CampinGazz

the early red kippors had soft valve seats, not a problem when run on petrol, but people who converter them to run on gas found out the valve seats would be shot very quickly. not sure about the yellow kippors, i've just bought the clarke version of this genny, from machine mart, i needed it fast and was up in scotland, and machine mart was the only shop i could find that did the suitcase gennies other than hondas. it's a 1kw max output, 900 watts cont. it's a pure sine wave output and runs my sterling charger fine... which wouldent run on the non inverter genny i tried first, noise... it's noisier than a honda under load, at idle it's about the same, it's not exhaust noise, it's mechanical noise, so obvious that the clarke genny at least hasnt got the same level of sound dampening in the case as the hondas.

i've actually got a couple of those adjustable fan speed controllers for quietening computer fans by slowing them down, going to take me soldering iron with me to do this project when out on the trip, as i've been faffing about doing other things on the van the past few days, i did actually wonder about using a voltage sensative relay, theyre sold in caravan shops as automatic split charge relays, as modern alternators dont like the old way of taking the trigger for the relay from the B+ terminal, but i figured i'd want it to cut in at a higher voltage than they do, but some are apparantly adjustable, but of course, caravans/motorhomes/boats are all the same, the very mention of them in a product description is a reason to double or tripple the price of the item.

that's what i will do if i cant get a voltage switch working, only thing that made me want a voltage switch than having the fan on when ever the panels are producing is that the panels will be producing power from the moment the sun rises, that's well before we wake up, so the fan 'could' be an annoyance, with the voltage switch, the batteries would be slightly discharged from the night before, so will be slowly rising in voltage as they charge, and when they reach tha gassing voltage it would prolly be 10 or 11am, so the fan wont bother us as we'd be awake. the fan is just a 40mm brushless computer fan, pulls 0.13 amps it says, so not really worth worrying about. excelent ta, was wondering about using a zenner last night, i'll nip to maplins and get the parts (assuming they still sell components and havent gone completely over to selling toys oh yeah, i assume the top line will be +ve?

i will be buying a smart gauge one day, but atm i dont have the cash, going away on thursday so all cash i have is going on that, but when we get back i will start saving for one. but in the meantime i need a way to controll a 40mm fan that helps vent the battery compartment. i've put my deep cycle batteries in a sealed box against an outside wall of my motorhome, at battery top height i've put a vent through the wall, i get a bit of a breeze through there with the lid off, so i imagine most of the gasses will exit the vent naturally, but i'd still like to force vent it when the batteries are gassing. the batteries are under the sofa that makes the head part of our bed up, so the fan will be directly below our heads in bed, hence i want to have it run only when needed, whcih will be daytime when the solar panels are producing power. is there a simple circuit or a ready made voltage controlled switch? i want it to turn on and off at around14.4 volts... or should i go lower? i believe batteries start really gassing at 14.4 volts, but will be gassing from over 13.8. anyhoo, i want to do what part of the smart gauge can do but cheaply and temporarily untill i can afford one, i've looked briefely into 555 timer based circuits, but they seem to need an input supply higher than the switching supply, or work by turning on when a certian percent over the input supply, and then off when below that percent of the input supply. i want to just have it powered by the batteries, so varying voltage from 11 to 15 volts, and on at gassing voltage, off at below gassing voltage. thnking of maybe a regulator chip that shuts down below a certian voltage, which would be handy as i could use it to power the fan at 9 volts whinc makes it almost silent, so if it can regulate when over 14.4 volts, and stop regulating and shut down below, that'd do the trick.

prolly got it sorted by now, but yes it is, freesat is transmitted along with the subscription sky chanels, so those who pay the subscription get the free chanels too... bbc and itv, chnl 5 and a few half decent ones and loads of naff shopping channels.

i have very recently bought a load of copper tube lugs (battery cable crimp on terminals) first i went to CEF as i was told they hire a crimper, they do, 15 quid a day but ontly to traders, and theur lugs were 91p plus vat each for the 50mm ones, and only about 5p cheaper for the 35mm ones. VWP were about 70p plus for the 50mm ones, in the end i ordered them from the site box and paid 28p each or the 50mm ones, 22p for the 35mm ones and 17p for the 16mm ones, for the crimper, i bought a hydraulic lug crimper from ebay for 30 quid plus a tenner next day delivery, does upto 70mm crimps it says, but the dies are marked oddly... need to use the 35mm one for 50mm lugs... i.e. the dies are sized for the uncrimped size!!... so that means it can crimp larger than 70mm square terminals, it's obviousely a chinese tool, but it worked fine for the 48 crimps i did the other day, i have arthritis so was wondering if i could handle a plier type crimper, people usually mount them in a vise too, the hydraulic crimper was just the right size to hold in one hand and pump the handle with the other, but it took me 4 days to do all the cables (again my arthritis, could only do so many then had to stop for the day) but it'd have cost be twice the hydraulic crimpers cost to hire one. For cable, again i tried CEF and VWP, i wanted 12 meters of 50mm cable, VWP do 40 or 60mm, and for 12 meters would have been 70 or 105 plus vat!! i got my cable from the welders warehouse 50mm stuff, £4.60 a meter inc vat, so 55 squids for the cable size i wanted, fiver postage, i ordered at 16:30, it was at my door at 07:45 the very next day. and it's damn good stuff, very flexiable, and the insulation is made to be dragged along the floor and over sharp bits of metal all day every day. they do 35 and 25mm sq cable, it's black only tho, dunno if that's a problem, for me i used red heatshrink on the pos. leads. i replaced some cables in my motorhome, the one i had for the main chassis earth from the batteries, i had used 35mm stuff i'd bought from VWP 5 years ago, this stuff was no where as flexiable as the welding cable, made a real differance snaking it into position and getting the angle i wanted the lug to sit at when tightened down, i also replaced the inverter cables, my inverter is a wenchi brand, pure sine wave jobbie, and came with some 35mm cables 1 meter long, when i took the covers off the pretty gold plated lugs i saw the terminals had been 'crimped' by squishing them in a vise, and one of em came out when i tugged at it, so now i have some nice big 50sqmm cables with proper hexaganol crimped terminals on each end, ok they arent prettily gold plated, but i'm not in the habit of parking up nect to the boy racers and inviting them to look at my gold plated inverter connections, so i can live with tinned copper lugs

also remember the figures they give are just like car's MPG figures, you'd only get the same if you run the fridge in exactly the same place they did the test, which was prolly an air conditioned office, fridge not built in and so on. i know my shoreline fridge freezer was claimed to use 50Ah a day, but in reality it's more like 80, i'm also annoyed that i never picked up on the condensor coils are inside the cabinet on the sides, i have been wondering if i could add a remote condensor to the system, so i could get it up in the big air space i have at the back of the fridge, and have a few fans blowing over it,

i thought 3 used orange for the fallback to gprs when the three 3g signal was absent.

i know with petrol pumps, you put them as close to the tank as possible, as it's easier on the pump to push rather than suck, but i guess if the water pump is level or below the water tank, then it'll not be sucking too much, and will have no problems priming etc,

me copper bar arrived this morning, thicker than i imagined it to be, it looks as thick as the 600 amp power bars sold almost 3 figures in swindlers, but it's a fair bit wider too, i'm still waiting for me terminals and bolts tho, so can make the bus bars up yet, but when i do, each connection point will be polished then brushed with copper grease, and the bolts snugged up very tight, then another brushing of copper grease to keep it from oxidizing over time.

that's a good point about using a pencil, wouldent have thought about that, tho i'm using a marker pen for marking out at the moment as the pencil fairy has been busy in my garage again, i've ordered a length of copper bar, 30mm wide, 10mm thick, will cut it to 100mm lengths, and have one for earths, and 2 for positives, one with just hte batteries on em, then a shunt linking to the other with the loads on... going to get a smart gauge one day, but still want to know the current going in and out of the batteries, if for no other reason than to easily measure what each item in the van pulls, so will get a cheap panel meter and shunt off ebay,

i bought a t-mobile payg 3.5G dongle a few months ago, was 20 quid for the dongle if bought with a 20 quid top up (currys digital) to use it, you first put the credit on it via text, then you can either use it straight away, where it will take 2 quid out of the credit per day, or you can buy a 7 day pass for 7 quid, or a 30 day pass for 15 quid, the passes are consecutive days, hence if you know you'll use it for a month, you get a 30 day pass, but if you think you may only use it one day and not for a while after, just pay the daily charge. usualy 3 gig a month fair usage limit, i know t-mobile let you go a bit over and not do anything, if you go seriousely over, first time they ask you to keep an eye on your usage (the software tracks it all for you) second time they tell you off and throttle the connection a bit for the next month, 3rd time they request you go onto a larger allowance plan, if you dont and keep going over, they will throttle the speed permanantly... seems fair to me, another way to do it is again with t-mobile, use your phone as a modem... either via bluetooth or a data cable to connect it to the laptop, a t-mobile payg sim allows you on the internet at upto 3g speeds for a quid a day, you just connect to the net and it charges you something like a half a p a killobyte, when you get to one quids worth of data, it stops charging, capped at a quid a day, or you can buy a 5 day pass for £2.50, making it 50p a day, limit is 40megs, and if you go over regularly they do throttle it, some people have 2 or 3 t-mobile payg sims and just swap em over when they've used 40 megs a day, your not really supposed to use the payg sims quid a day thing for connecting a laptop to the net, it is supposed to be for surfing on your phone, but as long as you dont try to use skype, download from p2p sites and so on, they dont seem to mind, i only got a 3.5G dongle as my phone only does 3G, and i was constiantly in areas with 3.5G connections, and i needed more than 40 megs a day and couldent be arsed changing sims about, i get a much better signal with the dongle, i have a 5 meter usb extension routed to the roof window, so if i get a gprs signal with the dongle in the laptop, sticking it up in the roof window which gets it just outside the metal box of the motorhome, i can get at least a 3G signal, usually a hsdpa one (3.5G) i use my dongle only occasionaly, only when we are away in the motorhome, bought it begining of may, and still have about 4 quid left of the origional 20 quid credit, next trip i will be getting a 30 day pass tho as i plan to be out for a while, only thing to remember with the t-mobile payg dongle, not sure if the others have it, but if you dont use it for 6 months they cut it off, so make sure you connect for a day during winter to keep it active for when you use it again in summer.

aye, the only thing not fused at the mo is the inverter feed, as that's internaly fused, so just the cable to protect, after the 70 amp breaker the main wire goes to the load centre, which has a set of fuses for each item, all the lights have their own fuses so if one pops it dosent take all the lights out, likewise with the 12 volt sockets, all individually fused, makes any fault finding a hell of a lot easier, but costs more in materials to install, no doubt if paying someone to install it they'd not want to do it like that '1 fuse for all the lights is how we've always done it' kinda thing,

oh you wont believe the arguments between the people on that newsgroup over battery fusing, diodes, paralell and series, current that circulate around battery banks when not in use, what happens when one cell is minutely below the others, and the latest, i must forget running 12 volts for the inverter, my 150 amp max load for the inverter is too much for that battery bank, and i should run the batteries in series for 36 volts, get a 36 volt inverter, and tap the batteries for the 12 volts i need for the DC loads!!!!! the latest is to run 48 volts with a dc-dc psu to give me the 12 volts, so how much does a 65 amp 48 volt to 12 volt dc psu cost then (no im not even going to consider that) all that and my inverter is used for 5 minutes a day to run the centeral vaccum system...1500 watts mains load, maybe 4 to 6 mins an evening for the microwave.. 900 watts load, for the GF's hairdryer every now and then... if it's a nice day she lets it dry in the sun, and the 300 watt max draw of the washing machine when it's on full speed spin. in fact the longest load on the inverter is a 30 watt fan blowing into the rats cage when it's hot and humid, that's been left on for 4 of 5 hours before, but 3 amps plus the 1.2 amps to run the inverter aint a warrent for a 48 volt battery bank, new inverter, new charger, more solar panels, smpsu's etc. i personaly wasnt going to fuse the individual batteries, they will have a max of 1 meter of 50 sq mm cable from the terminals to the busbars (6 cables in total, i'm wiring them up as in method 3 on gibbos page), the cable runs will go along the middle of the battery bank top (i have 4 facing north to south, and 2 facing east to west below them) the terminals will be covered, the cable is welder earth cable, so have extra thick abrasion resistant insulation, The bus bars will be just outside the battery box, which will be made of varnished wood, and the bus bars will have covers on them and an enclosure too. the main DC loads run through a 70 amp circuit breaker, and the inverter and charger cables will go thru a suitably rated fuse, i'm sure theres some merit in fusing the individial batteries to protect against a cell shorting, but it seems that you have to spec the fuses just right to blow fast enough in a single cell short situation, and supply the current needed for long enough, was suggested i'd be looking at around 100 amp fuses, as my 150 amp current draw plus upto 60 amp DC draw will be 15 mins max, so i need fuses that will last 20 mins of double the rating then blow, So for now i'll prolly assemble it all with no fuses on the terminals, can add them later if i can be convinced they will offer me protection in the event of a cell dying... BUT, i have an emergancy start solenoid between the starter and house batteries, so if i ever need the use it, i need to be sure the fuses on the battery terminals can handle the starter load, which if fused at 100 amps they most certianly wont, and as the fuses cost anything upto 9 quid each (if i was stupid enough to buy them from a marine chandlers) i dont fancy replacing all 6 of them in one go.

well... i have a 20 amp charger, a 700 watt genny, 370 watts of solar, 90 amp 2nd alternator on my motorhome, and had 460Ah of batteries, they were cheapo leisure type batteries, and after about 50 cycles the performance dropped quite a lot, when brand new we basicaly didnt have to worry about power at all, but for the past year and a half we have had to be really carefull of power usage, or would have the low voltage alarms going off in the middle of the night at the fridge tried to start up but couldent, the only thing that kept us going was the solar panels as we try to keep away from the crowds, so campsites with shore power was a very very last resort for us, middle week of june we were at a motorhome show for a week, monday to thursday we pure sunshine, panles put back in what we took out, all was fine. friday it rained non stop for 20 hours, saturday it was very overcast with occasional showers, we ran out of power by 11am saturday, so had to use the genny to keep us going. i've just bought and am in the middle of fitting a 700AH battery bank made up of proper deep cycle batteries (6 x US2200's, 6 volt 232 AH jobbies) with these i hope to be able to go 3 days without charge, so as long as we get some sunlight by the 4th day, we should survive without running the genny, but to be honnest, if we were somewhere that it was raining solidly for 3 days, we'd have gone for a drive out of boredom, and hence been charging the batts from the alternator. the main reason i bought the proper deep cycle batteries is i want more time between changing them, the batts i have have a quoted life of 1300 cycles to around 50% dod, i'm hoping we can discharge less than that with the bigger bank, so get even longer life from them, but i worked out the 1300 cycles should last us 7 plus years, before it was every 2 to 3 years the batteries needed replacing, the last lot i hung onto as long as i could bare, but they were very annoying for the past 2 years not being able to watch tv, having to run the laptop on internal battery at night, and only charge during the day when suns was out, as all the power was taken by the damn fridge. oh yeah, chargers, when i mentioned i wanted a larger harger a few weeks ago, i was told basicaly dont bother, it'll still work out about the same charge times if i allow the charger to run it's absorbtion stage fully, as that is at a fairly low current and dropping compared to the boost stage, a friend in america runs a 80 amp charger off his 1000 watt (peak) genny, but he does admit the genny is bogged down badly for the first 30 minutes of charging, but these little 2 stroke jobbies can do that... of course the voltage and frequancy are off, but a switched mode charger can handle that, after the initial 30 mins on full output power, the charger ramps down a lot, usually hovering around 35 - 40 amps going into the batteries, and the genny can sustain that without bogging down. i know my genny can handle overloads, as i inadvertantly left the calorifier element on when running it once, this was in adition to the charger, so i was pulling way over 1000 watts from it, it just laboured away getting slightly warmer than usual, and obviousely running slower than it should, but neither the charger or heater element cared about it, as long as it puts out over 90 volts, and something like 40hz the charger will run, not saying that's recomended tho.