...) headlights fitted to new cars do have a maximum light output specified, but it is higher than halogen headlights. This is why they have to have a very tight beam pattern, self-levelling fitted and also headlight washers, all to prevent excessive glare to oncoming traffic. Properly fitted lights like this are usually OK, though the plague of tall SUVs with the lights much higher off the ground makes glare worse. Done properly (my car has the active beam pattern/matrix type referred to) LED headlights are fantastic -- on a dark road they stay on "main beam" but steer dark areas over oncoming cars and also cars in front of you, it's fascinating to watch the dark patches follow other vehicles, and I've never once been flashed at night. Unfortunately a lot of the aftermarket add-on lights -- especially the "light bar" types without a proper reflector -- seem to ignore all the rules, which is why they're so horribly dazzling. Also a lot of people fit HID/LED headlight conversion kits to older cars which is a disaster, the beam pattern is usually wrong and they don't have self-levelling or cleaning -- result, loads of glare. These lights are what will usually be fitted to boats since they're cheap and widely available, but the fault is really the cheap nasty badly-designed lights which happen to be LEDs. If you use lights like this then the post quoted is correct, they'll cause dazzle no matter which way they're pointed because they don't have any proper beam control. However trying to find proper foglights which don't have this problem is well-nigh impossible nowadays, most "foglights" in modern cars are really built-in styling accessories for morons to keep on all the time, and very few (none?) of the LED lights available online are designed for the job either -- which is why a proper old-fashioned halogen foglamp like you used to see grille-mounted more than twenty years ago (but turned upside down) is often the best option.

This is at Bascote looking along the old narrow chamber with new wide locks alongside; it looks like a derelict / restoration-project canal.

We have a 1920s Fowler traction engine light. Unfortunately it no longer has the paraffin lamp inside. I have modified it to have an LED lamp. the bulls eye lens does diffuse the light well but as I don't want to blind oncoming boats it is angled to the right and upwards onto the roof of the tunnel. It is mounted on a CCTV bracket which has good adjustment - it is similar to this. We remove the light when not required as it is very collectable.

1. mounted like this, causes the beam to be reflected from the water surface, causing blindness for on-coming steerers. 2. is the better way for all concerned. The light mounting can be either way up, but the beam is aimed above horizontal, and to the right. As a fairly regular user of the Crick tunnel, I've suffered from all types of miss alignment, and had to have strong words in passing to the worst offenders. Bod

I suspect that one major problem for identifying possible leaks is the current way people want to preserve the natural environment. Historically, one of the main jobs for a bankranger, to use the L&LC term, was to keep down vegetation, making it much easier to identify sites where there was a problem. The two photos are of Bingley 5-rise in 1881 and 2012, and shows the increase in tree growth, let alone other vegetation. Environmentalists do tend to forget that canals are man-made structures, and need to be looked after as such, rather than as purely natural.

Are you talking about your main water tank or your calorifier? Some main tanks are integral to the hull at the bow and completely uninsulated.

Hi folks I’ve joined the forum to add to this thread. With regards to the military canal it runs from Hythe yes where you can rent a rowing boat for the day or use your own. It continues to the junction with the Rother at Iden which comes under the road bridge and turns 90deg which would look like a continuation of the canal. A gate separates the two which is only used to control flood waters emptying the river into it or vice versa. My boat is an 18ft with outboard which can navigate the river from Rye to Bodium, any further only possible in canoes and the like. environment agency do manage the lock through to the tidal section (useable for free)

I forgot, it's dark now.

Wishing you all the best of luck and hopefully you'll find one & on your way you will pass a few unicorns and find a few hens teeth.

I had career spanning over 40 years working with batteries, covering maintenance, installation, specification and project management. Tony is absolutely spot on that the fastest battery killers are failing to fully recharge and over discharging. After those two, high temperatures will significantly reduce battery life. VRSLAs (aka AGMs) life expectancy is reduced by half for every 8°C over 20°C, slighly less for wet cells, which is why in most critical applications batteries are kept in dedicated air conditioned battery rooms.

Bascote Bottom lock was what Peter titled it when posting on Canal Plan https://canalplan.org.uk/photo/ftgm_3

give yourself a pat on the back as you’ve made a lot of people happy on this forum as they are only happy when they have something to moan about ?

A Hard Day's Flight.

Napoleon was a great tactician. Being dead for 200 years is just the sort of trick he would pull to lull perfidious Albion in to a false sense of security. Eternal vigilance! Dredge the Royal Military Canal at once!

Disgraceful you even considering it, not only is it in Tier4, so are you, even untieing your lines might give someone in wales Covid.?

Just watched the restoration of the Jeep. To me looks like a bit of a rushed job, shot of primer runs, and the whole primer coat looked too thin, to my eyes anyway. If the guy rebuilding the Jeep was working in an open barn I am not surprised, he must have been cold. Overall though I am in awe of the skill of those involved. To me it is lovely to see the joy of those on the receiving end of the restorations.

I have a 55W car fog light. Plenty bright enough for tunnels and general cruising in the dark. I've been thinking of getting an LED bulb for it, (for a few years ), but, as the engine will almost always be running when it's on, power useage isnt really an issue. I previously had one of those LED spotlight things.... lit the world up like daylight, but blinded oncomers - as soon as I realised what a bad choice it was, I replaced it with the fog light.

Please avoid the LED stage blinders sold as tunnel lights, they live up to their festival and theatre name they blind the guy coming towards you, you will see him cover his eyes, slow down probably bounce off the wall before he hits you because he cannot see you. LED lights also emit more blue / UV light which like sunlight destroys night vision. As the engine is running and your alternator is probably only lightly loaded a good old fashioned halogen fog lamp is perfect. Aim the beam to the right and up, then you steer to keep the horseshoe of light in the centre of the roof. Tunnels are dark places so even a small light makes things visible if you want to see the brickwork etc then a bright light at the stern, which you can switch off when a boat approaches, will give you a good view.

A relative who works for Ford, tells me that most electric cars seem to have been bought as second cars, used for short journeys, rather as replacements for the main vehicle. Certainly all the accounts of actual long distance trips that have appeared in the motoring press in the past couple of months have not been calculated to encourage changing to pure electric, quite the opposite! While there are now automotive batteries that can be charged rapidly, you can only make two consecutive rapid charges without irreversibly damaging the battery. Ford have just released a video of their electric Mustang. To facilitate rapid charge, the battery has had to be provided with a refrigeration unit to keep the temperature down, another thing that reduces the effective charging efficiency. My own understanding of battery technology, wearing my hat as a retired former professional electrical engineer, is that there is normally a trade- off between rate of charge and charging efficiency, meaning that the faster the charge, the lower the proportion of energy put in that can be taken out again. Likewise, local battery storage to top up the grid will always involve some loss of energy due to the double conversion. However, the main problem with the grid seems to be that the increasing proportion of electricity from renewable sources is affecting the frequency stability of the grid. You used to be able to rely on a synchronous-motored mains electric clock to show the correct time to within a few seconds: these days mine can vary by at least 30 seconds either way relative to the Greenwich time pips of Radio 4 FM. With the possibly sole exception of hydro-electricity, renewable sources either generate power at DC (solar), or at a non-synchronous frequency (wind). The grid has traditionally relied on the mechanical inertia of massive rotating generators to act as an electrical flywheel to keep the grid frequency stable: the electronic DC-AC and AC -DC- AC convertors used to convert solar and wind power to 50Hz, rely on the grid as the reference frequency for their final AC conversion stages. There was a massive blackout a few months ago when one large renewable source tripped, causing several other renewable generators to trip because the remaining conventional generators were unable to maintain the frequency within the specified limits. As far as I know, a solution to this problem, which has been known about for many years, is still awaited. I don't own a boat myself, but have taken canal holidays on average every other year since 1976. To me, one of the joys of canal holidays has been the ability to moor up at remote locations, enjoying the peace and quiet of the countryside, and watching the sun go down over the fields. The idea of having a network of charging stations at marinas and the like would be akin to hiring a camper van for a touring holiday and having to spend each night at a motorway service area.

I think you will find its 2 Mt between people, not people and boats.