steve7a3

Frankly, I think the electricity prices are the least of their "crimes". Banning dogs in the boathouse seems to be the final nail in the coffin for many people, it would seem. It's very sad for Anne and her team who, in reality run a quite pleasant little drop-in cafe, with good food and a pleasant atmosphere but, with Lakelands apparent total disregard for their main clientele (the moorers), there will be little more than a small cafe on an island in the middle of a big, empty pond in a few months time. At least 10% of their complement of boats have left since December and more are planning to leave. It's almost as if Lakeland actually want the place to fail. No-one with any real business sense would continue to treat their customers with as much disregard and distain as they have shown if they wanted their business to succeed. Closing the workshop, raising electricity costs, removing free lift-outs, increasing mooring fees, increasing prices in the cafe - all done with no notice or formal warnings or announcements, apparently in the hope that no-one would notice? It beggars belief.

Glad to see she's wearing safety goggles!

A big pity that the picture on the top of the Roydon Marina web page is actually A Jetty at Tattenhall. You'd think that someone from Lakeland would actually have enough interest in their new purchase to go down there and take a photo, wouldn't you?

You mean as per this handy guide:

Update: I have now connected the Victron chassis to the hull (as per the manual and advice from Galvanic Isolator UK), via a convenient bolt near the engine mount. All indicated faults, AC (two lights on the GI status monitor) and DC (one light on the status monitor when the Victron was isolated) have gone. All power sockets are showing correct earthing both with and without shore power. Seems to have fixed the problem even if I can't explain why.

To clarify. The top connection on the GI is the onboard one and goes to the busbar. The lower connection is the shore power one, bypasses the busbar and goes somewhere behind the breakers, I assume out to the shore power socket. There is NO (detectable) connection between the shore power terminal and the busbar so the GI is wired correctly. I can't see any connection from the busbar to the hull. The output earth and the input earth are all joined together at the busbar and to the earth connection of the Victron. The Victron chassis is not connected although the Victrol manual (and my marina sparky) say it should be. So, to sum up, I don't know (because I can't yet see it) if the busbar is connected to the hull anywhere. Therefore my intention is to run a new earth from the busbar, via the Victron chassis to the hull bond point which should ensure everything is connected as it would be. At least that way I'll know I have at least one earth point to the hull.

The thin brown wires go to the GI status monitor (the one that started me on this quest). Have just managed to have a consult with the resident sparky at the marina and he has clarified things for me. Both inboard & outboard earths (and the Victron chassis) should be connected together in the inboard side (as they appear to be) and then to the hull bonding point. If I can't establish that they are bonded to the hull then there's no harm in running another lead, via the Victron chassis, to the hull. So, this is what I'll do as, without removing the consumer unit/s from the wall, or at least pulling the breakers out, it's virtually impossible to see what's behind them. I've checked with a meter and the shoreside earth of the GI is not connected to the busbar so at least that bit is ok.

Sorry, should explain those photos: On the right is the RCD for the inboard circuits. On the left is the breakers/RCD for the mains circuits (Immersion heater & charger/inverter) The earth lead from the birds nest on the right comes across to join on the earth bus on the box on the left.

Well, now I am a bit stunned. Just looked at my consumer unit(s) and it looks like the inboard-earth is simply connected to the outboard-earth on the inboard side of the galvanic isolator. Pretty sure that's not right.

This is something I will now need to check. I assume there is because there's an RCD but I haven't physically seen it. I had assumed that the output earth/consumer unit was connected to the chassis of the Victron. (and hence to the hull when that connection was made). In this case, best not to assume anything!

Ok. That all makes sense. I can't see any other earth connection on the in-board side of the Victron apart from the chassis ground so I'm reasonably sure that it's the only earth/hull bonding point. In my case the nearest convenient hull connection is through the rear bulkhead into the engine bay anyway, so I may as well connect it as close as possible to the engine earth.

The Victron manual states, in the Installation section: "- In case of a mobile installation (connection to input AC with a shore power cord), the ground connection is lost when the shore power cord is unplugged. In this case the chassis of the product or the on - board section of the input ground wire must be connected to the frame (of the vehicle) or the ground plate or hull (of a boat)." On mine, the chassis of the Victron is attached to a timber bulkhead, not to the hull. The earth connection on the chassis is not connected to anything. It is therefore likely that the chassis of the Victron is not connected to the hull at any point. In this case I assume there is no hull/earth bond. This is what I'm wanting to rectify so I can check whether the indicated AC leakage disappears as suggested. If it doesn't then I'll start looking at other more complicated problems/solutions. My original question was, in short, "if the battery negative cable is connected ultimately to the hull, can I simply connect the chassis of the Victron to the same point or the same cable?"

I was told by Ed Watt from The Galvanic Isolator Company after I checked with him that I'd installed my new GI Status Monitor correctly as it was showing two lights. His comment was: "Many people have problems with earth leakage when using specifically Victron chargers. It's usually due to the charger not being adequately bonded to the boat's hull. You need to "Earth" the case of the charger to the boat's hull/ground using a short, thick cable, min 2.5mm cross sectional area or preferably greater. In all the cases I have come across so far, this has resolved the problem." I assume he knows what he's talking about.

Sorry to open up an old thread but it seemed appropriate. I have a Victron Phoenix Multiplus which appears to have no chassis earth connected, which I've been told is the probable cause of my indicated AC earth leakage, so I've been told I need to earth the Victron chassis to the hull. I'm assuming, after reading this thread, that it's likely that the battery negative will also be connected to the hull. If this is the case would it be reasonable to connect the Victron chassis to the battery negative or to the same connection (presumable on the engine block) that the battery negative is connected to or should I find a separate connection point on the hull?

I know this is an old thread but I couldn't help noticing something. Inspired by this thread I was perusing the International signal flag meanings on wikipedia, as one does, and it occurred to me, that if you were a French national ship in distress, you would have a problem (apart from just being in distress, of course). If you chose to fly the Tricolour inverted to signify your distress, you would effectively be flying Tango and saying "Keep away from me". Makes me wonder if this wasn't influenced as some sort of cynical, jocular move by early British naval types.

Stephen, I'm a retired programmer of some 20+ years standing (well, mostly sitting, but you know what I mean!) and I have to say it beats me how you did that. It is an awesome piece of work and I commend your brilliance! I'd love to see the workings one day although I suspect it may be beyond me!

Not much of an issue for a boat that's being run regularly, but for one that spends a lot of it's time in a marina connected to mains power, a charger for the starter battery is a good way, if not essential, to keep the battery "alive".

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on the viewpoint) I don't have any solar on that boat. That's actually a very good suggestion and one option I was considering. Was also looking at just setting up a split charge system with some sort of intelligent splitter in there. I've done it before on a van where I had dual batteries and I'm assuming something similar would work here. On the van I had two identical batteries though. I'm not sure whether having such vastly different battery capacities on each side of the split it would work ok.

Well, thank you very much for that! It certainly answered the question ... and a few others I didn't even know to ask. It clearly doesn't have a separate starter battery charger which is a bit annoying.

I have one of these: It doesn't appear to look like anything on the Sterling web site or anywhere else for that matter. Does anyone else have one? If so do you have a manual for it? What I'd really like to know is whether it has a starter battery charging circuit or not.

Does anyone know if creating a personal hotspot with an iPhone (or another phone if they have the option) and using that as wifi counts as tethering? Or is tethering specifically when using a cable to connect?

Good Lord!! How else are you going to eat!?

For those who may not want to tie themselves into a long contract, EE have changed their sim only monthly plans and the best one is now 32Gb for £28 a month. An increase of 7Gb for £2 less from what it was previously. http://shop.ee.co.uk/sim-only/pay-monthly-data

Well, for me at least, going in without my glasses would have been as debilitating as going in with them still dark. Luckily I had plenty of time to stick them in my pocket while they lost their tint before I needed to be in the tunnel. Having a pair of non-reactive available to pop on would be the best option of course.

Something to think about with tunnels, especially if you're new: If you wear glasses and they are those solar tint ones that go dark in the sun, don't forget you have them on before you enter a tunnel. I did. My boat has the dents to prove it. It wasn't until I was about to enter my second tunnel and the helpful chappie on the boat in front of me suggested I take my sunnies off that I realised why my headlight hadn't been too effective in the first tunnel!