waterdog

Ah, never new they were called dolphins. Every day's a school day

You have lost me there Alan. What am I missing ?

Just nipped down to Pillings for a pump out, we have been in Loughborough for a week now. No way out yet !

It works, ? controller is indicating a charge and agreeing with the battery monitor that was already fitted and NO MAGIC SMOKE ???? Just need to understand what all the different numbers mean lol. Huge thanks to all who have helped, ???

Thank you guys. I have all the wiring completed including fuse up to the batteries, just the connection from the fuse to battery and the neg to connect. I may have misunderstood the warnings about making sure the panels are the last things to connect otherwise magic smoke is produced but...... What if the battery fuse blows at any point with the panels "live", won't this create the same effect ? Or have I got this completely wrong. P.S. The panels are still isolated via the breakers ?

Thanks Alan, yes I have fitted isolating breakers between the panels and the mppt. Reading other threads on here this appears to be prudent providing I remember to isolate the panels first before doing anything else. For clarity, are you saying it is best practice to have the mppt wired so it is permanently connected to the batteries?

Morning All, I'm getting there with the installation, thanks for all your help so far. I'm about to make the final connections at the batteries and I've got another question, where is the best place to make the connection for the positive from the controller, 1, straight to the batteries or live side of the isolator so panels will still maintain battery level if boat is left. Or 2. To the "off" side of the isolator so the panels are disconnected when the boat gets left for longer periods. 3. Return (negative) connections to the shunt ? Thanks.

Thanks Peter, the breakers are marked as DC so it looks like I have the right ones. Thanks for all your help guys, it's a lot clearer in my head now and it's making sense ? I'm off to pick up a few bits from midland and will keep you updated.

Are these ok for the battery connection fuses instead of a breaker? https://www.midlandchandlers.co.uk/products/strip-fuses-vs-103-configurable?71=40amp https://www.midlandchandlers.co.uk/products/fuse-holder-only-to-suit-strip-type-fuse-vs-102

Hi Tony, The cable is single core multistrand, conductor diameter is 3mm and 6mm diameter over the insulation. The cable is rated at 50A

You need a decent isolator between the panels and the controller. Not just because you should always connect the batteries to the controller before connecting the panels, but also so you can work on the downstream wiring without worrying about the sun coming out. 2 x 305W panels , so where on earth does a 10A breaker come into it? Morning guys, Mike the cable is rated at 50A, It's the breakers that are really confusing me. The installation drawing shows a breaker between the controller and battery and also shows one in the cable to an inverter. Nothing between the panels and controller. The drawing doesn't show the rating of the breakers. When I ordered the kit I asked for a switch to isolate the panels and they mentioned a 50amp one which ties in with the cable rating but I have a 63A and a 10A breaker. Here is a link to the drawing, https://www.bimblesolar.com/solardiagrams I'm guessing that I don't need to worry about the inverter bit as the boat already has one ?

Hopefully this rough sketch is easier to see. Tony / Alan, - Sorry, I'm probably not explaining it very well and while I'm quite happy connecting things together I'm certainly no electrical engineer. The kit as supplied consists of , 2 x 305w panels, 1 x 40A mppt controller, 1 x 63A breaker & 1 x 10A breaker plus connectors / cable glands etc and a roll of 6mm cable. The breaker between the panels and controller is not so much for protection as I thought the controller deals with that automatically but more as a "isolator switch". I'm sure I've read on here somewhere that the ability to isolate the panels is a good idea ? I've probably misunderstood the use of a breaker for this. Given the above kit what would you suggest is the best way to connect it all up ? Sorry Reg, its just a word doc, no macros to my knowledge, I've posted a sketch above this post, hopefully you can see that ok.

Trying to get my head round the solar wiring for the boat, I've uploaded (I think) a diagram of how I think it goes, can someone advise if its right please. I'm not too sure about the breaker positions especially as I asked for isolation switches to go between the panels and controller but the info sheet on the supplier website (bimble) shows breakers between battery and inverter which I assume are already fitted to the existing inverter. Hope I'm making sense here, please point me in the right direction, Thanks. solar wiring.docx

Perfect timing ?, I am installing our solar atm, as in right now. I've got 3 panels on with one more to go and am planning on wiring them in pairs as you have described with 2 separate controllers. I bought the kit from bimble solar and they were very helpful and said the above system would be absolutely fine. We were lucky in that bimble are only a few miles from home and it was well worth the visit to chat things through face to face.

With a photo of New and Used boat co's staff ?

Thanks Grahame, I've no idea if the aux socket is connected or not, the previous owner only used the main socket and a single cable to a digibox with no recording facility, I've ordered up some cable and will connect it up to the humax when I get back to the boat at the weekend and see what happens.

Sorry, I've re read my own post and it is confusing, what I meant was the instructions for the vuqube says that you can be connected to two tv's but that is not what I'm trying to achieve. What I should have said is, can the aux lnb on the vuqube be used along with the main lnb to a single twin input digibox which will allow the recording of one channel while watching another on a single tv ?

Yes, good point about it being nicked, I'm going to be drilling holes to mount the solar panels so I suppose a few more for the fixed mounting won't be a problem. According to the instructions you can have 2 digiboxes linked to 2 tv's by using the aux lnb socket on the vuqube which is great if you want a tv in different areas of the boat but can both lnb be connected to the same digibox, (humax for example), to allow recording of a channel while watching another ?

Cheers Ken, the boat is at crick atm, so hopefully this will work out well. Good luck with your sale, we had just had our offer accepted when your boat came on. She looks a lovely boat and I'm sure someone will snap her up soon.

Morning all, we have recently purchased a new (to us) narrowboat and I am slowly getting my head around all the different systems onboard, there will probably be quite a few questions / requests for advice to follow but I will start with the T.V. Probably not the most important question you might think but as new liveaboards having tv onboard is top of S.W.I.M.B.O list. The boat has a Vuqube satellite tv system but I can't find the roof mounting brackets for the dish (nothing fixed to roof). A search online brings up complete systems but nobody seems to have the mounting kit only. Does anyone have any ideas where I might find a mount kit. I was thinking of using magnetic brackets as an alternative to drilling holes in the roof, would the magnets create any issues for the reception / operation of the automatic satellite finder system ? Thanks

We have done exactly the same today, we don't officially become owners until Friday but I insured the boat yesterday and licenced it today via the c&rt website. They even acknowledged the change of licence as the existing owner had a home mooring and we are going to CC. No idea if the existing owner has contacted c&rt. but it appears that c&rt have done it all on my say so. I may be mistaken but it looks like anyone can licence a boat as long as you have the index number, insurance cert and a record of the bsc, Even the bsc details were auto filled on the website once I had entered the index number.

Agree with all of the above. We have been part of a self managed share boat for the past seven years, the initial share price buys you a share of the boat. This was a one of payment and entitled us to four weeks use a year minimum. This often worked out more though as some owners didn't use their full allocation and we often end up with an extra week. Then the ongoing costs for maintenance are split evenly between the owners. Much cheaper for a self managed boat particularly if the owners are prepared to muck in. The problem I see for Mick in Bangkok is that it appears he would like a block of maybe a month or more at the same time which might be difficult to find in a traditional set up of 10 or 12 shares. I do recall someone on here a few years back looking for 2 partners to form a syndicate of 3 owners so it can be done but obviously the costs will be much higher. The other option may be to buy multiple shares in the same boat.

Thanks Tony, Now I've had time to think about it, if it's cold enough in the main cabin to warrant lighting the stove then it makes sense to heat the whole boat via the rads too.

Possibly a stupid question but...……. If we have a webasto type system and a diesel heater with a back boiler both connected to rads would it be ok to run the diesel stove without circulating the water through the rads (i.e. just have the stove on to heat the cabin) or would this just boil the static water in the back boiler section?