Boater Sam

Getting some amps then, good to see the OP now knows how to use a multimeter. He will find it a great help in the future.

I have always worked on the principle that whenever I pay someone, the money is no longer mine and is gone from me. It saves all this angst trying to get a refund. If there is ever any doubt about the integrity of the receiver I pay by credit card or Paypal, both will usually reimburse the money if you match their conditions.

Who hung the pussy?

? Plus you cant put a price on the satisfaction of not paying down someone elses mortgage whilst they are living it up on their boat! ☹️ Oooh that hurt! A ) I don't have any mortgage. B ) My property is rented out at a low rate so I pay less tax. C ) I am not at present living it up on my boat, we overwinter in the Philippines. D ) We worked damn hard and long to get where we are and sour grapes because we live so well is uncalled for. Sam.

Careful Alan, you will get accused of being negative as I have been. Its sad that with all the information available on here and elsewhere that there are still the potential boaters who are unaware that living on a boat in a decent way is never going to be cheap. I rent out flats in the north of Lancashire that are far cheaper than living on any boat, never mind the folk who want to live in London areas.

Its probable that we have analysed as much as possible from a distance Tony. I think your observations would suggest that a rewire of the alternator, Sterling regulator and split charging arrangement is going to be required if this boat is going to function reliably. There remains a big question mark over the cabin batteries. You time and patience explaining the workings to the owner are most likely gold in his ears, he has a lot to catch up on! At least your timely intervention has made the boat habitable for now and the owner has more idea of how to cope. You are rare creature, we are luck to have you around.

What does go wrong. Integral water tank top/deck floor rotted. Gas lockers rotted through. So much rust under the floor that there are no knees and braces left. Weed hatch falling off. Hull sides warn away over rear swim. Baseplate lost all corners, thin. Skin cooling tank rotted inside swim. Roof cross braces gone. Cabin sides rusted away around windows and roof vents same. Honey tank leaked. Front bulkhead rotted away from floor. All over deep pitting of hull. Windows unusable. Diesel tank leaking into rudder tube. Hull perforated behind rubbing strakes. All of which are expensive and difficult to fix. All occur regularly. Any 2 or 3 will right the boat off if it has not already sunk.

Likewise but mine has the usual small hatch on top of the big one so when cruising in the wet a cagoule can be spread over the hatch, stern doors closed and only the steerer gets damp. Its also a lot lighter to open from inside than the big hatch. Surprised more trads are not built with larger hatches, much better than the semitrads which are uncomfortable to sit in along the sides, have to have 2 sets of doors and seem to attract rust more than a cruiser stern.

True but the real collectors don't buy on value but compunction. I buy and sell vintage radios, folk think they are worth far more than the actual value as receivers hence most are advertised at high starting prices. I will however pay well over the odds for something I want or has rarity value. I have never made a decent profit, it can never be an earner but I enjoy the challenge of restoring something that is over 80 years old. I often giggle when radios and even TVs are advertised as antiques, not yet they aren't! At a real live auction they attract collectors who have deep pockets and much shorter arms and prices are more realistic.

I thought so, it was an ugly beastie though, can't remember whose hull but it was a bit unusual in that the diesel tank was crescent moon shape at the stern, which was very half circle shape. I did know of one other similar but it was a long time ago and lots of welding rods have been used since then.

36 foot sunk narrowboat, £500 after it was recovered. Dumped the rubbish and furniture. Welded it up, cleaned it out. Fixed the electrics and gas. Tidied some of the paintwork by stripping it and priming. Sorted the engine and gearbox oils etc. Had it ultrasonically thickness tested, New safety certificate, blacked the hull. New batteries. Flogged it on ebay where it stood on the dry for around £8k if I remember correctly.

You are correct. The back EMF is a function of speed and resistance of the windings in a DC motor. The back EMF reduces the current flowing and reaches equilibrium at a certain speed and load. These stepper motors are a bit different, its a sequential switching of the DC voltage to successive windings on the stator, the rotor is a permanent magnet. As the voltage is switched by semiconductor junctions, the back EMF has no return current path hence the speed is controlled by the speed of switching alone. This is why cranking an engine on a flat battery actually cases more current to flow in the starter motor and can burn it out, a point not understood by most. (especially farmers!)

I said that in edit. Resistive or inductive, its one or the other or both!

Sorry, that's where it goes wrong, running at half the voltage on a resistive load will halve the current passed, it will be slightly different for an inductive load. It was all OK up to there. Computer fans are stepper motors, should run at the same speed within the voltage band specified but the power may be reduced by the ducting resistance. Crossed with Dave, same comment.

Brown yellow would seem to be the starter solenoid feed wire, the colour code is correct. That is the one that comes up live when you turn the key to the start position, it energises the solenoid which kicks in the starter motor underneath. Why it should appear again, if it does , behind the alternator is a mystery to me. The green wire with the red ring terminal on the back of the alternator looks to be the tacho connection. The 2 extra wires from behind the voltage regulator on the top of the alternator look to be from the 2 brushes inside, extras added for the Sterling alternator controller. The green one looks like it could be the field wire that goes to the white wire on the Sterling box. The other (red?) wire looks to be insulated and tied out of the way, not connected to anything, in the bundle. I may be wrong, can't see. That could be the wire that is not needed for the Sterling, see the instructions about adding the field control wire. If not I have no idea what it is, does it connect to anything anywhere?

Maybe not local to you but R Wilkinsons in Stockport can fix anything diesel pump/injector wise diesel service. 0161 476 4645 ron.wilkinson@hotmail.co.uk Used them for years, been brilliant.

Quite normal that the diesel heater only will heat the radiators. As has been said there is a very small risk of overcooling the engine if it feeds the radiators as well. There is also the difficulty of keeping the water in the radiators separate from the engine water and coping with the expansion and header tank differences. The way to do it if you want to is to put a plate heat exchanger in the engine circuit at the calorifier coil return position and feed the output of it into the radiator circuit with a small circulation pump with a switch and a gate valve to shut it off when not required in summer. Needs careful design and a bit of thought as to where and how to tap it into the radiator circuit so that it does not interfere with the diesel heater circuit. May need a gate valve in that circuit as well but care must be exercised not to close it off when the heater is on.

I use a wet and dry vax with a thin extension tube through the filler to suck out the bottom of the tank where the muck is.

Tony is far too busy driving out to help boaters in trouble with things that they can't get answers to on here by just looking. Bless him, not many would go to the trouble especially at New Year. The search function works well enough to find the answers 99 times out of 100, its as good as most other forums, better than some. Shame that folk make no use of it. Sam.