Bob18

Have a look for a trade automotive paint supplier in your area. As others have said, cheap paint, particualry cheap zinc primer, is a lottery, you may be lucky, but more likely not :-(

Just a couple of thoughts Steve. Would drilling a numbe of small, angled holes (at random directions) into the padauk help by giving a sort of random glue dowel work? Or, what about a sawn (or other roughend surface) on the padauk help. (butonly where you want to glue)

They do exist, but they are a special, so will be vastly more expensive than either an M10, M12, or 7/16" Check with your local nuts and bolts supplier - they will probably have to buy a thousand to supply your handful, and will charge you accordingly....

Failing the availability a "proper" army issue hay box you can always use a quilt or duvet. Simply get the nosh hot, seal it in a suitable container, then wrap it up in a quilt or duvet. After a few few hours, devour the contents, then use the now warm quilt/duvet to snuggle up in...

The answer will depend on the local authority as much as CRT. Some authorities will be more amenable than others, some will threaten action after a matter of weeks, while others will be considerably more tolerant, still others will be quite happy so long as they get some money in the form of council tax...

Simple - drink the beer in celebration of it having survived...

No "toy" engine will give you the power you need to keep your batteries charged :-( You have to move up to the "model engineering" class, and that costs a fair bit more. As has been said you need a controlled output of at least a couple of hundred watts, at the input speed of your generator. Obviously you could use a direct coupled, low speed generator, but they come under the "not cheap" heading in most catalogues. That said rather than going to steam, with all the problems that brings with it I'd look at the small scale Stirling cycle engines that are around, these tend to be a it more efficient as you use the heat (energy) directly rather than converting it into steam first. TEG looks to be one of those things that is just around the corner. Just now it is expensive for the sort of power you need, but one day someone will crack it for small scale installations and it will become more price-attractive, but until then its not so good. The product in the earlier link will only give you an amp or so at 14V, so not much of a charge, even if you run your stove hard all day.

Since you are using a domestic 230V fridge etc. there is no debate - get an AC generator. Generally AC generators are less expensive than DC ones of equivalent power rating, and more readily available.

Find your friendly neighbourhood proper brick supplier. They (nearly) always have a few pallets of broken bricks of various sorts and will let you look through for a few dozen of the sort you want. You can tell engineering bricks because they are much heavier than ordinary bricks. Going price is about 10p each, but you have to be able to transport them away yourself, or pay over the odds for a courier to do it for you.

Why wait until the rest of the house/street/moorings are up, just pretend you are their alarm call and go for it.

A couple of things - first don't rely on a single detector, two, at different locations is far better, As others have said, the one in the bedroom should be just above pillow height, close to the bed, not in the pat of draughts which would probably cause false readings. Second, carbon monoxide will clear from the blood over a few hours, so did you feel better after a day at work? (Second thoughts, that's a silly question - who feels better after a day at work...) The toxicity levels for CO cover a wide band, depending on the level, duration and a myriad of other factors Wiki bits

White water rafting anyone?

Many industrial batteries that use wet cells have single point top up systems available. They are far from cheap, but they do mean the fitter doesn't have to clamber over the top of a 50 cell battery to check the levels he just has to plug the supply of water in and turn the tap.... As for designing a battery that will use all the lead - it would work, but its capacity at the end of its life would be very small

Open the curtain just enough to see out of the window without exposing too much skin. Are the ducks walking on the water or swimming in it? If they are walking on the water its too cold, stay where you are. If they are swimming it might just be warm enough to get up and get some logs for the fire.....

Everything you think you might need, a few of the "Ooo that tool looks useful", plus two "sod off" sized magnets on decent bits of cord/rope Torch that lsts well, without falling apart - a Maglite (or several, in different sizes), far from cheap, but they do last better than most of the cheap imitations, and the 5-D sized ones can have come in useful when deterring boarders

I've taken two of those wall warts to bits. One was nothing more than a transformer and a rectifier, with a protective fuse buried inside the transformer. The second was a very clever "box of tricks", being a switched mode power supply, with both current and voltage control, and a fuse, not buried inside the transformer but sensibly placed so that it could be replaced (once you'd taken the wall wart to bits). Both were for the same (expensive) manufacturer's power toys, and interestingly both the battery holders had a very similar current limiting circuit in them. Replacing the fuse in the "clever" wall wart allowed me to wear out the drill that went with the thick wall wart, its batteries were still up to scratch, but the gearbox was tatered so the drill went to the big drill-farm in the sky..... Lesson, you can't be sure what sort of wall wart you've got.... Going back to the question, given the current limiting I found I would be fairly happy to use a boat "12V" supply, but only for short term re-charging and only then if I kept an eye on the battery temperature, not leaving it to cook somewhere for days (or even hours) on end.

Ta, I did have a "good nose around", and it looks to be a plastic tank, so not quite as heavy empty as a metal one.

OK, so I haven't actually got the boat yet, but there are a couple of jobs that need to be done. First, and probably the most important is a survey. I need to find a surveyor in the Stoke/Stafford/Lichfield area, so when I go in and slap the money on the counter for the "subject to survey" I know there is a man waiting in the wings to get his hammer and squeaky toy out and says "Oh, that's a good/c88p hull, and the like. Second is, wait for it, the loo - I know its been debated before, but just now its got a pump out one, and I would far prefer a cassette one. the holding tank is plastic, and sits next to the calorifier under the bed (talk about warming it up on a cold night...). Obviously its got to be emptied, flushed, emptied, probably nuked, declared a bio-disaster area etc. before thinking about loosening any of the pipes. BUT is there anything I should look out for (apart from the "brown stuff")?

There are two "sides" to any solar controller, "input" side, and "output" side; between these is a magic box.... "Power" (watts) is a constant for a given panel, and power equals amps times volts The input side works at the amps and volts of the solar panels, so: You have a 2x 235w array, running at 36.7volts (with the panels in parallel - that is red wire on panel one connected to red wire on panel two, and both red wires connected to the "red" input terminal on the controller). Volts we know (36.7) , watts we know (2*235), this gives us an input current of 12.8A. Now let's go to the output side of the controller: Volts, this is the charging voltage for your battery which will vary a bit, but lets say 14.2V as the batteries are charging quite hard. We know the watts (from the input side). So now we calculate the current 470/14.2 = 33A. (I've tried to make this as simple as possible, I know more happens, but let's not confuse folks with too much to start with...) Having said "I won't confuse you" with jargon, there is one that is worth knowing what it means "MPPT" is a clever way of making sure that the solar panels are delivering the maximum power they can for the amount of light they are getting; it stands for "Maximum Power Point Transfer" (or Technology - depends on the sales brochure..). Put simply, the output of a solar panel can be maximised for a given light level by changing the impedance of the magic box (as I said "magic"). Its all magic, unless you are designing the magic box in the middle, which does all sorts of strange things to make it work effectively - I'm happy to leave that bit to the likes of Gibbo ;-) The Tracer that was referred to earlier certainly looks like a good box of tricks, as it not only keeps the input side "happy", but it also has a multi-stage battery charger to keep your batteries happy as well.

We are slipping old boy, have another glass

Gibbo - is this a record???? We've both said the same thing, on consecutive posts

That is actually quite typical of most battery stockists - they only carry those they can sell "lots" of - have you tried the contact given on the website, they may be of more use than a dealer (but may be as much use as a chocolate fire guard...)

Have you actually checked their website as it would appear that they go well beyond 140Ahr - Delkor battery

NiCd batteries need a different charger than Lead-acid. There are a few things to consider The operating voltage is about 1.2V per cell, so for a 12 volt battery you need 10 cells instead of six. The charge per unit volume is slightly higher, but the net energy per unit volume is slightly less. This means you need more space to get your (say) 100AHr battery will be slightly more BUT you can discharge a NiCd battery deeper than a lead acid battery before you cause it damage. The charging voltage per cell is lower, but the overall charge voltage is higher (for a given output voltage) This means to charge a 12V NiCd battery you have to apply something nearer 15V than 14V. (This is probably why the old goat has only 19 cells in his 24V battery instead of 20) NiCd batteries are more temperature dependant than lead-acid. NiCd do like being hit hard, and then fully charged - partial re-charge can lead to the development of a "memory", an apparent loss in capacity, which is recoverable by a controlled discharge/charge cycle the nature of which depends on the exact battery type (and with some manufacturers this can extend to the exact capacity and voltage of the battery...) At thirty years old I would want to see them being fully reconditioned before being put into service, this involves draining each cell, flushing it to get rid of the c**p, detailed inspection of the plates, connections etc., refilling with new electrolyte, commissioning charge/discharge/charge cycle. Than install, charge and maintain properly for another 10-15 years of useful service. reconditioning costs less than half that of a new set of batteries, but is not something that can be done in the back yard... (btw - Don't use ordinary engine oil on top of the electrolyte as some of the stuff in the oil will react in a BAD way with the electrolyte, top grade transformer oil is good, but it must be PURE mineral oil, not one of the modern hybrid oils)

Good idea to use stainless, or brass, but do make sure you use countersunk heads, as most mushrooms are made for them. As others have said before a good flexible gasket either mastic, or rubber, or closed cell foam will be an advantage.