husky

Thank you to everyone who has replied to my post and given us such valuable information. We will be using it all. Feel more confident now. Really looking forward to it and especially the scenery. We are from Tasmania and especially looking forward to seeing the scenery of Yorkshire. P&J nb. Mactra's Filia

Help required please. Going to travel on the Huddersfield Narrow and Broad (and the tunnel of course) then on through Aire and Calder Navigation and on to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. From there, the intention is to then go onto Leigh and onto the Bridgewater Canal - ending up at Anderton (Northwich). We have about 3mths to do this trip. Have looked at the website of the Huddersfield Canals and all the regs. etc., but would greatly appreciate anyone who has done this trip, or part thereof, who could give advice of any kind, especially with regards to safe mooring spots. Any help would be wonderful. Thank you, Jennifer nb Mactra's Filia

Help required please. Going to travel on the Huddersfield Narrow and Broad (and the tunnel of course) then on through Aire and Calder Navigation and on to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. From there, the intention is to then go onto Leigh and onto the Bridgewater Canal - ending up at Anderton (Northwich). We have about 3mths to do this trip. Have looked at the website of the Huddersfield Canals and all the regs. etc., but would greatly appreciate anyone who has done this trip, or part thereof, who could give advice of any kind, especially with regards to safe mooring spots. Any help would be wonderful. Thank you, Jennifer nb Mactra's Filia

I have a BMC 1.8 diesel engine and use Wilko 20W-50 mineral motor oil for petrol and non-turbocharged diesel engines - designed for older and higher mileage engines. Change it every 150 hours. Cost 12 pounds for 5 litres.

Hi all - thank you for your replies, it looks as if 150 hours is a reasonable time and like Alan I often stretch it a bit. So that takes care of engine oil and filter but what about the fuel filter? Currently I change this every second oil change - does this sound right?

I have a BMC 1.8 diesel engine in my narrowboat. Does anyone know the recommended time (hours) between engine oil changes? I currently change the oil every 150 hours but this is only my guess.

I have a Dell laptop(Inspiron) - they are notoriously hard to to find suitable adaptors for as they sense whether or not the attached adaptor is the real(Dell) thing. Went to a crowd called Wisdom-Industrial on ebay and paid £12.89 for an adaptor(12v dc in to dc 18volt 90W out ) so I can use the 12volt plugs on my boat to power the laptop. Works perfectly and has done since April when I bought it. Wisdom-Industrial said that if it did not work they would give me my money back so no risk, just let them know beforehand what type of laptop it is, they were most helpful - oh and they are UK based so it only took a couple of days to arrive.

Hi Kevinl - yes I have a controller, a 20Amp Duel Controller which allows me to divide the current from the panels to feed 2 different sources. Also the instruction book that came with it is pretty sketchy on exact details(it's Chinese) but shows charge voltage, boost voltage and float voltage so presumably it will do all these things. I have used it for 3months now and I have only connected one of the controller output to the leisure batteries(set to 100%) and having a Smartcharge system this will connect all the batteries shortly after the motor is started. I am now thinking, before I leave, of connecting the second controller output to the start battery and setting this to receive, say 20% of the available output. My start battery sometimes struggles so it may be an indication that it is nearing the end of its life and if I leave it for 6 months commoned to the leisure batteries it may drag down the voltages of all of them.

Thanks for all your replies- looks like the panels are a good option. Yes Blodger, my intention was common all the batteries. The negative terminals are already common so I was going to attach some 17A wire to the +ive terminal of the start battery and run this to the leisure batteries +ive terminal.When I turn off the battery isolation switch, hopefully this shouldn't make any difference and still leave them all connected together. But I'm curious to know why you think giving the start battery its own supply might be preferable. Trackman we have a "Smart Charge" system(Smartguage + Smartbank) which gives a readout of the voltage on the leisure batteries so commoning the batteries should include the start battery in this reading. When the smartbank relay closes it will not charge the start battery(it will be isolated by the switch) but the start battery will be charged by being commoned with the leisure batteries - does that make sense?

Every year I leave my boat in a marina for approx 6 months over winter and return home to Australia. I have 2x100W solar panels on my boat - would these 2 panels be sufficient to keep the batteries fully charged over the period I am away without the use of shore power? I have 1 x 90 AH and 4 x 110 AH batteries and these would be the only draw on the solar panels. The panels are fitted flat on the roof and the boat is stored in the Northwich area. Any thoughts please?

Hi Chris - put a power meter into the circuit today. (1)Laptop 50% discharged but not switched on - current 0.25A 40W (2)Laptop Fully Charged and switched on - current 0.16A Given that my power meter may have been fooled do these figures do they have any meaning ? regards husky

Chris My apologies, it was certainly not an attempt to rubbish what you said, sorry if it came across that way. I was merely asking you why you thought differently. Maybe I should put my power meter in the circuit and see what it reads at as my laptop charges. Would this be an accurate measure? And also while I am using it fully charged. regards husky

Chris - Why do you say that it will only take 10A when the calculations that people have told me says that it would be closer to 32A - amperage @ 12V = 20 X Amperage @ 240V. Yes it takes just over an hour to charge from say 40% charged. regards husky

Yeh Alan, have come to the conclusion that the first thing is to fit a 70A alternator and this will be done shortly(couple of weeks). In the meantime I will try to monitor usage, voltages, etc, so that I can see how the 70A alternator improves the system. regards husky

Hi Alan - yes I'm busy looking up the dimensions and whether it is a right or left alternator so I can buy the Lucas 70A alternator. The next problem will be the voltage regulator. From my investigations it seems that an ordinary automotive regulator is a poor substitute which only charges batteries to 80% of their value. Does this riddle never end? All I want to do is enjoy the waterways of England! Aussie expat! regards husky

Well, basically until the wife says stop here! But apart from cruising I have been running the engine for 2 hours a day when not going some where.

Thanks everyone for your replies.From the look of it Alan I would say that your calculations look depressingly correct. The complex fridge problem is probably why you cannot get a figure from the manufacturers(LEC) only star ratings. Our fridge is a small 12V fridge freezer which we usually only run when the motor is running. After that we try to open it as little as possible before the next charging cycle. You are quite right about the other bits and pieces, water pump and the occasional use of lights in the galley. Bedroom lights are battery operated LEDs so no problem there. Looking at the laptop transformer shows that it pulls 1.6A@240 which I now know equates to 32A plus any inefficiencies in the system. We usually charge the laptop when the motor is running and it takes about an hour. We have an Eberspacher but seldom use it. The manual says that it uses 9A when first started and then about 4.5A when it warms up to its task(anybody want to buy an Eberspacher?). We have a small coal fire which we use most of the time. We have a pre-amplifier for the tv which I ignored as too small to bother about but as you have pointed out these things all add up! On the alternator side of things I came across the same 150% figure as you. Just to make life harder I also came across the fact that for reasonable battery life they should not be discharged by more than 20%! Been there,done that! I'm starting to wonder how we managed to get as far down the cut as we did. We had been cruising for approx 4 weeks before we managed to flatten the batteries completely. I can't imagine how the previous owners managed but perhaps they didn't. It definitely looks like time for an alternator upgrade to 70A and a "tractor" regulator. many thanks husky

Hi Alan - just checked the pulley ratio on my engine and it is indeed 3:1. Also did a power audit and found that the amp/hours required per day to be a meagre 24Ah made up of the following:- TV 6hr @ 0.2A = 1.2Ah inverter 6h @ 0.7A = 4.2 Ah light 6h @ 0.03A = 0.18Ah Inverter 6h @ 1.0A = 6.0Ah fridge(12V) 8h @ 1.5A = 12.0Ah Have I missed something? From my reading this means that 2 hours a day running the engine @ 35Ah should be sufficient to recharge the batteries. Despite the above calculations I think that it would be wise to swap over to a 70Ah alternator and to add a voltage regulator that would raise the charging voltage. Two questions: (1) would the Lucas 127 fit the dimensions of my present alternator so that it didn't require a new bracket? (2)Chris suggested fitting a "tractor" regulator. I have searched the forums, but to no avail, to find one and to also find what they do which is an improvement over an ordinary regulator. regards husky

Thanks for the info Chris. I just priced one of the above at 99 pounds so you're right it is a cheap upgrade cheers husky

Many thanks to all the people who replied to my original post regarding "Correct Use of a Rotary Switch for Battery Charging". I think that the issue was well answered and I now know what procedure to follow. Following a discussion on how long it would take to fully charge the batteries I went investigating around the engine bay today trying to find out what type/size the alternator is. The alternator is a Lucas 35 amp driven by BMC 1.8 Calcutt diesel engine. This small size alternator is probably why I am having trouble keeping the batteries charged! The strange thing is that this alternator is probably the original which came with the engine. The boat was built(2003). The 2 previous owners must have got by with this set up! The question is this - is this a workable set up or do I need to increase the alternator size? regards husky

Alan our batteries are only 2 months old(all of them)- what is the fully charged voltage for these batteries? Knowing this would help me judge where we are with the batteries by testing them with a multimeter. I think one of the main problems we have is we simply do not run the motor long enough to keep the system fully charged. In addition we only have a single alternator which probably puts out 60-70 amps which means it will take a long time to fully charge our batteries which are 4x110 amp hour plus the starter battery. regards husky

Hi Alan - thanks for your response. What happened with us on our trip from Anderton to Llangollen was that we had kept the rotary switch in position 2(both) all the time. Some days we cruised for 4 hours and other days for less. What was happening in the background was that the charge in the batteries was gradually running down and I was not aware of it. My engine control panel only has a voltmeter which gave no indication of the problem until it was too late - not enough power to start the engine! The protocol that I outlined in my original post came from someone who had lived on his narrow boat for years and my post was to check that it was the correct info. If I were to switch to position 2 after starting the engine and supposing the leisure batteries were quite discharged - would this mean that rather than providing a top up charge to the starter battery the charging current would be split with most of it going to the batteries with less charge or voltage. If I leave the switch in position 1(starter battery only)for 15 minutes wouldn't this mean that it would have exclusive use of the charging current and return to it's original state rather than having to share this charging with other possibly more discharged batteries. Thanks ditchcrawler - I was warned about this-bit like "dead heading" a positive displacement pump pumping a liquid. regards husky

Now this is a very good point! I wouldn't have a clue if it is a continuous contact rotary switch - how could I find out? If I turned the engine off then following the protocol that I set out, it would require me to leave the switch on starter(position 1)for another another 15 minutes so it really isn't feasible. I normally throttle the engine back to idle before changing the switch and also make sure that I don't pass through the off position. So I guess the answer it to find out if it is a"continuous contact rotary switch". regards husky

My boat has 1 starter battery and 4 leisure batteries. These are charged by a single alternator. Which battery is charged is decided by a large rotary switch from which I can select:- (1)starter battery only(position 1 on rotary switch) (2)both starter battery and 4 leisure batteries(position marked as both on rotary switch) (3)leisure batteries(position marked as 3 on rotary switch) (4)none (off position) I have been told that the correct procedure for battery charging and management is to start the engine with the switch in position 1(starter battery only) and then leave the switch in this position for 15 min to allow the battery to recharge to replace charge taken from the battery during starting.After this period I should then switch over to position 3(leisure battery bank) and leave this it in this position for the remainder of the charging time. When not using the engine the switch position should be in position 3 until the engine is started again at which time I move the switch to position 1 and the cycle repeats. We are boating newbies and when we took over the boat the rotary switch was in "both" position and we were told it was ok to leave it there. We ran the batteries down one night and the inevitable happened when we couldn't start the boat because of a flat starter battery as well as flat leisure batteries. My question is does the procedure described above sound reasonable or does anyone have any suggestions for improving it. regards husky