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.

I knew about towable water generators for sailing boats, but a dual purpose one is new to me! I'd thought the prop design would have to be completely different to get the best out of both? Maybe the high cost is for an adjustable prop! Obviously something like that even for people who moor where there's some flow is never going to trouble the solar industry, but I'd be strongly tempted to try some experiments.

I'm sure this is the 3rd or 4th similar thing I've seen crop up on Kickstarter or similar, they're always about 6" diameter, 5V and designed to go in a backpack. They seem to emerge in a blizzard of excited crowd funding and then vanish. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hyerinster/estream-a-portable-water-power-generator-fits-into Has anyone who moors regularly where there's a current ever tried hydro generation? I can't imagine it would be difficult to lash up something, wouldn't necessarily need to generate a massive amount if it's doing it 24/7 (unlike solar or wind).

It would be more convenient than having so many fractured databases and form of ID / proof of residence. Interestingly, my dad has one of these tucked away somewhere as the north west was the second trial area where UK citizens could get one. He got one because it could be used as ID to travel to within the EU and it was 40 quid less than getting a new passport for his holiday. Between getting the card and the holiday we had the 2010 election, the cards were immediately scrapped and he had to get a new passport. I'm hoping it's rarity value will get me a good price in 30 or 40 years.

A Canada McGoose Burger, would that be tasty d'you think? (not sure if this is getting the thread back on topic or not....)

You could rebuild them as cruise-through restaurants for boaters. Get your lunch handed straight to you at the tiller.

My mad lunchtime idea: use the canal network as a massive pumped storage power station. Pumps / generators at locks or flight of locks, massive reservoirs built above summit pounds on canals, pump water up into them when there's a massive surplus of electricity (like midsummer if we cover every massive warehouse and supermarket in panels), then when it's needed you let the water flow and make electric. Pros: Improves the viability of nice polar bear friendly renewable energy. Revenue for CRT thanks to it's energy supplier sideline. Incentive for them to fix knackered leaky gates promptly, since that's now pure money pouring out. Electricity would be used and generated more evenly, distributed up a whole length of canal. New reservoirs for people who like doing reservoir water sport type things. On some canals, like the L&L, Rochdale or Huddersfield Narrow, it could be used to effectively shift water from the wetter west to the drier east (where a lot of arable crops have quite the thirst) Cons: I imagine it would be catastrophically expensive. Constant flow might end up adding a significant bit of current to some pounds (could be a pro - depends on your preference I suppose) The more I think about it, it really would be VERY expensive. And there's a lot to maintain. Yeah, REALLY expensive. Thoughts? As I say, just a vague idea while I'm eating my lunch.

Interesting. I wonder how many people live full time aboard similar craft in harbours / coastal marinas in the UK? It doesn't seem to be talked about as much as living on narrow boats / wide beams etc.

The clever bit is that for the unit to get the location is free. If you keep your boat in a marina and/or you need to leave it unattended for more than a few hours, it makes sense to set up geofencing. The unit checks its location every minute, and if it's outside a certain area, or moved a certain distance from its last position, THEN it sends you a text message. As you say it's about programming the tracker correctly - this cheap unit claims it can do it, but the only way to program it is by sending text messages. The reviews say this is fiddly, time consuming and prone to error, which I can easily believe.

Depends on your point of view. Most security advice is sociopathic - it emphasises making your boat / car / home look off-putting to opportunistic thieves, like it'll be more trouble than it's worth. This of course means they'll move on to the next one that looks easier, putting the problem onto someone else. In a sense, the best idea is a good tracker and an easy to steal boat. Yes, it'll get nicked, but you can be waiting with a couple of rozzers at the next lock, so someone actually gets caught and (hopefully) can't nick anything else for a while.

Down to £8.40 - how low can it go?? Maybe the seller has a load of them taking up space and is willing to take the loss to get rid of them. GPS/GSM chips in volume are very very cheap nowadays, but this seems to have a lot of extras. A microphone so you can listen in to the thieves in the cab, an alarm, engine immobiliser, door and fuel sensors. As I say, I've ordered one, so as and when it arrives I might open it up and post some pictures. Btw Jess - this one class to be a TK-103A.