jetzi

If you are driving 425 miles to cruise, then that makes complete sense. I have Victron kit so I set up a Raspberry Pi running Venus software so that I can at least keep an eye on things, but generally speaking I'm also not really a big fan of connecting everything to the internet. Feels like asking for trouble.

I think you're being a little hard on them judging by those images. It's just a little vegetation, the blocks are still well proud. I wouldn't look twice at a lock like that, it's hardly a hazard. It's really tragic. I think what makes it so much more tragic is that it's not just wasted money, it's that anyone with any taste at all sees the blue signs as a blight on the old infrastructure. But the signs DO stand out and that's what they are for. I reckon it's a branding exercise for them to try to raise funding from donations, because that initiative was such an abysmal failure. And completely unsurprising IMO. The public doesn't realise that the canals are managed by a separate organisation, I certainly was oblivious before I started boating. Perhaps cart is counting on awareness being enough to get people to open their wallets, but I have no doubt that any future initiative would fail spectacularly as well - even if people know that cart is a charity. Public space kind of feels like it ought to be free. Cart is counting on people caring more about them than the other 1000's of charities with objectively more worthy causes. It just isn't going to happen no matter how many sinking tyres they display around the network.

Speaking of maintenance and a shallow canal, there's now an apparently stoppage on the HNC between locks 8W and 21W due to a major leak just below Roaches lock (15W). https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notices/20822-lock-8w-to-lock-21w-huddersfield-narrow-canal - anyone in the area got any idea how serious this is? Is the canal totally dry? According to their updates, they started repairs today and will give us an update on Tuesday 19th October. One thing that I must give cart credit for is their updates with the stoppages, so with baited breath I wait for Tuesday's update..

Sounds great. Any desire to connect the BMS to the internet to allow you to set the combi to fast charge if you are not on the boat? Can imagine that would be useful so that the battery is full by the time you arrive ready for your cruise. Perhaps would be nice to be able to monitor the SoC remotely as well.

Yeah, it seems weird to me too, but they do specifically say not to use it for inverters. It could just be Victron covering themselves, it seems very strange to indicate against the very thing the device is supposed to do. The bit about it not being able to handle "reverse" i.e. charging current is more serious though IMO as this is an "everyday" situation rather than an emergency one. Unless you are only using the BP to terminate the load circuit, in which case I'd probably ignore it, especially if I already installed one. Yeah, many folks on here subscribe to the 80/20 SoC rule which is probably a bit conservative (considering that, with only 60% of your LiFePOs now usable, makes them roughly on a par with the 50/50 rule people follow with LAs). I actually had the same problem with the voltage pulldown shutting off my system. I mostly solved it by adding more cells, but ocassionally I'll get an alarm when I try to do something high-current with a low SoC. Another point for a microcontroller system, you could add an ammeter and build in some allowance for a lower voltage when under a high current situation, at least for a few minutes. Ah I see, for me the emergency disconnect on per-cell over/undervoltage is the most important bit of the BMS. So really the internal BMS is actually just doing some on-the-fly balancing? I feel automatic balancing is a very optional extra, I am not going to bother with any of that, instead I just consider an annual manual top balance as part of boat maintenance. My understanding (probably wrong) that it's neither top nor bottom balancing, instead it's just on-the-fly balancing at whatever voltage the cells happen to be at. At least that's how I think the ISDT balancing works (my only experience of such a function), but this is triggered by a button so I suppose you could use it to top balance if you are very patient and don't mind holding your battery at a high SoC for the duration! Alright, that's good to know. According to the docs the D-pins on the Arduino Uno are "on" at >2V (to a maximum of 5V) so I think it must be a 3.3V device. I'll only be switching Tyco BDS-A relays with the MOSFETs, so I can spec them all the same. According to the Tyco BDS-A data sheet the max coil power is 7W (~0.6A at 12V) and resistance is 47Ω, though you mentioned some time ago that the Tyco coils take a burst of say 10A at 12V (36W) - not sure if this is right but I will overspec the MOSFET to the higher figure just in case. . Still reading around what all the various MOSFET specs mean, but so far I think the one I linked to earlier would be suitable for this application. They can manage a pulse of 32A which is plenty to operate the coil. The Vgs threshold is 2-4V, so that seems correct for the Arduino outputs (would like to find one that was 2-5V to match the Arduino output exactly, but they don't seem to exist [edit: on second thoughts, I think I'm reading this wrong - I think 2-4V means that it requires a value of 4V to be fully on - so I think I need to look for a MOSFET in the range of 1-3V]). The gate-source maximum voltage is +-30V so that should be able to cope with the highs and lows of the system (though if the Arduino is outputting 30V, something has gone horribly wrong!) Considering that the MOSFETs are so cheap, I see no reason not to overspec them for safety, but I am still trying to get to grips with how they work to make sure that it's not counterproductive.

Fair warning, I remember while setting up my system I had the same cunning plan to use a Victron BatteryProtect, and I remember reading stuff that cautioned me off it. I recall two main reasons, 1) it doesn't liking shutting off during high current i.e. from inverters, which of course is exactly when you're likely to run out of juice; and 2) Victron say it shouldn't be used with reverse (charging) current "The BatteryProtect is not designed for reverse currents from charging sources" https://www.victronenergy.com/battery_protect/battery-protect The thought of 12V makes my palms sweaty. My emergency cut off when any cell drops below 3.0V, which means 12V if the cells are perfectly balanced, which they aren't, in practice I never let my battery drop below 12.6 or so. I think most of us are monitoring cell voltages for emergency shutoffs (at least I should be, but my system is not working at the moment - instead I'm relying on the overall voltage, very conservative battery use, and using the ISDT-BG8S for a low voltage alarm - it doesn't do high voltage unfortunately so I have to be extra careful while charging). But the chargers (MPPT or smart alternator for those who have them) and in some cases the first load disconnect is handled by the overall battery voltage. Which is actually fine as long as the batteries are balanced, similar capacity and you don't set the cutoffs too low and too high. I am not sure how the valence batteries work, do they have an internal shutoff relay for the whole battery when one of the cells drops below a preset voltage (or rises above a preset voltage)? How much current can the internal relay handle? After some deliberation, I've decided not to continue to pursue the off the shelf cell performance monitor "BMS" approach. Now that I have some idea how MOSFETs work instead I am experimenting with an Arduino based system, using logic-level n-channel MOSFETs with pull-down resistors. I'm much more comfortable with software than hardware, and this will allow me to extend the BMS to include temperature sensors and a battery heater along with a relay for my dump load. I'm also buying a few small capacity LiFePO4 cells (14500 "AA" form factor) to test with. I'll get the parts I need in about a month. If I have any luck with this I'll post my solution for critique!

Fair enough. My experience of broad canals is the GU, Lea&Stort, part of the T&M, L&L, and K&A in pictures. I'm not sure that I'd class those as "wide and deep" at least not for their full lengths. I have seen many, many widebeams moored up but very, very rarely seen one moving. In fact, though I'm sure there have been others, I can only recall a single time I passed a widebeam in the last 3 years, I remember because it was unusual! I'm a continuous moorer myself though so it might just be that I myself don't cruise that much. Exactly. Rightly or wrongly, I get the sense that widebeamers are resented by everyone else, whether the canal is a broad canal or not. It might be a "reverse classism" thing, it's fashionable to despise the wealthy. I don't feel that way, for the record, I haven't ever been inconvenienced by a widebeam. I'm going to keep an eye out for the bridge/tunnel problem in the future, because I do like the Dutch barge vertical sides and would consider one in the future (though wouldn't be willing to sacrifice interior space for it). I haven't noticed any bridges that have been tight at my cabin corners, though having said that there is a large dent on one cabin corner where my boat met a bridge, probably back in her hire days. So I'm probably just oblivious.

The black and white signs can look quite smart, at least on those rare occasions when the signs are useful.

I don't doubt that a widebeam is much more comfortable, but it is also much more expensive in a lot of ways. And surely they are much harder and slower to navigate - I very rarely see widebeams moving anywhere. I think I'd feel in the way - whether it's valid or not I feel like a lot of narrowboaters resent widebeamers, take this encounter on the K&A where these vloggers were abused simply for having a widebeam. Fair enough. Was really just considering the logical extreme of maximising interior height. Was thinking you could save an extra 3/4 inch by not needing a board substrate to your floorboards. Most boats have plenty of headroom for me anyway, a thick baseplate with minimal bilge space is probably the best answer then.

It's a bit of a matter of opinion, personally I find the dutch barge style much more attractive. Yes, but this is also (mainly?) a consequence of air draft, so if you have a thick baseplate, fairly deep draughted, minimal height bilge, and keep your interior height to a minimum, then hopefully won't be too much of an issue. We're only talking about a couple of inches wider at cabin roof height, right? So you push the king size bed as far forward as you can and put your water tank, generator or gas locker above your head. You would then be able to get out of the sides of the bed about half way down the bed. I don't know, again it's a compromise I guess. I think another reason is for outside space. I feel like having outside space at both bow and stern is wasteful. I have a cruiser stern and it's still the place to be when travelling despite some noise from the engine. It's not loud enough to drive anyone off the stern deck but an electric boat would be nice! A cocooned diesel genny under the stern deck surely would be a hell of a lot quiter than a diesel engine in a hollow engine bay under your feet, anyway?

Same here. What I'd really like is a "dutch barge style" narrowboat, minimal tumblehome, with a vertical and very tall prow - I think that this design looks the nicest when you have the cabin as far forward as possible at the expense of a well deck, and it would maximise the internal width. But I'm far too narrow minded to consider anything more than a 6'10" beam.

Well, where does bilge water come from? Condensation and leaks (hopefully above-waterline leaks!), right? So if you have a vapour seal between your interior fitout and the steel hull, there shouldn't be condensation on the inside of the hull. And if you do get water inside the inner lining, then it will end up on the floor to be mopped up. I guess what you're driving at is that you definitely DON'T want water underneath such a floor! And I agree. But my cabin bilge stays bone dry (can't say the same about my cruiser stern engine bilge, which is really my on-board paddling pool). If you're laying tongue and groove type laminate flooring, cutting it to the correct size and laying it flat on the floor without any fixing should be fine, right? And if not, what about glue? I'm just musing really... my bilge is about 4" of air and ballast, and I'm just wondering if it's really necessary in a properly sealed boat.

Very interesting and makes complete sense. Thanks. Dumb question probably, but is a cabin bilge really necessary - if you were to use a very thick baseplate, say 15mm or even 20mm, could you not just lay the floor directly on top of the steel and forgo ribs entirely? (correcting any list or trim issues with the potato weights Alan mentioned). My bedroom is in the centre of the boat, and having quite thick insulation behind the walls and a radiator in the corridor next to the bed, an extra 6" of bed would be very awkward to have to shimmy past multiple times a day. My next boat will have a bed in the bows. Preferably full width, but I guess that getting in and out at the foot of the bed would probably get tiresome! Boat layout is always a compromise... unless you have a widebeam I suppose, to the OP's point!

The floor of my boat is laid directly onto the ribs, so how does it help to have less ballast? Wouldn't that just mean more space in the bilge? Or do you mean, knowing that you need less ballast, you can make the ribs shorter to accommodate less? Most but not all of my bilge has concrete paving slabs in it.

That's really interesting, why is that? Is it because the base plate is thicker, it's stronger and therefore you don't need as tall ribs? Or is it a ballast thing? I notice a lot of people seem to be going for thicker than the standard 10mm baseplate ("standard" in the case meaning "wot I got") I'm 6'4" and when I was shopping for my boat headroom was a key factor for me, but plenty of narrowboats were tall enough. My boat has 6'7" of head clearance so I shouldn't have thought it would be that hard to find a narrow beam boat that meets the OP's requirements. Also I am not sure why the beam has anything to do with the length of the bed unless you have a NB and are set on a cross bed? The width of the bed does come into it though, my bed is a "small double" which does make it narrower than I'd like, in fact if I was going for a new build top on the list for me is side hatches and a king size bed, at the expense of bow doors and well deck. Regarding OP's original question about renting a mooring first vs commissioning the build first, I imagine it really comes down to how specific an area you are looking in - if you're commissioning a brand new widebeam build I expect you can probably afford to sit on a vacant mooring for a few months - if you find the mooring best snap it up. But I second what everyone said about going secondhand first, if there's one thing I have learned from a secondhand boat it's exactly what I'd want in a new build (and spoiler: it's very different to what I thought I'd want at first!)

No not at all. It will probably still be winter, but I can spend some time exploring the Caldon canal if I should wait for summer. What do you mean by "time restricted"? You mention Foxton, and going to see the site of the incline plane is on my bucket list, I'm not sure if most people would consider it worth the visit.

That's good to know, I didn't realise rain would be an issue. Is the Soar unnavigable in the rain or merely dangerous? I don't mind getting stuck for a week or three, not in any hurry (I expect the trip to take me 2ish months). I'm leaning towards the Coventry route, because I'm in a narrowbeam and it will be easier to do narrow locks. I have also heard good things about the Ashby. However I tend to prefer quieter, more rural, more off-the-beaten-path routes, and I think the GU Leicester has more rural moorings.

Going from Great Haywood to Northampton. Already done the Shroppie / Staffs & Worcs / BCN, I'm torn between: 1. taking the Coventry Canal (with a detour up the Ashby) and North Oxford via Braunston, OR 2. taking the longer route via Soar Navigation & Leicester branch. Which would you recommend? I've not been on either canal and I might not get around to trying the other route so the stakes are high!

Hmm, I don't see how this can be correct. Say I'm dealing with the "Reset" (disconnect) for overvoltage on the "charge" Tyco relay (terminal assignment diagram below, taken from the Tyco BDS-A data sheet) The cell monitor board provides a pulse of GND (battery -ve) to switch the bistable relay (according to the manual, Umax output #2 provides a 150ms pulse). So with this output (-ve) connected the gate of the MOSFET, I figure that in order to create the voltage differential needed to switch the MOSFET, I would need to connect the source of the MOSFET to the battery +ve. To reset the Tyco, the relay terminals 1 (+ve) and 3 (-ve) need to be connected to the drain and battery. Since the drain, when the MOSFET is on, connects to the battery -ve via the source, this would go to terminal 3. I would have to connect the other Tyco coil terminal 1 (+ve) to the battery +ve. I have a suspicion the bit I'm not understanding is in "forward bias the body diode". I figure that all I need to do to cater for the diodes in the relay is to connect the coils the right way around (1 to +ve and 3 to -ve), but I fear there is more to it than that. Yeah, I thought 16V would be plenty because I hadn't considered battery spikes - thanks for that. I was actually mainly looking at the drain/source max voltage (the relay circuit) which in this case was 55V, I will look for a MOSFET with a higher Vgs. edit: perhaps this one, which has a Vgs of +-30V. N-Channel MOSFET, 8 A, 500 V, 3-Pin TO-220AB Vishay IRF840APBF After 150ms, the pulse from the CPM would be over, and therefore send the voltage back down to zero? Or can I not rely on that? I actually have also just noticed that the Tycos ask for an impulse length of 15 to 100ms, so I wonder if it might be asking too much of the Tycos to handle 150ms... I think maybe the arduino is really the way forward for me.

That does look ideal for converting a standard "normally closed" relay output to drive Tycos. I see they have 2 German and a Norwegian distributors as well? I can't find that component in a search due to it not being in English probably, but someone more invested could see if they could find them. My situation is different as I have a cell-level monitor board which can drive bistable relays, but Nick pointed out that unfortunately that the output of ~1A doesn't provide enough current for the ~3A Tyco coils. I have been trying to learn how MOSFETs work and I think I know about enough to do some damage. I plan to get six of these N-Channel MOSFET, 30 A, 55 V, 3-Pin TO-220AB Infineon IRLZ34NPBF (data sheet). I will connect each MOSFET gate pin to a board output, the source to the battery positive. Then when the board attempts to pulse switch a relay, it will apply a voltage between the gate and the source and turn the MOSFET on. The drain pin of the MOSFET goes to the relevant relay coil with the other terminal being connected to the battery negative. MOSFETs actually seems just as straightforward as using a relay, which might be due to my cluelessness! But at just over a quid each and given that my cell performance monitor board isn't doing anything right now anyway, I can't see the harm in experimenting. I may also need to test and potentially replace the various components of the output stages of the board in case I fried something, but maybe the MOSFETs are all I need.

That's interesting to know that not all 5G is made equal, thanks. The EE coverage map I linked to shows a fair bit of 5G coverage over areas I'm likely to go, and it is expanding. However I realise that it may not be a huge improvement over 4G, I don't necessarily need a huge improvement - some small improvement would be great. For me I think it's worth considering. I'll check out the routers you linked, thanks. The expensive router does have nice additional features, - for one, it is dual SIM, allowing me to add a second network's SIM card as a failover.

I actually suggested that on this forum a while back when I was putting in my current system, and I was told that it was foolish to put an expensive router outside. Maybe it's worth trying.

I definitely agree that it's mostly about location. I'm a CCer so I am always in a new location. I measure the signal strength with my phone whenever I moor up to ensure that I have reasonable strength LTE or LTE+. Even at its best, it is just not quite there for me. I can, do, and have been using it for a couple of years now. And it's just a smidge below adequate. For me the problem seems to mostly (but not only) be on the upload - I tend to freeze or my audio drops out, while I can still hear the folks on the other end. Yes I realise that 5G is very localised, but judging from the EE map (https://coverage.ee.co.uk/coverage/ee) it is looking very much like an option to me. Most of these antennae come with a 5m cable built in. Would you suggest it would be worth cutting that down to say 2-3m and reducing the height of the mast if necessary?

Well, 5G phones are also quite expensive, and don't support plugging in an external antenna (nor ethernet cables which I need for some equipment) which has been in my experience the biggest impact on getting a good signal. I used to put my 4G phone in an ice cream tub on the roof, but this is not really a workable solution and certainly inferior to the mast. I get where you are coming from, but if I could get full WiFi speed from my cellular connection I would be quite happy. And yes I am prepared to spend a grand or more on this as it is my bread and butter. I'm very frugal in other aspects! I know not everyone is in my situation but I'm prepared to spend whatever it takes and suffer considerable inconvenience to get the best connection speeds available.

Thanks. That makes sense. What I will need is an antenna that can work on both 4G and 5G (and preferably also 3G) because 5G isn't ubiquitous, especially in the country.