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bobbingabout

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    eaton socon
  • Occupation
    classified
  • Boat Name
    desire
  • Boat Location
    cambs great ouse

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Gongoozler

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  1. Hope it goes well for ya Take lots of pics of everything so you can learn the boats systems when you get home,charging,heating,battery bank,bog,engine,lighting,calorifire,everything. Try and get a note of any model names and numbers of any gadgets inverters,battery management systems, then Google them to death when you get back and see what goodies are on the boat. Good luck :-)
  2. We use a 3 mifi 15 gig a month for £18 can connect up to five devices at the same time it lives bluetacked to a window where it gets great connection can see a 5 meg download and 2 meg upload speeds great for gaming and fast surfing. When I want to borrow a film from the interweb I download it using my 3 phone that has a unlimited data plan as the phone doesent have as fast speeds as the mifi I do this over night. If I ever run out of data on the mifi I can just tether my devices to the phone but connection can be a bit choppy and slow. I did try swapping the SIM from the phone and putting it in the mifi to get unlimited data and got a sarcastic message on the laptop saying we know what your doing it won't work now put your SIM back in your phone lol
  3. Thanks peterboat would you mind telling me how you wired up your system and were your panels flat or tilted and what sort of results did you find many thank Gary
  4. My stove experience first was solid fuel loved the smell and the flame tv but was a tad oversized and hard to shut down so was like a blast furnace doors open in the middle of winter. Changed that for a kabola natural draft corner stove attractive stove that used around 40 litres a week great for putting a kettle on top as it would keep it just under the boil so 20 secs on the gas and tea is ready. No electricity needed to run it nice blue flame. Current boat has a reflex stove no back boiler nice stove pushes a lot of heat out of the top can boil a kettle on it faster then the hob when the fire is up fairly high to give you an idea of the output. Slightly more economical than the kabola but that is down to better insulation on the boat rather then the fire. The previous owner had a 10 kw eberspacher fitted as well as the reflex for rads and hot water but the unit failed and he binned it (apparently ). I was going to replace this as all the plumbing and electrics are in place just the unit missing but was put off by the cost and the problems that some people had reported as previous owner was only using it to heat water in the summer the 10 kw was more then was needed and not working hard enough from what I've read these thing need to be worked hard that's what I've read not what I know. So have decided to swap the reflex for a diesel bubble stove with back boiler which we will now be fitting in the spring the bubble is also a gravity fed natural draft I stripped it apart to give it a good clean up and although to begin with it looked a state it come appart very easily I cleaned out the pot and got years worth of carbon out painted and it'd like new. They also have a high low setting so if the water in the back boiler gets to hot it will put it on the low flame or off altogether if need be if my understanding of the instructions a are correct. I have a jabsco circulation pump that you can change the flow rate on so should be able to set it up nicely It also draws very little power is virtually silent and uses magnets to drive the pump instead of a shaft. This set up suits us the best and I understand every one is in a different boat we live of grid so reliability and power usage are very important to us. In an ideal world I would love a solid fuel stove for the flame tv or a set and forget heating system like the land lubbers enjoy but we all have to compromise and the convenience of lighting it and walking away with no interaction is handy it will run 24/7 till it runs out of diesel being fed by gravity. Gary
  5. Thanks for the feedback I've had a hunt around and found a guy that makes custom elements in varying voltages and watts so the options are put the panels in parallel so they stay 36 volts with 300 watt element or repair third pannel and put them in series and have a 120 volt element 500 watt or put a solar controller in the mix and go for 12 volts sooooooo many options. I found a water heating calculator on the interweb. I had to guess water tank size of 40 litres which I would imagine should not be to far away I will check when I can get under the bed. Using a 300 element to heat 40 litres of water from 8c to 60c would take 8 hours which is actually better then I hoped as on long summer days this should be easily achievable add to it that the tank will never really be run out of all hot water then it will have a higher starting temp in the morning so greater temps should be achievable so on the sums and our great British summers it all looks viable. Pete you blew my mind on the 240 volt element my brain just could not cope any chance you could explain it for me as if you would to a cave man so I can understand cheers fella Gary
  6. Although it would be nice to get piping hot water from this system I'm realistic in what I hope to gain if it can be warmed enough for a shower and washing up then that would be great and the tank is big enough to shower using just the hot water and not the cold so the water temps would not need to be as high as it would if I was using the cold tap as well
  7. Totally agree that hot water panels would be a way more efficient way to go but for my situation having the solar panels already sitting there makes it a cheap option plus with my limited diy skills it would be way more simple placing cables rather then the epic plumbing that would be involved.
  8. Hello forgive me if this is mentioned elsewhere but I could not find it if it is. Currently my hot water comes from the engine via a calorifier it's a twin coil so I plan to link up to the heating system when I fit a stove with a back boiler in the spring as all plumbing rads and expantion tank are already in place. I was originally going to put a solar water heater in line as a friend made his own and found it very successfull but it would have ment disconnecting either the engine feed or the stove feed or having an elaborate system of valves and stopcocks so that I was not heating the world via the solar collector on the roof. So plan b as I've recently upgraded my solar panels I have been left with three 190 watt 36 volt panels that are sitting redundent one that has broken glass due to a poor tree felling exorcise. My plan is to put two of these panels in series 70 volt total and connect them to a suitable heating element for the calorifier so sunny days will result in water heating which is what needed for the summer as stove will not be running. I could just link up the element to my current solar controllers load function so when the batteries are charged the eccess would go in to water heating but I wanted to keep the systems separate in case something went wrong and discharged my bank. That why I've decided to use two of the currently redundant panels to keep the systems seperate. Now my question is (sorry if this has been long winded) what's the best way to go about it do I use a second controller and it's load function or the more simpler way just connect panels direct to the heating element with a inline stat to cut power when water temp is achieved in my head the panels direct with a stat seems the cheapest and simplest way to go about it. The thing I'm lacking is the know how so if anyone is currently using this system or can throw any ideas my way as how to wire this up it would be awsome. Cheers gary
  9. I don't get out of my box very often so have to make the most of it when I do :-)
  10. Hi all new member here. Love the sterling engine stove fans don't own one yet but it's on the wish list even though we shall be fitting a new stove with a back boiler in spring to take advantage or the rads and calorifier that are already fitted. We shall be getting the sterling fan even if it's for the fascination factor rather then for any practical use for a system with rads. I did do an experiment one evening when it was freezing to try and blow the warm air down the boat using a normal fan to get the bedroom warm. After tinkering about I found the best area to place the fan was actually on the floor next to the bed pointing back down the boat towards the stove. The effect this had was incredible as this was the coldest part of the boat it pushed the very cold air along the bottom of the boat and sucked the warm air across the roof towards the bed I used smoke so I could see the way the warm air was reacting. After less then ten mins the back of the boat was noticeably warmer then the front with the stove there in fact it was bloody cold up there and the bedroom was toasty. The fan I used was a standard 240 volt desk fan so not the most economical fan to use but it was an experiment. If I was going to use this as a permanent solution I would use a 12 volt fan with a thermostat on so it could cut in and out when desired temps are reached.
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