phantom_iv

Another vote for going round the prison loop. County lock is evil, wouldn’t want to mess around winding anywhere near there!

At that end of the Llangollen the best meal you’ll get is from the Swan at Marbury - not canalside but only a short walk from Marbury lock. Much prefer the Dusty Miller to the Willymoor as well - it’s actually open on a regular basis for a start! Beer is great, staff are great, food is much improved from past visits. The Willymoor is ok but once you’ve seen their teapot collection there’s not much else special about it. We ate in the Dusty Miller both out and back this time, and didn’t even go in to the Willymoor as it wasn’t open either time we passed!

Couldn’t agree more. People were bemoaning the lack of indicator stalks on the new Model 3 - I can only assume they’d never used the indicators on the old one. Test drove a Polestar 2 a while back and my overriding impression was how nice the indicator stalks are! Interestingly I’ve tried a Starlink mini, my impression was data rates weren’t significantly worse than regular Starlink. 150M-ish download, which was plenty when in the middle of nowhere with zero phone signal. My colleagues were impressed that I was able to do a video call from a moving boat with the world going past the window outside. Wasn’t so great going under bridges though!

You can get a Victron MPPT 100/15 for about £45 - for this sort of price it’s probably not worth messing around with “cheap” ones (or a /20 for an extra £20). Works well in my experience. It doesn’t matter if you connect a bigger panel to it than the controller’s max output as long as you stay within the max short circuit current and open circuit voltage on the datasheet (check your panels datasheet too…) - It can be cheaper to get bigger panels in some cases as long as you can fit them on your roof! You can get a 400W panel new for £50 or so these days. Overspeccing the panels won’t increase your peak power output but will get your more in the mornings/evenings. 200W or so should easily take care of a fridge in the summer. It does make a huge difference not having to worry about it!

I have to wonder, are these guys like the private car parking companies who send you threatening letters that they'll take legal action unless you pay up but eventually give up rather than take you to court, or do these guys have a history of actually doing anything if you don't pay?

HNC now open. Commence operation "escape from Yorkshire"!

CRT will need to send them on a lawn mower operation course before they're allowed to cut the grass 😂

Last time we had a noticeable power cut here the mobile service died as well. So I'm guessing the cell towers don't have back-up power either. I've since got starlink at home so at least I'll be able to do wifi calling in a power cut!

Yes this was my understanding as well, LFPs are quite happy to sit at 100%

I found that a gas fridge really struggled to keep things actually cool in summer, but works well in the winter. An electric fridge works well in summer when there's plenty of solar, but struggles in winter unless you run your engine regularly. So I figure the way to go is an electric one, and if you run out of electricity in winter you can always put things you want to keep cool in a box outside when it's probably at fridge temperatures anyway!

I looked at one of these then decided that stolen diesel would be less costly than the inevitable leaks of water into the tank from failure to seal it properly.

Domestic car “chargers” don’t do ac/dc conversion at all (well, apart from some low power stuff to run the electronics) the actual charger that does this is in the vehicle itself, the wall box basically just passes through AC to this. Many of them require their own earth rods installed though, so could be some interesting effects there if it’s very close by / depending on ground conditions. If pulling a full 7kw though the voltage does tend to drop a bit, could an out of spec too low mains voltage be upsetting the boiler? Would seem unlikely that their car would need that much charging though, would think it would be quite intermittent if this were the case (e.g only at night time)

I went there late October (I think), it was clean, comfortable, food was good, prices were reasonable, people were friendly, generally a nice atmosphere. I don't recall what the beer selection was like but I don't remember being disappointed for something to drink. Having tried pretty much all of them I might even go as far as to say it was my favourite pub in Kinver at the time.

The obvious solution to this problem is just to buy a boat.

I have a Bosch 18v cordless strimmer at home and it is a most excellent bit of kit - even folds up for easy storage. I've thought I should take it boating many a time!

Yep, I was right about the bleed bolt as per https://betamarine.co.uk/resources/Operators_Manuals/10-115T-KC-OM/#page=36

These pumps are usually connected by a hose to the bottom of the sump, so even if it's mounted next to the gearbox it might still be connected to the engine sump (probably is). Also, re: the fuel filter - apologies if this is a stupid question but did you undo the bolt in the middle of your first photo when you pressed the manual priming button? I suspect (would check the manual though) that this is probably the bleed screw that you're supposed to vent the air out of when you press the priming button. When you stop getting air and get mostly fuel out of this hole then you're good to go.

Can't really see hydrogen on boats being viable tbh. Some combination of batteries, solar, with charging points and synfuel generators as backup seems to be more likely.

Indeed. If you can't see CRT/others installing electric charging points all over the canals then you have to wonder who's going to install all the hydrogen transportation/filling infrastructure.

I happened across this video the other day while taking apart one of these pumps - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM4F7jbFh-I Apparently there's a dampener in the pump which you can change which may improve this if this is what you're seeing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd5aePEB-4g&t=34s

Gate valves are a pain. I have to say I hate gate valves even more. They tend to stick after a while if you're not very careful of them, and they seem quite leaky even from new (maybe I've been unlucky). Would rather have a decent ball valve such at this type - https://www.screwfix.com/p/lever-ball-valve-red-15mm/67744 , or indeed one like MP suggested above if space is at a premuim - I find the lever ones easier to operate if there's space though