IanD

Ooh, this could be the start of a whole set of sanctions/fines to make boating life better for canal-loving boaters... 🙂 -- fining boaters who moor on lock landings, or waterpoints, or winding holes -- fining boaters who run their engines during "quiet hours" -- fining boaters who cover the towpath with piles of cr*p -- fining boaters who shout "slow down" at every passing boat, regardless of speed -- fining boaters who race along with a massive wake as if they're towing a surfer I'm sure the courts have nothing better to do with their time... 😉

Ditto... 😞

But that doesn't make it a deck, or the underside of it the deckhead, does it? I can walk on a tightrope, but that doesn't make it a deck. Or a roof, or a cabin top... 😉

Just to point out -- to be accurate, the underside of the roof/cabin top on a narrowboat is not the deckhead either, which is defined as "the underside of a ship's deck" -- because the roof/cabin top of a narrowboat is not a deck, that's defined as a section of floor below you, like what you stand on at the stern... 😉

So to summarise the government/DEFRA position: "We're not going to sort out your funding, and we're not going to allow you to make any legal changes which could let you sort it out yourself because it's too much hassle, and it's all your fault, don't blame us 'cos we had nothing to do with the way CART was set up".... 😞 Is that reasonably accurate?

Of course. It also means getting them installed when the boat is built and paying extra for this, both of which -- especially the second point! -- would make this unattractive to many boaters... 😉

Which is why that's where mine are -- on both sides... 😉

One alternative view -- which CART appear to be moving towards by increasing the widebeam surcharge -- is that the value of boat living to the boater is linked to the space inside the boat, just like it is for apartments and flats where in many places -- especially the UK -- prices and rents and taxes are proportional for floor area. On that basis -- which is easy to justify -- a 72'x7' narrowboat or a 36'x14' wideboat (or a 48' x 10'6" mediumboat) would all have the same license fee. And actually wideboat owners are still getting a good deal since a boat twice as wide has more than twice the usable width inside... 😉 The current situation is pretty clear -- boaters aren't allowed to live in one settled place at no charge, as shown by the rules for the "Continuous Cruising" exemption, which make it pretty clear that *wanting* to stay in one place for school/job/whatever doesn't mean you *can*, and that in these circumstances you should have (and pay for) a home mooring. The fact that more and more boaters do their best to ignore this -- with the vociferous backing of the NBTA! -- is what has lead to the formation of the commission, and is likely to lead to more severe restrictions on CCers -- which is unfair to "real CCers" (like many CWDF posters) who have been following the rules without problem for many years, but the blame lies with the "new CMers", not CART... 😞

Simple answer -- no, there isn't. The second one may well be true, probably outnumbered 1000:1 by tripping over uneven paving though... 😉

Ooh, difficult choice -- use a house term that everyone understands and most boaters on the canals use, or a boaty term that mostly only salty mariners habitually use? Methinks there's some "real boater" snobbery going on here... 😉

Lots of hire boats do this, though there is then some risk of getting sh*t on the roof. DAMHIK... 😞 My pump-out fittings are on the gunwale, but on both port and starboard sides... 🙂

Does the frame/tray have a bottom, or just sides? If the second, can you get to the underside of the right-hand-most battery? If the answer is yes you could be in luck, you can jack it up out of the frame from underneath, remove it over the top of the frame, then slide the others in turn to the right-hand end and repeat. Otherwise you're going to have to get a lever over the top (as suggested above) and lift using the battery handle, and this isn't going to be easy given the depth of the frame... 😞

Where are the frame/brackets welded? The photo's not clear, but I can't see any welds along most of the length of the frame and there seems to be some kind of join at the extreme left-hand end -- is there one bracket here welded to the hull, and maybe another one at the (invisible) back of the right-hand end, and the frame is just an L-shaped piece of steel? If so, if you can manage to separate the frame from the two brackets (angle-grinder?) you can lift it out. It seems odd that someone should fit a frame like this that isn't removable and makes it well-nigh impossible to get the batteries in or out, but I've seen stranger things on boats... 😉

It's not number of cycles that matters in this case, it's total time spent at high voltage (e.g. 100% SoC, at 14.4V or above) for either emergency cutout or balancing. When cell manufacturers lifetest cells they cycle them from 0% SoC to 100% SoC at the recommended rate, typically 1C -- so one cycle takes 2 hours, 12 cycles per day, that means a couple years to do the test to 8000 cycles. I'm sure EVE will have done this but I very much doubt that Fogstar will have (especially going up to the disconnect voltage each time). At these rates the cells only spend a tiny amount of time at high voltage (a couple of minutes per cycle?) and this doesn't reduce lifetime -- hence also the recommendation for cell balancing of maybe an hour or less at maybe 14.4V at intervals of a week or more. Of course the emergency cutout voltage is even higher... 😉 So taking the Fogstars up to the voltage cutout (even higher voltage than 14.4V!) in itself *probably* (have Fogstar actually tested this? -- see above...) isn't a problem even done regularly -- so long as you then discharge them under load to get back down to 14V or so quickly. If you don't do this then the lifetime will be reduced, maybe by 50% or even more if they regularly get left at high voltages -- but for most people even 1000 cycles means a lifetime of many years. Very few people are likely to do this even within the Fogstar warranty period, and even then they might have a job proving that they didn't abuse the battery by keeping it at high voltages for long periods (unless it stores a lifetime record of chjarge/discharge internally, which seems unlikely). All of which means it's quite possible that regularly hitting the high-voltage cutout *does* reduce lifetime (in spite of what Fogstar say) but not by enough to cause most people a problem -- unless they leave the battery sitting there at high voltage for extended periods, in which case this could be a problem... 😞 That's the reality of LFP battery guarantees from companies who build them using someone else's cells and BMS... 😉

It's not clear from the photo -- can they be slid sideways out of the end of the frame? (right-hand side)

Your average bod already can do exactly that if he's willing to spend enough money on the proper gear (e.g. from Victron) -- everything (including solar, battery monitoring, inverter, shunts, control, alternator, router...) just connects up and works. Examples and schematics of what is needed to do this are freely available on the Victron website, along with loads of free help and advice on the community forum. The problem is that people don't want to do this, they want to cobble together the cheapest possible kit from different/no-name manufacturers and leave out anything that costs money but is really needed to make the whole system reliable and idiot-proof... 😞

"Or for weight-watchers -- battered Maltesers!" -- genuinely seen by me in a Glasgow chippy... 😉

Touche... 😉

"Smart" isn't the first word that springs to mind... 😉