Ernie
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Posts posted by Ernie
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I was walking the dogs. Did wonder who threw the boat speed camera alert device (£149 + VAT from all good swindlers) on to my cabin top though.
Yeh, yeh, yeh, still in your kip I bet
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Hi Kath,
The item that would concern me the most is the induction hob (also the combi oven if you think it will be on for any length of time in a day) as it is going to consume serious amounts of power. Are you going to have a generator to run it? I would not want to try and run it via an inverter due to the load on the batteries and the problems associated with getting the batteries re-charged again (it’s much easier to discharge the batteries than it is to re-charge them).
As you know, we live aboard and our single (well, my single) biggest headache is batteries and keeping them in a good state of charge.
We have a 660Ah battery bank (6x110Ah) and our only real loads are the 12V fridge, 12V freezer and the computer. Even with these fairly light loads (compared to an induction hob or combi microwave) we have the hassle of having to run the engine or the generator for 2/3 hours a day when we are not cruising to get the batteries back up.
I must admit to being a bit over protective of our batteries (they are expensive items these days and will only continue to go up in price due to their lead content and the world price of lead), I try to keep them above 65% at all times so that I have a bit of a safety net so to speak.
We almost always run the generator in the evenings (up till 20:00) if we are watching the TV or running the washing machine or using the PC for any length of time. I also fire up the generator every time SWMBO needs to run the hair dryer, hoover or microwave (only ever used for defrosting).
As for gas, most boat yards will change the cylinder over for you if you flutter your eyelashes at the guys (I guess this statement will get me in trouble with someone out there
). If I were you, I would definitely got for gas for cooking and possibly hot water and heating as well.Best of luck with your new boat.
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Expensive or not pure is what I want on account of running laptop.
Thanks
Kath
I think you will find that the laptop will be quite happy on almost any inverter.
It’s equipment with phase controlled motors etc. that are fussy e.g. washing machines, electric power tools etc.
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We had one fitted last year and wouldn’t be without it.
It gives us a wet room where we can dry off the dogs and take off and dry our wet coats and boots etc. before entering the boat
As mentioned above, I can work on the engine in all weathers which is great as I don’t want to be down the ole when the weather is nice.
Helps keep water out of the bilges (it’s supposed to be a self draining deck but it still leaks a bit).
I can (and do) use the gas BBQ in all weathers.
When the mood takes, I can unzip a side and through my toys out (passed by your boat this morning Dominic but no sign of you – was about 08:15). My bow thruster died 18 months ago and I will throw it out when I get a around to it, nothing but a waste of precious battery power. Why anyone would want one I will never know
Would never dream of trying to cruise with it up though as the plastic screen distorts the view too much. Having said that, I can see through it much better after a couple of bottles of Rose.
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My exhaust produces soot particles and all sorts of other cr*p. Would it be a good idea for that go get blown into the cylinders of another engine via its open exhaust valves?
Gibbo
Agreed, the black, oily, sooty crap that comes out of my (fairly new – 600 hours on the clock) Honda diesel generator is unbelievable. As Gibbo says, I wouldn’t want that being pumped into my engine.
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Nannidiesel is another engine option you might want to consider.
We have the 4.195 model and are happy with it.
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It's the temperature of that condenser grille at the back of the fridge that really matters, not the air around it. If it gets hot at all while the fridge is running then some forced cooling will help.
A good way to check is pull the fridge out, see how hot it's getting then try running a 10-12" desk fan hard up against it. See what difference there is in 'duty cycle' with and without the fan.
I'd lose some wood, for running off generated power I reckon it makes a lot of sense to supplement some of it with solar.
cheers,
Pete.
Thanks Pete,
Now looking into panels - new thread here:
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Following on from the ‘running a fridge’ thread, I am now looking into buying a solar panel(s) and a controller to help reduce the amount of generator running time needed to keep my batteries topped up.
After having a quick search on the web, there seems to be many different panel technologies to choose from.
If I sort out the roof, I can probably accommodate two panels of up to 18 inches by 54 inches in size – one panel on each side of the roof.
Can anyone recommend any particular type and manufacturer of panel please? Also, I guess I will need a controller to go with them.
Thanks in advance…..
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If I was in your situation I'd use fans to get the consumption down to around 60Ah/day
I'd then get 120W of solar which would put back 30Ah/day on average.
This would leave a requirement of 30Ah/day, far less than 77Ah/day.
cheers,
Pete.
Hi Pete,
To be honest, I don’t think more fans will help much as it doesn’t get very warm behind the fridge and freezer any more. Just measured behind the freezer and it is 25 degrees C. The temperature in the galley is 22 C so the best I could hope for is a 3 degree drop.
I might try a fan to blow air up from the base plate but there is not much of a gap under the floor behind the fridge and freezer as it is all taken up with ballast.
I have thought about solar a few times but we don’t have any spare space on the roof – it’s just about all taken up with logs and coal.
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Going 240v goes against the collective wisdom.
The figures that I gave were based on the 240v reading (it was easier to measure) so at a guess you will have to add 10% to allow for inverter losses this will bring it up to about 73Ah on a 12v system. I do have the inverter set to standby when not in use with the cut in power at 6 watts, this draws about 4Ah/day with everything on the boat switched off so a total of 77Ah/day
The reason that I went 240 is simple I spend 9 months a year on my mooring so running everything off the landline make total sense.
Julian
77Ah/day would still be a saving of some 25% in my case.
I don't want to have to add a load more fans.
I suspect that a 240V fridge/freezer would also give us a bit more fridge and freezer space as well. Biggest problem is that I am not sure we have the space in the galley to fit one in !!
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Just defrosted the fridge and freezer and while I was at it I measured their current consumptions at their power terminals.
Fridge (model RR46A) = 1.8A
Freezer (model RU26) = 4.5A
Battery bank currently around 13.8V as the generator is on charging the batteries.
Phoned Shoreline to see if these numbers are reasonable.
Shoreline’s response: Yes, the numbers sound reasonable. The freezer is higher than the fridge because the freezer motor runs faster.
I explained that the daily consumption was 100+ Ah and again, Shorelines said that this was reasonable.
Shoreline suggested that I turn the fridge down (up) from 3 degrees C to 5 degrees C and the freezer down (up) from minus 18 to minus 12 with the added advise that food in the freezer should not then be stored for any longer than 4 weeks at this higher temperature.
So, all in all, 100Ah per day does not sound ‘highly efficient’ to me – compared to a high efficiency 240 fridge/freezer combined unit – or am I missing something ??
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If you haven't done so already, try Odorloss. You may have to flush the all blue out of your tank a few times first if you've been using it previously.
Thanks, I will give it a try
Generally tanks smell when theres not enough adequate oxygen/air getting to the liquid waste - do you have a 32mm breather pipe ?Yes, it's 32mm but has the carbon filter 'in-line' with the breather pipe which probably reduces the effective diameter a bit. May be better off just removing the filter ??
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It may not only be the inverter losses that make the difference. The quoted energy consumption figures for the 12v Shoreline fridges and fridge-freezers are much lower then the quoted figures for correspondingly-sized 240v models. Of course, it's impossible to know how much reliance you can place on the quotes.
Hi Allan,
I am currently seeing an almost constant drain into the fridge and freezer of between 5 and 6 amps (combined total).
My BEP battery monitor tells me that the fridge and freezer combination is using between 100 and 120 Ah in a 24 hour period (the other 12V loads on the boat are negligible, a bit of water pump and a bit of shower pump).
My hypothesis is that running two separate 12V pumps is less efficient than running one 240V pump with inverter losses.
I am more than happy to be proven wrong, in fact I would love to be proven wrong as I don’t particularly like the idea of leaving the inverter running 24/7.
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Why would a lockkeeper tell you how to make your entrance? Are you sure there wasn't a misunderstanding?
I don’t believe there was any misunderstanding.
Quote from my web page:
As we were getting close to the entrance while still heading downstream, the lock keeper called us up on the radio and suggested that we should just cross the river and head straight into the lock as there was no other traffic about.
To be very fair to the lock keeper, he was certainly not giving us a ‘command’, just the suggestion that the lock was ready for us and nothing was coming so we could cross now and enter the lock.
Our ‘Plan A’ was to enter as you suggest in your post.
Personally, next time I am down Limehouse way, regardless of what the lock keeper ‘suggests’, I will follow the ‘Plan A’ and approach from down stream just to see how it goes that way.
I guess the lock keeper saw no problem entering the lock by the direct method otherwise he would not have suggested we do it ???
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To be completely honest they sent me a few metres but the new stuff is still in a box in the engine room. I fitted a new expensive odour filter from Lee Sanitation because it stank when I flushed, but the new filter didn't do anything. When I visited their stand at Crick they told me that my Vacuflush cassette was designed to be emptied every few days (not the fortnighly intervals I was leaving it). I still didn't understand why their odour filter didn't work - I mean either it worked or it didn't regardless of how long you leave crap in the tank! Then I discovered Odorloss holding tank treatment and that completely cured the problem (previously I wasn't using anything because Lee told me that they didn't recommend anything in their toilets, especially Blue which leads to sludge formation.) Trouble is if you empty as infrequently as I do you need to use something in the tank.
So perhaps that smell wan't coming from the sanitary pipe in the first place, but now at least I have a new length of pipe for when it does need replacing!
We have one of those expensive carbon filters on the breather vent fitted to our pump out tank. In warm weather, AND when the tank is more than half full, there is an unpleasant odour every time the toilet is flushed. We replaced the filter last summer and it had absolutely no beneficial effect what so ever – just wasted our money was our conclusion.
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The actual measured consumption is 33Ah over a 24hr period in normal use on my 24v system (measured consumption for 10 days and then divided result by 10)
Julian
Interesting data Julian.
I have a 12V Shoreline fridge and a 12V Shoreline freezer. Daily consumption is in the order of 100+ Ah.
I have suspected for a while that I would be better off with a combined fridge/freezer unit as there is only one pump to supply.
I think that when the time comes, I will dump the 12V units and replace with a standard, high efficiency mains fridge freezer and run it off the inverter. I suspect that even with the losses involved in converting from 12V to 240V, I will still be better off.
Based on your measurements (I always like empirical data), I should be looking at around 70Ah per day if I understand your numbers correctly??
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Agreed - the downward trip is much harder 1) because you will meet all the commercial traffic and 2) because getting into Limehouse is difficult.
My strategy, based on years of wild water canoeing, is to turn early, pick a point about a length upstream of the lock and drive at it on full power. The current will then pull you down into the entrance.
That’s how we ended up entering Limehouse due to the lock keeper asking us to come straight in from the far side of the river as we were heading down stream so that we could turn across the river and approach the lock into the tidal flow.
A GPS track of our Limehouse lock entry can be seen here.
http://www.erniesplace.com/_BoatingDiaries...ehouse_Lock.pdf
What the track doesn’t show is the fact that the bow of the boat was actually pointing slightly up stream and it was the tidal flow causing the boat to drift down stream. The trick was to use engine power to balance out the pull of the tide such that the bow was level with the lock entry by the time we had crossed the river – great fun.
It all sounds a bit hairy but there is always the option to abort and go around again (well, there is until you pass the point of no return once the bow is near the lock entrance).
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We did the trip down to Limehouse last year - great fun but I would NOT recommend it as a 'first trip'.
Story here: http://www.erniesplace.com/_BoatingDiaries...8_Limehouse.htm
I agree with the comments above, the entrance into Limehouse is a challenge !! If in doubt, abort and go around again.
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There's also a possibility of hook-up but the points about 40 yards away so there'd be a big volt drop.
Mike
If you have access to shore 240V power, that is by far you best option. Much better and cheaper than running engines or generators. 40 yards should not be a problem with the loads you mentioned.
Agree with Snibble, get the facts and data before spending on charging systems that you don’t know that you need.
I don’t see why you should need a second alternator ??
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With no disrespect with the rising cost of diesel for many livaboards running the engine for three hours a day without moving would cost quite a lot for the luxary or a magic cold box. I can see how this is no problem if you are cruising for three hours a day though. Humans have managed upuntil the 1950-70's without fridges. I almost take pride the in the fact that my power requirement consitues 2 hours of engine every 1.5 - 2 weeks.
Tim
I guess that it is just what we are used to. It is nice to be able to moor up somewhere in the middle of nowhere for a while and still have a good choice of fresh/frozen food to eat.
When we pass a supermarket – about once every 2/3 weeks or so, we top up the freezer to keep us going until we pass the next supermarket.
Also, when we find a good butcher (few and far between), we tend to buy quite a lot of meat and freeze it.
Also, stuff like salad cream, mayonnaise, tomato sauce etc. etc. should be stored in a refrigerator once opened. We tend to buy the larger size bottles as they are cheaper.
We don’t fancy going back to living in the 60s – well, not as far as food and convenience are concerned.
If we just used the boat for the odd week here and there then living without a fridge and freezer would not be a problem to us.
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We have a 12V Shoreline fridge and a 12V Shoreline freezer, they were on the boat when we bought it.
In the summer (well, warmer weather) we find that the pair together consume just over 5 amps and the compressors run more or less continually during the day. Over a 24 hour period, the pair currently consuming around 100 amp hours. The consumption drops off a bit in the cooler weather – but not a huge amount less.
Both units are as well ventilated as I can get them and I have also added a 12V computer fan in an attempt to circulate the air behind them a bit. I have also bored some large holes in the floor in an attempt to get some cool air up from the base plate (Gibbo’s idea).
The fridge temperature is set at 3 degrees C and the freezer is set at minus 18 degrees C.
We are live aboard CC’ers and would not like to be without a fridge and a freezer.
The real pain is the time required to re-charge the batteries every day to put back the charge used by the fridge and freezer. It takes on average around 3 hours charging (engine or generator) every day to get the batteries back up to somewhere around 80% capacity again.
Without the fridge and freezer, our power consumption would be very low as the only other real consumer is the computer.
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It's all OK now
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Loughborough Lock Emergency Stoppage
Tuesday 15 July 2008 - Tuesday 29 July 2008
Following reports of damage to the cill, Loughborough Lock has been closed for inspection and repair.
We anticipate that the lock will be closed for two weeks The nearest downstream turning point is the river downstream of Bishops Meadow Lock. There is no suitable turning point between Bishops Meadow Lock and Loughborough Lock.
Upstream turning points can be found at Pillings Marina or Loughborough Canal Basin.
We apologise for any inconvenience.
Enquiries: 01636 704481
More stoppages on this waterway:
http://www.waterscape.com/canals-and-river...ating/stoppages
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Hi Alan, we have been up and down the Southern Oxford a couple of times in the last year and haven’t come across any yellow paddle gear.
Best Ratio of solar panels to batteries in 'bank'
in Boat Building & Maintenance
Posted
Kath,
I missed the Immersion heater same as Les, I would not want to run an immersion heater from batteries (not even a 1kW version) due to the high load on the batteries.
If you are seriously wanting to have all the electrical loads that you list above, look into a good quality, built in diesel generator - another can of worms....