Danny T

Yes - I am work at a Brazilian Sustainable Development Institute with fishing, hunting and food security. I'm going to be collecting small off-cuts of what local people catch, and analyzing them for lots of things, including mercury content (very toxic for consumers!). Most communities only have a few hours of electricity every evening via a diesel generator, so I want to be able to rock up in my little self-sufficient freezer boat! Shame I can't get my narrowboat over here...

Considering the past comments, it seems important to get a freezer that is designed for/ tried and tested in the Amazon. Which possibly puts me off the 12V option (which will probably come from Southeast Brazil), and instead steers me towards just getting an A+ efficiency standard freezer from the local equivalent of Currys! (+ inverter) Thanks very much for all the tips - I will get some more local advice now, and tell you what I discover!

😂 Indeed!!

Great tips, thanks! Even with lack of experience in the local conditions your insight is useful. The idea to further insulate the freezer is a great one - I'll do that. I also thought that keeping it full of ice packs could help? Just remove an ice pack every time I need to put more stuff in it (because I will be filling the freezer, not emptying it). The calcs that you have given me make it look quite tricky - but not impossible. Day length remains a pretty constant 12 hours all year here (6am-6pm), and unfortunately I will probably not have the option to charge from the boat engine, as I think I will be using a longtail outboard. But I could get my hands on a generator. With a little more research I have found that I can get 12v freezers in Brazil - and like the UK they are twice the price of mains! But maybe that would be a good option? The problem being that I can't use mains electricity to get it down to temperature, nor top it up if I have a genny. A compressor cool box is an interesting idea. I can get my hands on them here, but most are just for cooling and not freezing - I'll keep researching! Thanks again!

Hello, About a year ago I was finally convinced of 12v fridges, and made the leap from an inefficient 3-way to a 12v fridge-freezer for my off-grid narrowboat on the Lancaster Canal. I am now needing to keeping stuff frozen in the Brazilian Amazon in a (different) small boat! 12v fridges/freezers are not easy to get hold of here, and so I think I will have to buy the smallest and most-efficient freezer that I can find, and an inverter. Some examples of small freezers that I can find locally are 127 or 180W, and will run on either 110 or 220 V (which are the standard Brazilian mains voltages). I have also found local inverters between 750 - 3000 W (I assume the 750W will be fine for a 180W freezer?). However, I don't understand how to do a power audit when an inverter is involved! I am trying to work out how many solar panels and batteries I will need to keep the freezer running all day. Note - I will be able to plug the freezer into the mains to get it down to temperature initially, but will then be relying entirely on the solar panels in remote areas to keep the contents frozen. I hope it's ok to post this boaty but not UK-canal questions here! I imagine that canal folk will have experiences that are applicable to this situation! Thanks in advance for any help. Danny

Haha yes, I get the feeling that most people out there feel that the Ctek is an over-complication, and I think I now agree. Let me explain... from reading the various replies it seemed that most people thought the problem was either the Ctek or the alternator. As I'm currently moored 3 minutes walk from an alternator repair shop, I unbolted the alternator and took it for a test. It works perfectly! The guy there explained that, in terms of wiring in its simplest form, all I need going from the alternator is a positive going DIRECTLY to the positive of my battery, and another wire going to the bulb/12v switch. The positive was going from the alternator, through the Ctek, to the battery. So I simply cut out the Ctek, thereby wiring directly from the alternator to the positive on my battery, and hey presto - my voltage shot up!! I.e. I think that the Ctek was not working. I only tested this briefly due to time restraints, but I'm cruising all day tomorrow, so I will monitor my voltage to check if the engine is definitely continuously charging while I cruise. I'll give you all an update tomorrow night! But I think it's fixed. Take home story - the Ctek seems to be an unnecessary over-complication! Thank you very much for all your thoughts and help. I think I'll start using this forum more often (maybe I'll work on my boiler issues next!!) Danny

Ok, so the charger only has "CTEK SMARTPASS" written on it, and no model number. From a bit of googling, I think that this is the 'original' smartpass model, which was later followed by the (black) ctek smartpass 120. Unfortunately I read this message after the sun rose, so I can't do that initial measurement until tomorrow. However, from memory, I would imagine that it wouldn't drop much below 12.5. Yes, I am a low energy user. All my lights are LED, I only use my invertor when the sun is shining or engine on, and the only other things that would have drawn electricity last night would be the 12v water pump (briefly) and charging a couple of phones. So for me a sunny day is more than enough to provide for all my electricity needs. Also, the starter battery was brand new a couple of weeks ago, so it is very unlikely that that is the problem. The red light on the ctek smartpass is solid when the engine is on, and NOT flashing. Voltages... Right now (in the bright sunshine) the voltage was 14.2. I just disconnected the solar panel and it immediately drops to 13.4. I then started the engine (with the panel still disconnected) and it immediately fell to 13.1 (I assume this was the energy used to start the engine?), and there is NO rise in voltage with the engine on, which I would normally get. i.e. all suggests that solar panel is doing its job of charging, but the engine is not! Is that helpful? Thanks again

Again, thanks for all your comments! And apologies for my slow responses... I'm covering a lot of miles, locks and swing bridges this week! I have a solar panel, but that goes through a separate mppt. So, when I am cruising ALL power to the to the Ctek comes from the alternator. I have 2 x 110AH leisure batteries and a starter. I almost never use shore power. I have just one alternator. The voltage varies a lot depending on how sunny the day is/was - e.g. today I think it was hitting around 14V in the sun, and is now around 12.7V in the dark, after using appliances for the evening. With the alternator on, I would expect to see the charge rise a couple of volts, and I think that the rise would be more significant if the sun is weak. I can't seem to find a model number, but it's this type: and the red light is the one labelled "!" I'm starting to think that it could be the alternator! Any ideas? Thanks again Danny

Thank you for all your thoughts. In response to a few questions - the Ctek charger is connected while the engine is running to charge my batteries. Every time I cruise, this tops them up. The issue is that the voltage is LOWER than expected, and not higher. I mainly observe the voltage using a cigarette-lighter style voltmeter in the boat living area, which I use for easy monitoring every day. I know that this is less accurate than measuring directly on the battery, but it is the relative value that I am interested in, and this is where I have observed an issue. Ordinarily the voltage would rise significantly when the engine is on, and then drop, but remain high, after a decent cruise. Now it appears not to be charging at all. Perhaps the suggestion that the alternator could have a problem might be right - although, would you expect the ctek charger to display an error light just because the alternator is faulty? I wouldn't have expected so. Thanks again for any help

Hello I have a Ctek Smartpass battery charger, which has been working without a problem for years now. The last couple of times I have had the engine/alternator on, I noticed that the voltage in my batteries hasn't been increasing, and that the red error light on the charger is on. This light goes off when the engine is off, and everything looks fine. Any ideas why I can't charge my batteries? Any help would be much appreciated Danny

Hello After many years my freshwater pump has died on me and needs replacing. I was thinking of just getting the same one because the pressure is good, and it's a good brand. From what I can read on the old label it is a "Whale Universal UP1214", which is a 30 PSI pump. It appears that they don't make that model anymore. Have they just replaced it with the UF1214? And is this still a good pump to go for? I can get it delivered for £85 Thanks for any help Danny

Great advice, thanks! No, never been serviced! Yeah, loads of flakes of corroded metal had dropped down, so I took the unit apart and cleaned it. It lights dead easy now, however it's not staying lit, even after holding the gas knob down for over 30 secs. What could that be? Thanks again for the advice!

Hello I live on my boat all year, I normally have my 3 way Dometic fridge on gas, and I've never had a problem. Recently my CO alarm went off in the night, 2 nights running. I changed the alarm too to check that this was the problem. The only solution was turning the fridge off. I changed it to 240V for a couple of weeks, and now I am trying gas again it won't even light properly. After many attempts I got it to light, but the flame sounds like it pulses intermittently, and it gives off a burning smell that it didn't used to. Any ideas? I know that the easiest option is to find an engineer, but I can't afford it at the moment, and would like to fix it by myself if possible. However the contact of an engineer that works with gas fridges in the Lancaster area would also be appreciated, just in case I can't fix it myself! Thanks v much for any help Danny

Hello When I bought my boat the plumbing had a serious leak from a water valve that was found near the water pump, so I removed it. I have been using the water system as this with no leaks for 2 years now. The problem is that it loses pressure very quickly and therefore the pump pumps every minute or 2. So I need to constantly turn the pump off so not to flatten the battery. I did a bit of reading that suggests that most water pumps have a water valve built in. I assume that this means that in theory I should need a separate valve? My water pump is Whale brand Does this suggest that the in-built valve has broken in my water pump? Can it be fixed? If not, can I just install another valve near the water pump? Or do I need a new water pump? Thanks, any help is much appreciated Danny

Does anyone have a Perkins 3.152 engine? Something has shaken its way out of the cold start aid fuel reservoir on mine, so that diesel spits out of it. Unfortunately I have lost whatever shook out into the oily mess that is underneath my engine! So I don't know what part to buy to replace it. Also I can't find anything online that gives me a clue. Does anyone know? Or maybe could someone send me a photo of their cold start aid fuel reservoir? Thanks v much for any help Danny