Bewildered

Just ordered a NASA BM2 from Amazon. Looked at the spec for the BM1, it is for battery banks of upto 600ah; as I have potentially 690ah I thought I best get the BM2. So once fitted I will have a Smartguage, a NASA BM2 and the MT50 for the Tracer solar controller all monitoring the batteries. I'm going the get repetitive strain syndrome in my index finger from all the button pushing

This is something I have been wondering about. Today I charged the batteries using the engine alternator and the sterling 230v alternator via the battery charger until the smartguage read 95% I then swiched over to the petrol genny and battery charger only. 3/4 to an hour later it reached 100% and the charger switched to float mode. The genny had a full tank and I left it running for 4 hours or so. Left batteries to settle for half an hour, the smartguage reads leisure batteries at 12.80 to 12.85 volt (flicking in between) and the starter is sitting at 12.90 volts. Usually after settling the leisure bank drops of to about 12.4 or 5 and the starter to 12.6 So it seems I have managed to get more charge into them. I try to monitor them tonight and charge in the same way tomorrow, unless I run out of petrol

Just put an order in for this, being sent from Birmingham to West London to be brought to me somewhere near Wolverhampton next Sunday; bugger my carbon footprint

Just took a look at Maplins web site, I can't see a clamp meter for less than £100 that measures DC current. Thought I would take a look at halfords site they sell one for £60 but it only does AC. Hmmm I thought they were a car spares specialist?

Easier said than done, I'm CCing. Only transport boat or bike. Currently on the Shropshire Union heading south at Gnosall, will have to google the next nearest Maplins

It's rediculous, I spent the last twenty years installing, fault finding and repairing low voltage electronic equipment. Never in that time was I particularly concerned with current. Regulated power supplies with the correct fuse fitted, all I needed to do was make sure I ran the right size cable and made sure the equipment on the end of it was under the rated PSU output. Only ever measured volts and ohms, can't remember the last time I had to measure amps. My biggest concern was Volts drop, if something drew to much current and blew a fuse or too little and didn't run I just changed it out. I even passed O level electronics (ok that was 32 years ago) now my head is swimming around this hole in the water I poor money into

Both units are shoreline, I have the instruction books for them but can't find the power consumption in them. The fridge is a real pig to move so I can't get to the back. It's a standard under counter 12v unit. I looked for a plate when I fitted the freezer but couldn't see it? It is half the size of the fridge and gets turned off over night. I will try to find the info on shorelines web site.

Ok this is going to take some writing out, please bear with me. The boat has a sterling power pro plus 600w inverter, a sterling 5kva 230v alternator/generator (this is essentially a generator the runs off the main engine via a bloody big alternator) and it originally had two sterling 40amp 3 stage battery chargers. It also has two solar panels 1x140w &1x80w that were until I changed it running through a little pwm controller, the controller is now a 40am tracer Mppt with an mt50 meter. When I bought the boat I moved it from Whilton to harefield Marina over xmas week, running all day no charging problems but wasn't using much power anyway. The boat then stayed at harefield for 3 months on shore power; no problems there. We set off in early April, 2nd day out I noticed that the Rev counter had stopped working, realised the cause of this was an alternator failure. No problem I just fired up the sterling AC genny and switched on a battery charger to keep the batteries charged til I could get the engine alternator sorted out. Was ok for a couple of days, then at the end of a day's cruising we were just locking up the boat to go to the pub when I noticed smoke billowing out of the electrical cupboard, quickly jumped down the steps and unplugged everything. Smoke cleared to find that the mains leads on one of the battery chargers had burnt out. Because I panicked and pulled all the plugs I can't be sure what was plugged in where but I suspect that I had the charger and the inverter both plugged in. So now down to one battery charger with no engine alternator. Eventually got to a boat yard, they couldn't do the job and gave me some numbers of mobile mechanics. Got a new alternator fitted and we're off again. Well we were off for two days until the engine overheated due to a knackered water pump. Called the mechanic to be told it would be a week for parts. Now this was still early April and it was very cold. The squirrel has a back boiler with 4 rads and a colorifier in line, I had already had problems with the 12v pump and eventually had it changed out for a 230v pump. No power, no pump, no heat. I'm considering re plumbing to thermosyphon, but that's a whole different thread. Had no alternative but to buy a petrol suitcase genny to charge batteries. Had during this time let them go very flat After having the pump fitted were OK for about 3 weeks then the batteries started to loose power, charge up for a good few hours using the engine alternator and the battery charger via the sterling 230v alternator and started getting less and less life out of them until eventually after a full days charge the low power alarm on the inverter would go off after watching less than an hour af tv in the evening. So sod it, time to fork out for new batteries. Originally the boat had 2 x 230ah and 2 x 110ah. I decided to changed them for 3 x 230ah. The day they were fitted I also bought the smartguage and fitted it the next day. That was about 3 months ago so the smart guage has had plenty of time to calibrate itself. With the guage saying 100% most evenings we have the shoreline fridge and freezer running, the 12v dvr the inverter powering the tv and possibly the DVD player, the 12v tv signal booster and the wifi unit. At most we watch 2-3 hours tv on the odd occasion 4 hours by the time we go to bed the guage is usually reading 55-60% the voltage reading on the smartguage and solar guage read the same. My concern is that the inverter, though it is working may actually be faulty and is pulling to much current. When I removed the fire damaged charger I took it apart, the earth wire in the lead and all the earth wires inside the unit were fried. I think that when we had the fire the inverter and charger created an earth short. Is it possible for the inverter to appear to be working properly for 4 months but still have a fault. Is there any way to test this? Tonight I plan to charge up fully, nearly at 100% now and the petrol genny has a full tank. I'm going to leave it charging until is runs out. I'm then going to turn off everything, fridge freezer, the lot, and only have the tv and inverter on and check the guage every 1/2 hour. Of course it could just be that I'm using too much juice. Oh buy the way the tv has a sticker on the back that says it is 110-230v 1.2a 63w and it is 230 only, there is no inline transformer Phew!

When I had it float charging yesterday it was with petrol genny powering sterling 3 stage charger. We have a digital recorder but it is running on 12v The smartguage measures voltage and this tallies pretty much with the voltage reading on the solar controller, within 1/2 a volt usually

Been living aboard for about 5 months now and still trying to get to grips with power management. Had to replace the leisure batteries a couple of months ago as they were slowly dying, to the point they would not last the night. I replaced them with 3 x Varta 230ah, so I have a nice hefty 690ah or rather 345ah to keep them above 50% charged. I also fitted a smartguage so I could keep an eye on this expensive purchase. However I have not yet gotten around to buying a 12v tv so we are still using the 230v tv through the inverter. Having just read through one of the post on here regarding 230v tv's, I read that a modern tv is going to use about 9amps so for 4 hours around 36ah My tv is rated at 1.2 amps 63w; after charging my batteries to 100% (according to the smartguage) and then leaving it on float charge for a good couple of hours we sat down to watch tv for about 4 hours after which the smart guage read 77% pretty much a 1/4 of the total capacity around 170 ah The inverter is a 600w sterling unit. This is 16 year old boat and it was fitted when I bought the boat. I suspect the inverter may be faulty. Rather than an isolator switch to route the 240v this boat has 3 mains sockets mounted in the electrical cupboard. The first is for power from the sterling generator built onto the engine, the second is for shore power and the third is for the inverter. To select a power source a 13amp plugtop that feeds the boats sockets is plugged into one of these 3 choices. The inverter socket is labelled "disconnect battery charger first" however it is easy to make a mistake and leave it in, which is why I suspect it may have a problem even though it still produces 230v On the odd occasion we have watched a couple of dvd's (the DVD player also being 230v) say 4-5 hours worth and had the smartguage reading drop from full to around 60% This all seems to me to be far to much power The only other things being powered during this time are the 12v fridge the 12v freezer as we tend to watch tv in the dark. Hopefully I have given all the necessary info for you to make valid suggestions Note: overnight we tend to turn the freezer off but leave the fridge on, very little power if any is registered as lost on the smartguage

Yes but not off land. They aren't called river rovers

Land Rovers aren't supposed to to be in rivers, the clue is in the name

Or Harefield Marina? They have a slipway that can accommodate a 60footer, it isn't under cover so you should be able to stay on board

Is there any news on what condition the boat was in when found? This is now to long a thread to look back through, I was just wondering if all the owners possessions were dumped like the last boat, and if there was any damage other than the need for a re-paint

That looks like a horsfields tortoise. Try feeding him dandelion leaves. He will also like sweetcorn and strawberries

My favourite Tommy Cooper joke Two Eskimos in a canoe got cold and lit a fire, the canoe sank! Which just goes to show "you can't have your kayak and heat it" Don't blame me, at least it has a boating theme?