[tomorrow at liidl]

Hi all

I bought a previous version of this offer only difference seems to be the dish, mine was a 57cm fixed version,decoder looks to be the same.

The free to air programs seems to mean that it is transmitted unscrambled C4-5 5US are scrambled so you cannot view them wether you can add a freeview box and unscramble I know not but would like to know.

Had trouble geting the dish aimed correctly due to misleading info in the manual. It tells you to start with the dish vertical, this is to high, thanks to a passing boater I learnt that the LNB arm should be set horizontal, after this I have found it reasonably easy to align,the decoder has a built in on screen signal meter as long as you can see it whilst lining up. mine also came with a sat finder which fits in the coax lead but not enough F type plugs are supplied with the kit to make up the extra lead You do at least get the BBC interactive feeds as seperate stations.The decoder has a number of satallites already programmed all you have to do is find them in the sky. Only broke it out of the box last week despite having it for a number of months, for the money it aint bad.

 

Steve

[Weight of a 70' bare shell?]

Hi

As phil says you still need a decent size crane unless you can get the crane operator right along side the water, I was recently involved in removing a press which weighed 12 ton , we used an 80 ton crane from about 30 ft away (couldnt get any nearer).

 

I have a excel spread sheet made up for calculating weights in steel aluminium and brass which I used for calculating the weight, did a bit of guessing on height of hull and cabin and the amount of stiffening, it actually worked out to 7.9 tons added a bit to make sure.

 

Be interested to know what the crane says it is when it goes in

 

Steve

[Weight of a 70' bare shell?]

Help! Does anyone know what a bare steel 70' narrowboat shell weighs? 10/6/4mm, unballasted, no engine. If we can be sure it's below a certain weight the boatyard can do the lift, which would save us several hundred pounds on hiring in a 60 ton crane.

 

Launch day!!!

 

It's been starting to feel like it would never come.

Rick and Jo

 

 

 

Between 8 & 10 ton

If you want to work it out the hard way one cubic mm weighs 0.000007865 Kg

[Domestic Water]

I'm having problems finding suppliers of domestic water accumulators for use on my narrowboat.

It currently has an accumulator of around 3 litres total size (spherical). Quite old now and well corroded and not fit for purpose.

I am also fitting a new sureflo pump etc. etc. and would like to replace the accumulator with a new one with much the same capacity.

Anyone out there know of a good on-line supplier of such a product, and what price to expect, the cheaper the better (as long as it is good quality).

Also - what are the various advantages and disadvantages between the older style accumulators that are pressurisable with Bladders and the newer plactic bottle jobs (that do not hold a pressure charge over the water).

 

 

Got mine from ASAP supplies,ordered online you get a discount good range of sizes available

 

Steve

[tunnel lights]

I use a 7" car head lamp with a 55/60watt bulb with main dip and side all switched so I can switch down to side light when meeting others or navigating by moonlight. In tunnels I also use a fog lamp on its own stand at the steering position so that I can see the length of the boat relative to the sides or just inspect something close up The whole thing can be found in the front end of a mini, just requires a nice box to fit it in

[Accumulator tank for hot water]

Unless I have missed it somwhere no one has mentioned that if the accumulater is a bladder type then the pressure above the bladder needs to be adjusted to less than the system working pressure. Normally by approx 2 psi. If not the the accumulater won't do any thing wherever you put it.

 

Just been looking at mine temperature rating is -10C to +99C made by Hotpot, Bladder type

[Alternators]

I am looking for a Lucas type 12V 100amp alternator, does anyone know what vehicles they fitted the higher output ones on ? - most I have found are standard car lower output ones.

 

Or alternatively does anyone sell them or refurb them ?.

 

Thanks

 

You can also look at www.woodauto.com very comprehensive website with enough info to keep you looking for days. Excellent search facility They are in Huddersfield

 

Steve

[want a good belt]

Hi was pointed in the direction of this forum a few days ago so here my first contribution

 

Re Industrial Drive, belts from the info already give somewhere above the designation would either be a "Z" or "SPZ". The "Z" is 10mm top width and 6mm thick, the "SPZ" is 10mm top width and 8mm thick and as you might expect the "SPZ" can transmit more power. From memory the included angle of the Vee is 72 Deg. A single SPZ has a power rating of 2.8Kw at 5000 rpm when driving a 67mm PCD pulley. this drops to 1Kw at 1200 rpm these figures apply if the arc of contact between the belt and pulley is 180 deg, this drops to 70% if the arc is 90 deg. the minimum recommended is 120 deg.

In addition to these conditions we need to add two more service factors one for a speed increase and the other for the type of prime mover, so as a general calculation we have an alternator nominal output of 100amp at 14v. So Watts=VxI in this case 14x100 = 1.4kW. this is the output from the alternator, allow some for mechanical efficiency and you could be looking at an input power requirement of 1.6kW as this is a speed increasing drive a typical value is 1.05 we are now at 1.68kW The prime mover factor would typically be 1.2 this gets us to 2.016kW So depending on pulley contact areas I would be inclined to say that this drive belt is a little marginal on size especially if it is driving other things as well. If I had calculated it I would have either fitted 2 "SPZ" belts or an "SPA" section (next size up 13x10). You may find that the belt that you have fitted is already a "Z" type section but with an automotive part No, I doubt that you will find an industrial belt to be any better made or last longer, a point to note is that engine manufactures sometimes use different belt widths and angles so check carefully.

Toothed Vee belts can generally be used to drive smaller pulleys. They also generate less heat due to bending as they pass round the pulleys. If you observe the wall angles when bent in a small arc you will see that the side angles change due to the compressed material at the bottom and the stretched matl at the top

Obviously with the toothed belt this doesn’t start to happen until very small radiuses are encountered

 

Whilst alignment of pulleys is often given as a major problem for belt life I find that provided that the belt has been sized with some spare capacity they are quite tolerant of misalignment and will continue to work under very poor conditions

Probably the biggest single factor affecting belt life is heat, an overloaded belt may well be slipping (creep)in the pulleys without you being able to detect it so generating heat and fatiguing the core leading to premature failure

 

If you have an alternator management system on as well this will affect the belt life

I have read some where that some engine manufactures will not warranty ther units if a controller is fitted due to belt life problems, this to me indicates that the calculations have been carried out using the wrong criteria as a drive should be able to work at its maximum capacity for at least 16hrs per day

From my 30+ years of working with drives in industry I would say that the belt is undersized for the application

 

Whilst Timing belts as reffered to in a earlier post will transmit more power they are generally wider and the pulleys more difficult to adapt, my own preference is to use Multivee belts, most car manufactures are switching to them and the pulleys are relativley easy to make and adapt

 

Apologies for having gone on a bit hopefully it will make some sense

 

Steve