DrBurkstrom

You don't need a sign, you'll just know cos it'll start raining. I don't think it's been dry underfoot here since September.

It's obviously not brilliant, but again it doesn't need to be because different use cases. If you're doing a long distance drive you want your car to top to at least 80% (although they do seem to still have the long tail issue) in the time it takes you to have a pee and a burger in the service station. Equalising the cells is more of an issue, and something I was talking with the developer and supplier of the system about yesterday. The system includes a standard diesel engine that can recharge the batteries, and charging can also be done via shore power as well as solar, he recommended running the engine a fair bit in winter and/or plugging into some shore power every 2-4 weeks until the batts were saturated so the cells would equalise.

The main benefit of Lithium-based batteries in almost every other use case is weight. Everything benefits from lighter batteries, except a boat, where it might mean you need extra paving slabs under the floor. The only benefit for boaters is that you can run them down to nearly nothing and (to a greater extent than lead acid at least) you can leave the expensive electronics to take care of them the same way you do with the lithium batteries in your phone and laptop. The increased costs per kWh are currently so great that it's just not worth it though. HOWEVER The cost of Lithium based cells is coming down quite quickly, as demand (for cars, phones and laptops) is increasing quickly. Tesla are building what is apparently the largest building in the world (by footprint) just to make batteries in, and other manufacturers particularly in Germany and China are ramping up production. This will bring reduced costs and more availability of different battery configurations with their own management systems. The point where a battery bank of n kWh is cheaper to do with Lithium based batteries than lead acid certainly exists, I wouldn't like to say when it'll be but we're probably talking within 10-15 years. I'm currently having a sailaway built with a parallel hybrid system based around a 48V wet lead acid battery bank. Research / warranty / estimates lead me to believe that this battery bank will last around 10 years before it needs replacing, and I'll be very surprised if the sensible replacement is still wet lead acid, at the moment it's the sensible choice though.

Has anyone ever had a traditional hard drive (rather than more modern Solid State Drives) fail or be damaged by a knock to the boat, or even just engine vibration? I'll be moving on to my boat next year and what I'm worried about is a small network attached storage box that holds 4 hard drives which I use for storing films and backing up work. It uses 4 because it automatically backs everything up, 2 are the main drives and 2 are backups, which protects against standard hard drive failure, but if a sudden, china-rattling shake causes damage, it would probably have the same effect on all four drives. I'm basically trying to assess the risk to decide whether it's worth spending an outrageous amount of money upgrading to solid state drives.

My parts from Kildwick (separator, seat, buckets, tank and some plumbing) are on order, so I can't speak for what they're like in practice I can tell you that the manufacturer is extremely helpful and active in running in a Facebook group on the subject: https://www.facebook.com/groups/compostingloos/ I'd back OldPeculier up in suggesting you look at this range as an alternative to the Separett or Airhead, the prices are reasonable and the support is excellent.

Have you been talking to my dad?

I won't second guess myself next time! Makes sense though, a nice quiet boat for short day trips, plug it in at the pub while you have a very long lunch!

Hydraulic? They look a little like the electric pod things shown in this video: (advance to 10 mins to see the motors) but I think hydraulic is more likely. (Edited to make it spaced out better cos I forgot the forum would show the actual video instead of just the address)

At £40k+ it's not something for every boater but I'd imagine it would be a reasonable investment for a boatyard that offers painting as a service. It must surely cut down on the time and effort required, plus you could charge an optional premium to customers who wanted to watch because it looks and sounds SO COOL!!!

When I last visited the yard where my boat is going to be built, one that they had at the fit out stage was a massive wide beam, full luxury apartment spec, being built with no engine. It's got a suitable hole if they want to put one in later, and obviously it's up to anyone to spend their money on what they like, but it makes no sense to me.

Slightly off topic but but has anyone else found that it only needs you to look at a couple of boats on Whilton's website and their poxy google ad turns up on every other site you visit, more or less forever? The prices are probably over the odds because they have to charge massive fees to feed their online advertising budget.

If I'm understanding your original post, your aim is to basically be as self-sufficient as possible, to go somewhere only because you WANT to, rather than because some domestic chore requires it. If that's the case I would really take another look at composting loos with an open mind. I'm not trying to be all self-righteous and critical, I can completely understand why a lot of people instantly rule out the idea. It goes against everything we 'know' to be hygienic and clean, but techniques and construction has come a long way in recent times, you might surprise yourself.