Mike55

Nearly a year after announcing that they were discontinuing 3.9kg propane & 4.5kg butane cylinders, Calor decided to reverse their decision, and now we have something in writing confirming this. Bit late for me as I had my boat modified to take 6kg propane cylinders nearly a year ago. Still not been able to find anything about it on the Calor website though. Calor Confirmation of Continued Supply of Small Cylinders 25Jan24.pdf

I'd recommend you download the manual for your specific model of Mastervolt. Many are available on the Mastervolt website but if yours Isn't (mine wasn't), you can email them & they'll send you a pdf of it. In there you'll find a list of all the dip switches and what they do explained. I'm reluctant to quote what it says in mine as the wording is slightly different and hence what it does may be different too. Mine has a "Power Support Function" rather than "AC input support mode" for example.

What causes a boat to sink, assuming it's a steel hull? Is it the water the fire brigade use to put the fire out? I wouldn't expect the fire to get hot enough to affect the welding.

12mm Black on white or yellow is available from loads of places including Toolstation & Screwfix (I think). I wanted white on black recently - to make replacement distribution board labels - that was harder to find, but Google is your friend.

OK, thanks for the tips. Mine has a fair bit of space around it and the charger has a 12V isolator (as well as an enormous bolted 250A fuse) so any flash would be within the isolator so perhaps not quite as scary as replacing the fuse. I want to get the replacement switch before I start the job.

Did you have to remove the unit or could you replace the switch with it still on the wall?

I too have the same unit and have had problems with the on/off/charger rocker switch especially in the charger position. I sprayed around the switch with contact cleaner (after a suggestion on this forum) and that got the switch working again. I've also found that rocking the switch back towards off slightly seems to help. I try and avoid operating the switch once I've got it working. I decided this was lower risk (& less work) than taking the thing to pieces to replace the switch. I'd be interested to know how you get on particularly with the switch.

We left our boat (57' narrowboat) at Goole Marina for 10 days in June. They charged us £10/night plus £1/night for electric hook-up. They were very helpful, the bar was quite good & they sold cheap diesel, although not in the bar.

Avon Valley Railway. There is a pontoon mooring on the Avon (between Bath & Bristol) although space can be a problem due to (unsurprising) CMs. https://www.avonvalleyrailway.org/

Last time we were on the Monty (2 years ago) we referred to it as 'Jungle Boating' due to the rampant vegetation brushing both sides of the boat at the same time. Obviously this was not on the newly opened section to Crickheath. We walked there instead. As it's now open we'll have to go back!

I know, I took the post as referring to mooring on the offside but outside the basin -- which seems pointless, since you're behind the gate anyway you might as well go inside the basin where there are rings and more space and no passing boats. There's also a lot more weed in the basin, or at least there was when I was last there. There are also rings outside on the offside - can't remember about the towpath side.

Are you sure it's not something around the prop shaft? I once had a tick-tick noise in forwards that turned out to be the remains of a pair of in-ear phones. It was the 3.5mm plug hitting the underside of the boat that caused the noise. Being very small they took ages to find.

We moored up at the tunnel entrance about 3 weeks ago, & it was very quiet. But then I've moored at Etruria, Festival Park (outside the carvery) & Westport Lake and they've always been fine apart from the goose poo at Westport Lake.

You also need to periodically grease the O-rings that create the seal between the cassette & the docking station. Use silicon grease. Not a pleasant job, but necessary. Wear plastic gloves. Also check the cap on the cassette is screwed on tight and the seal is clean.

Well, it looks as if Calor are having a partial rethink about discontinuing 3.9kg propane and 4.5kg butane cylinders: https://www.boatsafetyscheme.org/media/299380/nr23-001-calors-new-position-on-small-cylinder-filling-6apr23-wip.pdf What is clear is that these sizes will become increasingly difficult to obtain as the float of serviceable cylinders reduces, not that they are particularly easy to get hold off now. I don't regret getting my gas locker modified to take 6kg propane cylinders though.

Was he looking at you or the bridge? Just asking.

A male POL to male POL hose is used in this: https://bullfinch-gas.co.uk/hose-and-fittings/hose-assemblies-and-pigtails/y-manifold-detail when connecting two bottles to one regulator via a POL manifold - see the diagram.

The thread on a 4.5kg butane is a left hand thread.

I took a screenshot every time I paid anything to DE when I was in the area earlier this year. On their website, even if you request a receipt you don't get one, hence the screenshot. A boat that moored in front of us at Henley over the summer and hadn't got round to logging on to pay got visited by DE and fined - can't remember how much. These are council moorings, and lots of councils use DE (e.g. Reading). So they do enforce them, but only if you haven't paid - we had but the people in front hadn't, and it cost them.

I've had similar problems which turned out to be the switch on my Masscombi, although in my case it was in the charge position. Try rocking the switch very slightly. I found contact cleaner helpful too.

Yes, I did use a floaty thingy, although you're right, I didn't make a temperature correction. At the time I was more concerned about differences between cells, and as all the readings were taken at the same time, temperature was unlikely to affect that. I've now left the batteries disconnected and will monitor how quickly they self discharge. If the 1.3 cell has a short then hopefully that will show up.

Thanks for that. But why would the cell have such a high SG reading (1.3)?

Everything other than the charger was disconnected/isolated. The 13.5V at float was with a current of 0.3A. The nominal bank capacity is 520Ah, so well below the 1% target. Before attempting another equalisation charge I checked the specific gravities - all were within the range 1.25-1.27, except for one cell which had an SG of 1.3 but with the electrolyte discoloured slightly brown. I do remember reading in another thread that brown discolouration was not a good thing, although I can't remember exactly why. Fortunately the battery involved is the end one of the bank, so easy to disconnect. On attempting another equalisation charge the voltage was up slightly to 15.0V (previously 14.8V) but the current was much the same at 5.4A.

Float voltage is 13.5V.

The charger had been in float for over 24 hours, so I'd have thought it would have been fully charged by then. The current stayed consistently at 5.6-5.7A. I'll have another go later today.