Rustonick

Try Mark Edwards (M & L Canal Services) - 07970 384047. He's around 40 mins from Stoke.

In hindsight perhaps the photo didn't help as much as I thought it would ! The red wires to the bottom of the photo are all of the battery interconnecting cables, the left hand thick red cable supplies all of the 12v circuits via a distribution board. The thick red cable on the second battery supplies the inverter - intermittent use only. The thin red wire is temp sensor cable for the charger. The negatives are grouped from the RH end and joined to a common point - admittedly not as tidy looking as it could be.

Good point. Each time I checked at the end of a four hour cruise, the charging current had obviously fallen to 3A from a higher level, but what I didn't do was continue to monitor with the engine running after we'd tied up. The engine is a three-cyl Ruston - quite noisy etc, and SWMBO likes to have it turned off asap after stopping !

Thanks Tony. Take your point about wiring, however not sure how one battery can work harder than the others if all positives are inter-connected with 70mm2 cable and all negatives likewise.

Right - this might not be very helpful, however two are labelled Platinum Leisure Plus, and two are unlabelled. See photo : Out of interest we've been on charge for two days at a marina, and when testing the batteries just now with the cold-cranking tester (I know it's not fully representative), all four batteries are showing as 'good', which is a bit more reassuring. I'm wondering if our four hours cruising a day with the alternator being 'fooled' by the solar MPPT pushing the volts up, has simply resulted in not fully charging each day.

Yes - they're sealed for life 'maintenance free' leisure lead acid. Bothers me sometimes that I can't 'get into them' to check electrolyte levels or check charge with a hydrometer, but the manufacturers must know what they're doing !

Thanks Tony - that test makes a lot of sense. Do I also take it that you're suggesting that the solar panels could be 'fooling' the alternator into a lower output. If so, wouldn't it be prudent to disconnect/cover the panels whilst charging with the engine running ? I guess an alternative is to invest in an alternator 'controller', to help overcome the higher voltage issue.

This is interesting - I've often wondered how to assess the remaining capacity of our four lead acid batteries. In the past I've used a Sterling battery tester to check condition, but this is only really a good test of cranking ability, and doesn't tell me what capacity is 'left' in the batteries. We've got four 110 Ah batteries, and cruise daily for around four hours. The engine-driven alternator is rated at 70 amps (max). After four hours the output to the batteries reduces to around 3 amps, telling me that they're near full charge. We have 200 W of solar through an MPPT controller too (for sunny days !). Overnight we use around 50 Ah (according to our Victron BMV unit). When the batteries were new, the voltage would fall to say 12.4 v overnight, now after some 100 discharge cycles (100 days), the voltage by the morning falls to around 11.8v, which I know is not helping. How do I test to ascertain the remaining capacity of the batteries ?

Hi Robbie. The Houdini hatch was a genuine item bought direct from Houdini. I've just measured again and the sides have definitely been pulled 5mm lower. The yard that fitted for me during repaint said it wouldn't work, but agreed to try. It worked a treat.

We fitted a new Houdini to our curved roof whilst the boat was being repainted around three years ago. The sides of the frame had to be 'pulled down' about 5mm each side. The seal on the hinged lid is thick enough to compress and maintain a good seal. It's opened regularly, but has never leaked whilst shut. On the inside we have a simple removable glazed panel set in a timber frame - no condensation.