Col_T

Bluff, or double-bluff?

I think that Leoch Pure Lead Carbons are, essentially, AGMs. Do AGM and Gel batteries suffer from internal short circuits, and plate shedding for that matter, in the same way as conventional lead acid batteries?

A couple of questions - - do solar charge controllers slip into float early the same way that battery chargers do? - does your charge controller have an equalisation charge setting? We have a Tracer MPPT charge controller that tries to do a monthly equalisation charge even on the sealed lead acid battery setting - I haven't found a way of over-riding it, so I've set it to equalise for 1 minute!

We've been on the K & A for the last 5 years, as marina based holiday boaters. In that time, we've only heard of one marina, Devizes, that has genuine residential moorings i.e. you pay council tax, get mail delivered, etc. Other marinas tolerate 'under the radar' live-aboards but, rumour has it, one of the Newbury marinas had the council down on them for allowing this as it contravened their license. Not something we ever investigated, as it didn't concern us, so perhaps a load of old baloney!

When we were buying, my wife and I had long discussions, did much research, and hired a number of boats to try and get a feel for what we would prefer. We ended up deciding that a trad stern was last on our list. The boat that 'called out to us', and which we bought, was a trad stern - of course!

'staycation' has been taken to mean not holidaying abroad for a quite a while now, I think.

Then get a Beta - it's easier to spell?!

What we do is to pull a loop of rope through the eye-splice, then put the loop we've just made over the bollard on the stern, and then give it a sharp tug before throwing the rope onto the lock-landing for someone to loop over the bollard there. works for us.

A bit of a random thought has occurred. The locker is about 15" / 35-ish cm deep, as in front to back, and pretty much full-width just by the gas locker, so maybe 5' / 1.5 m wide. I weigh about 70 kg, my lady wife considerably less - would something like 3 mm aluminium chequer plate on its on work as a locker lid e.g. not wrapping a board? The locker has drains round three drains, so the aluminium would need an edge that folds into that channel, for drainage. Sound feasible?

Good info, chaps. Many thanks.

Head in sand for a few days is something loads of folk do - ostriches have made a living doing this for millennia ?! Stick with it, every life has its ups and downs, and the boat will help you through the one's it doesn't cause!

With apologies for high-jacking the thread . . . This sounds like a solution for the front locker on our narrowboat. The plywood lid is delaminating as just paint clearly didn't do a good enough job of keeping water out. The lid hinges upward, so would the chequer board sheet be physically attached to the plywood, using glue of some sort, or would it be just laid in place with the screws for the hinges keeping everything together?? I kind of like the idea of gluing, to minimise holes in the aluminium.

Do you have to register with Canalplan to save an route? Or maybe try exporting to file and save that on the cloud?

There's a fair bit of 'beware canal infrastructure failures' in this thread, which makes sense - the network hasn't been used much over the last months and failures aren't being fixed terribly quickly at present. Well, certainly not on the K &A. Waiting until a failure is fixed is fine, if you can wait somewhere that gives you good access to public transport to get to work, if necessary. It may be less fraught to go by road - definitely quicker, someone else has the hassle of route planning, what if truck breaks down, or is delayed by 'other incident' - you just have to be at the mooring at journey's end!

I suspect the responses are all down to risk. In your last example, the company that said no evidence is required, is putting all the risk on you - example: the boat sinks, you make a claim which they probably reject as the boat has not properly maintained. In the first example, the company that wants a new survey, is probably restricting the amount of wriggle they give themselves. You pays your money and you takes your chance.

Yorkshire tea teabag, one per mug. I find that the longer tea, or teabag, stays in the pot, the more stewed the resulting tastes - not good!

Bromptons are very good - for paved surfaces, pavements, city streets, etc. The small wheels make them a liability for towpaths that are not smooth surfaced - a pretty high proportion of them.

Aha - if only I had read what you had actually written, rather than what I thought you had written! That'll be another cable to make up rather than re-use - bother. Thanks for all your patience. Stay well.

Okay, so what we have is 5 off 110Ah batteries - we'll call them by number, where battery 1 is the furthest from the bulk-headed mounted charger, and battery 5 is closest to the charger and immediately next to the starter battery. What I presently intend is that the -ve posts of all 5 batteries will be connected by interlink cables, so that battery 1 is linked to battery 2, which is linked to battery 3, which is linked to battery 4, which is linked to battery 5, which is linked to the engine starter battery. After that, nothing will be connected to the -ve post of any battery except battery 1 -ve, which will have the shunt connected to it. There is no Smartgauge to complicate things, so does the above sound okay? If not, and @WotEver and @Tony Brooks really do mean that the domestic and starter negatives should not be connected, then could someone explain why they are connected now, and why they shouldn't be connected when the shunt goes in because, with apologies for being thick, I genuinely don't understand!

As presently wired, before fitting shunt and/or busbars, the nice and neat "To installation" in your diagram comprises multiple connections to the batteries. From memory, there are two connections to the domestics fuse board, and one for each of the MV heater, battery charger, solar controller and domestic alternator. The hope is that the wiring will be as neat and simple as your diagram after fitting the shunt and busbar!

Thank for that, @Tony Brooks, and apologies for my sloppy English. The domestic alternator +ve goes to an isolator switch and then a fuse before connecting to the domestic battery +ve terminal. As it happens, both the engine alternator and battery charger +ves go via their own isolator switch and fuse before reaching the relevant battery. It was how the boat was wired when we bought it and has passed two BSS examinations so far. Having clarified that, would you recommend the domestic +ve route to be alternator => isolator => fuse => busbar => battery or is it better to leave out the busbar? Also, and just for completeness, it's a two alternator boat.

Thanks for the comments, gentlemen. The busbar bar is one of these - https://www.12voltplanet.co.uk/4-point-negative-distribution-block-busbar.html - slightly over-specced at 210A, especially as the advice is to connect the alternator direct onto the busbar side of the shunt! It's not terribly clear from the photo, but the leftmost stud is slightly smaller than the other three, so @Jen-in-Wellies idea of connecting the shunt to the middle stud will work well - I'll leave the smaller stud unoccupied. I also have an equivalent busbar for the +ve side. @Tony Brooks, would the advice be to connect the alternator +ve direct to the battery, and then everything else via the busbar? For clarity, the shunt will be connected to the -ve of battery no. 1 of the five battery bank, with the +ve busbar connected to the +ve of battery no. 5.

So, I'm getting ready to install a BMV battery monitor, which means installing a shunt, and I'll take the opportunity to tidy-up the battery wiring. The inter-connect cables are 70mm CSA, so no issues there, but there are too many +ve and -ve connections to sit on a single battery post, hence the busbars. The shunt will go in the -ve line, and be the only thing connected directly to the domestic batteries, except for the inter-connects and the -ve connection to starter battery. The other end of the shunt will connect to the -ve busbar, and here is where the question lies. My instinct is to connect the -ve from the solar charger to the post on the busbar that connects to the shunt, then connect the -ves from the alternator and battery charger to the next post, and then all other -ve cables to the remaining posts. Sound okay, or is there a batter way of wiring this?

Apologies for the slight tangent, but do GEL and AGM batteries sulphate in the same way as wet lead acids? I suspect the answer is yes, but confirmation would be good. As far as reading this thread is concerned, I read it out of pure curiosity - we're not live-aboards and don't use power hungry devices (coffee-makers, hair-driers, etc.) so lithiums don't make sense for us.

You don't need to actually cruise to charge he batteries - just run the engine. Something like 1200 revs to start with, tailing off as the batts become more charged. Don't forget the 8:00 p.m. to 8 a.m. no-running-engines rule.