Theo
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Posts posted by Theo
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On 12/10/2021 at 20:32, Tracy D'arth said:
All diodes "lose" 0.7 to 0.8 of a volt. Better to have a Voltage Sensitive Relay or even just a split charge relay.
Its "easy" to put the extra connection in a Lucas or just about any make of alternator if you have any mechanical/electrical ability.
or even a SmartBank!
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On 12/10/2021 at 11:59, Tony Brooks said:
Even digital voltmeters demand all but zero current so a cheap plug in 12V socket voltmeter should be as accurate as you need as long as the wiring is not undersized for any other loads you are putting on the circuit - KIS is king on boats. I would not suggest it would be 100% accurate but more because it is cheap far eastern stuff rather than because of cable resistance. It should be fine to tell you when you rally need to go and check the voltmeter at the back. In any case, blue tooth, Pi, or not no voltmeter will allow you to accurately infer state of charge either while charging or discharging.
Just to amplify that a bit. You need the terminal voltage of the batteries. Buy a cheap digital as Tony suggest but run a pair of thin wires all the way from the battery bank to where you sit. Battery bank connected to one end, voltmeter connected to other end. Virtually zero current drawn therefore no voltage drop. Simples?
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Confession time:
Te threads have been stripped for some time. What I did for the last couple of services was to insert some bits of fine copper strands stripped out of scraps of wire that I had. They worked fine but I thought that there might be something a bit more refined.
Thanks for all the suggestions. The problem with buying old jobbies to canibalise is that they might have just the same threads stripped!.
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12 minutes ago, PeterScott said:
Excellent thoughts: just need to send to robert.cowling@wwonline.co.uk who has given the aforementioned SteveH a free (probably) whole-page plug for a book.
Done that.
Thanks for the email address.
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Here's my contribution sent to editor@canalboat.co.uk:
Dear SirI would like to add my voice to the protests about the appalling behaviour of your contributor.With manners like this he is not a worthy representative of the magazine that you work for.My comments refer to the evidence on this YouTube video: http://youtu.be/ldoVS0idTBwWith boat handling like this he is not fit to offer advice to anyone, especially the novices who might be reading your magazine. Here are some of the more obvious mistakes that he made:- Passing ahead of the large white boat seen in the distance. He should have left this boat to port and turned under his stern.
- Failure to appreciate that on a first come first served basis the cruiser from which the video was filmed clearly had precedence.
- Approaching a mooring while running with the current. The correct way is to turn and approach while stemming the current. This gives best steering with minimum speed over the ground.
- Deliberately ramming the cruiser as evidenced by his operation of the tiller.
- Putting his partner at risk. (She was standing on the gunwale during the deliberate ramming.)
I look forward to hearing your comments.Yours faithfullyN A CookeJust noticed the date of the original post! Methinks I am a little late in making my thoughts known!
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Thanks, Mr D'arth.
Drilling and rethreading would seem the most satisfactory way. I had heard (read?) that you can insert a thing like a spring into the hole to produce a new thread but I suspenct that this would mean drilling out a larder hole and rethreading with a tap would be much more satisfactory.
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I have a this here heater which has done valiant service for the past 15 years. I have occasionally cleaned the glow plug and once or twice cleaned the flame detector but now I have a problem.
The two cross head machine screws that hold the glow plug boss in position have stripped the threads of the alloy casting into which they screw. Ditto a couple of the hex machine screws that hold the fresh air fan assembly to the alloy body. Is there a sensible way of sorting out this problem?
Nick
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On 08/09/2021 at 17:20, Tony Brooks said:
All I can say is either we are not being told the whole story or it was a very cheap job. I did better than that on the towpath, at least I rubbed it down to a smooth finish and dealt with the rust before repainting. This type of thing is why I am convinced DIY is the best way for canal boaters.
I wholeheartedly agree. We did it oursleves the last time and would have saved ourselves a lot of trouble if we had done the same again.
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Thanks all. This all confirms what we know is the case. They have done a really rubbish job! Now we need to decide the next steps...
Nick
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Reply to Mr Cuthound: Would you be willing to say how much you paid and who did the work?
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1 hour ago, Neil2 said:
Looking at that paint finish and your tale of woe my first thought would be is any guarantee offered by this cowboy actually worth anything?
FWIW I'd say a professional paint job ought to last five years but you have to have regard to the age and condition of the boat and how much you are paying. Eg you could pay over £10k in which case you would not expect deterioration of the finish for a long time, but there are guys around who will do it for much less, still get a decent finish but you might expect a bit of rust to reappear after a couple of years.
But honestly that paint job is so bad I would be inclined to not pay a penny more and take the boat away as it is, put it down to experience.
And I wonder if you could warn the rest of us off this shower by giving us a clue who did it?
I could possibly say but we are moored at Tardebigge Old Wharf and the boat yard, which also hires out lots of boats (reasonably painted) is the closest one upstream from us.
Nick
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1 hour ago, Theo said:
About as naff as they come. And one of the staged payments was to strip the hull down to bare metal!
I don't think that I bothered to take a larger shot. It looks OK from a distance.
Sorry, error: It was only the cabin that they were supposed to take down to the bare metal.
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44 minutes ago, David Mack said:Hull only or cabin as well? That cabin has clearly not been taken back to bare metal, so if that is what they were supposed to do I would not only not be making the final payment, but I would be asking for the money already paid to be returned, along with the cost of a replacement mppt controller!
Only the cabin. I said the wrong thing in that reply.
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About as naff as they come. And one of the staged payments was to strip the hull down to bare metal!
I don't think that I bothered to take a larger shot. It looks OK from a distance.
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When we bought Theodora she was soundly painted in a plain maroon colour. We didn't like that much so I prepared for a new paint job merely by keying up the topcoat (There was no rust.) and SWMBO set about painting her with undercoat and top coat. Very nice she looked and after five years she was still looking very good. After seven years she was begining to look scruffy and after another couple of years we decided to have her professionally done. The instructions that we gave were that we didn't want a high gloss shiny job. That was not our taste.
We paid a booking fee and then lockdown came. We paid a couple of staged payments but could not inspect the job because of lockdown. When we eventually were able to inspect the finished job we were perturbed to discover much that was wrong with the way that the boat had been left dirty and untidy. Things had not been put back. The MPPT controller had been destroyed because the electrician didn't understand how to wire up the panels and much else...
So far I have not paid the balance but am negotiating an agreement where the balance is reduced according to how much work I will have to do to reinstate poor Theodora. In addition, because the paint job is suspect I am going to require the yard to give me a written guarantee that they will repaint her if, as I suspect, the rust comes through in various places. I have attached photos of some of the suspect areas. The wording of the guarantee (if that is the correct word) will state how long the paint job should last. This will be the length of time that the guarantee will last.
So my question is: If you have paid thousands of pounds for a paint job, how long would you think it should last until a few rust spots appear and how long before a complete repaint will be needed?
Nick
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I think that jump leads may be the way to go, but I must test the starter battery. The whole set is very old!
Thanks for all the help.
Nick
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Having fitted the new Victron controlle as advised elsewhere and discovered that it is vey good and done an experiment or two I now have some answees and another question.
I tried fitting connecting the output from the MPPT to the alternator/engine battery side of the relay. This should have meant that the Smartbank advanced woould have treated the solar panels as a normal charge source and charged the engine battery in preference to the domestics until it was fully charged. At that point it should have energised the relay and included the domestics. Smartbank certainly tried to do that but at times the charging current was so low that it did not energise until Smartbank Advanced's "Hold" function was activated. It would hold for a few minutes and then deenergise the relay for another few minutes then go on to hold again. The result was that the intelligent charging feature of the MPPT got really confused by the repeated changing of the battery bank size from 90Ah to 600Ah. The MPPT would go on to different charging regimes (absorption, bulk, float) when what it really needed was to stick with bulk.
I have now changed back to Gibbo's recommendation to connect it directly to the domestics and all is well except...
... for the fact the the solar panels no longer charge the engine battery. This is a nuisance.
Dow anyone have any thoughts?
Nick
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If I recall correctly lots of mooring rings were installed, then a person tripped over one so they cut them off and now you can't moor!
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On 30/07/2021 at 19:33, Rob-M said:
Could do with a strapping post on that junction.
A cautious use of the signpost, perhaps?
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On 20/07/2021 at 16:22, David Mack said:
I forget where it was when, approaching a line of moored boats there was a sign on the bank saying "Slow past moored boats". And then on the first moored boat "No! Slower than that!".
Or if you are a deep drafted boat in a narrow shallow channel, in which case there will be a degree of water displacement no matter how slowly you pass.
I think that it was on the Middle Levels prolly close to Upwell.
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On 19/07/2021 at 19:16, Alan de Enfield said:
Are you sure you are getting 900,000 VA ?
the OP is running at 1800VA so (assuming you mean 900VA he will be using a considerably greater volume than you (twice ?)
Hm...
900kVA. Do I run a mobile paoer station on a narrowboat?
900VA it is.
Nick
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I have just looked up my spreadsheets and find that for my Kipor rated at 900kVA I have been getting an average of 87 hrs per 13kg bottle of propane.
HTH
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That's all very interesting. Perhaps I won't add that to my list of complaints, which, I have to say, is rather long.
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On 16/07/2021 at 07:44, Sea Dog said:
It seems as though the inevitable decision is slowly dawning...
It seems as though the inevitable decision is slowly dawning...
I am coming to that conclusion but will open it up at home when we get back.
Living without a fridge in this weather is not easy...
But we are going along with no. 1 son and family on their hire boat and that has a workign fridge so life is still pretty good.
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On 14/07/2021 at 16:03, matty40s said:
Was there any welding carried out when you had your paint job.? You seem to have lost both your inverter and solar controller at same time.
There was welding work.
The solar controller can be explained by the wong reconnection as described in the other thread.
The inverter has been showing signs of failure for a bit even before Theodora went in for painting. The indicator light had been unreliable and there was an occasional beep from it. It was working after the paint job and survived until 5 days into the present cruise. All the fuses looked ok but when I tried to take them out (they are 35A rated) i needed pliers to remove most of them and then broke the holder when removing one of them. It rather looks as if even if it was repairable before it no longer is. 😢
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Generator Advice
in Boat Equipment
Posted
I have a Kipor Sinemaster 1000 which is acksherly specced at 900VI so don't be misled by the 1000.
I ran it on petrol for bit then converted it to gas. So much better and cheaper!
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