Tasemu

It was, though we wanted to get an engineer over to give it a proper check-over anyway rather than just wing it ourselves.

Hi all, just an update. We has an engineer come and he said the solenoid was toast. He has installed a stop switch away from the engine now and the engine can be stopped remotely. In the future i'd like to have a cover made so the engine is not open but for now this should suffice. Thanks for all the advice. 👍

Yeah so the solenoid was dead apparently, we've had a pull stop installed and now able to stop the engine remotely. I'll update the main thread now.

Been using it for almost a month now and it has been doing a charm keeping the boat clean. It is set on a timer each weekday to vacuum the floors and carpet, it also has a schedule to mop each monday and friday. It has created a lidar map of my boat and separated everything into rooms so i can do single room cleans or whatever may be needed at the time. I've been monitoring the battery consumption and have noted it uses very little power from my bank to recharge, a full clean and mop of my boat only uses 10% of the units internal battery and it will be full again and idle within 30 minutes of docking at the end of a clean. I have a 200ah LiFePo4 battery setup and have haven't noticed any significant change to my power levels at all. All in all i'd recommend it for a boat with a reliable power setup and no major obstructions which would stop the vacuum from navigating the boat.

Not sure yet haha, got it scheduled for a full clean and mop 2pm every weekday. Will see how it goes, the magic want does help though

Now just to see how the ferrets deal with it...

So i got one and its doing a good job so far, but it will require a bit of fine tuning to get it perfect. It has mapped out the boat nicely, the pics below are just a sample run of it doing the saloon area. The configuration options are good and with some adjustments it should be a good little boat upgrade hopefully.

Hi all, sorry for my lack of info in the replies. We've got an engineer coming to have a proper look. A lot of these replies have been a little hard to fully decode and understand so i figured i'd get as much info as possible from this engineer before reporting back with details and hopefully the fix. I hope i'm not coming across as blanking or ghosting, i saw a post on another thread referencing my lack of response.. sorry 😅

Good call, cheers mate i'll do that and report back 👍

I'm aware of the downfalls of earlier models but i feel they've come a very long way since then. I dont feel like power would be too much of an issue as the space to vacuum isn't exactly huge. My power setup is fairly overkill already so i'm not convinced this unit would significantly effect it. Maybe i should give it a shot with one of these new models and see... 🤷‍♂️

Apologies for the late reply, so it turns out the stop solenoid already on the engine and it was disconnected from the loom. Previous owner never bothered to mention this... I reconnected it but no luck so i'm guessing it could be a new solenoid required? Either way its a bit late now, but the sooner i fix it the better.

Title says it all, I'm wondering how well a robot vacuum would work on a narrowboat. They seem to charge themselves and are pretty sophisticated nowadays. I'm tempted to drop some cash on one to see if it can add some more laziness to my life. Does anyone have one of these and could give some thoughts? Cheers!

Ah apolgoies, these wires to go into the solenoid, they go into a single conduit and then into the back of the black box to the right of the picture, which is the solenoid body. I believe the wires are yellow, red, green and black. I'd need to go back to her boat to make 100% sure, but looks to be so from the image.

I'm totally unsure how many cables go into the plug, the plug is all i have to go on. The solenoid itself is this one: https://shireshop.co.uk/en-GB/catalog/all/part/3rAF-yy0D-czYG/shire-shanks-catalogue-dash-panels-electrical-stop-solenoid-4l22bz-13300 I'm almost certain that energising the solenoid will cause it to stop, as it is currently open and it it contracted it would mechanically pull the stop lever on the engine, which until now has been turned manually by hand. Cheers, I'll do this as a temporary measure until i sort out something permanent. Also there is no wiring diagram or owners manual. 👍

Hi all, my girlfriend has a barrus shanks engine on her narrowboat, but the only way to turn it off if by leaning over the running engine and turning a lever using her hand. I felt this was extremely dangerous and it turns out I was right, as she has had quite a serious accident when the fanbelt caught on her and caused her a serious injury. I want to sort out a way to stop the engine in a safe manner, I've been looking at the engine and have found a stop solenoid attached to the lever which is terminated at a 4-pin plug. Does anyone know if it is possible to get a button or switch for this plug which i can route to a safe location? I've tried looking around google but haven't come up with anything. Thanks for any and all advice!

Cheers, i have no LA in parallel so i'll have to see if the settings changes to the BMS and what few settings i have access to on the victron without a windows pc. Will report back with the details but hopefully all good.

Weak AC is currently enabled, it could be the waveform... Do you think it unlikely that its the BMS causing an issue?

I've just changed my HVD on my bms to 14.4v and the absorb/float values on my multiplus to 14.1/13.5v. Hopefully if it was a case of the BMS doing a HVD then this might solve it...?

I was under the impression that the charger would charge my lifepo4 battery to full and then passthrough the generator power to my loads until I turn the generator off. I'm seeing a weird thing happen where when the battery reaches full, it seems to revert back to inverting, then after a few seconds when the voltage has dropped it cycles back into charging again, this cycle seems to continue. Could this be because of my victron settings? I have a gut feeling it might be.

Just rewired the engine bay to follow @nicknorman's instructions. All works well and have the added bonus of it automatically switching over to charge when i turn the genny on. Very chuffed

Just an update: Since installing the SX-460 as stated through this thread. I've managed to swap out my cheapo battery charger and inverter for a new victron multiplus that I bought a year ago but was unable to use with the generator and unable to return I am now able to charge at 70a with no problem instead of the original maximum of 17a i was getting previously, what a difference! On top of that the washing machine that came with the boat also now works happily with the new cleaner voltage and frequency, I've just finished my first load of washing not in a laundrette and hung it to dry in front of the rayburn. I started this over a year ago and it has actually spanned a few threads here over that time. I've finally been able to tick this off my list and I couldn't be happier. EDIT: Gettin all bloody emotional up in here haha 😅

Cheers, that makes much more sense now. I'll start prepping for the rewire job. Very chuffed i finally have a working charger after a year of generator prep and research. Feels damn good.

I did a charging test with the temp setup and had no luck charging, but after going into the victron connect app and changing a few settings I have it up and running. I was careful with the setup and no issues occured, now i'm going to rewire everything to fit Nicks description. I am curious just for the theory of it though, what would go wrong with the victron charging off its own output? I would have just assumed it would lose power over time due to all the innefficiency. Curious as to what would happen and why.

Yup, i covered all the details in my SX-460 thread in this section, but basically i was able to remove all the old gubbins like the choke and rectifier and old broken AVR, and successfully run the generator at 50hz 230v cleanly using an SX-460 and passing the exciter voltage through the brushes. EDIT: I would definitely like to test that the victron works though, as i haven't been able to yet. Once confirming that then i'm happy to rip the engine bay apart to install properly. Just been bitten once already and was very gutted when i had to put it all back the way it was haha

As i've had trouble getting this victron working with my diesel generator in the past, i believe it should work now but i really want to test that it can actually charge from the generator with the new AVR installed. If the utmost care was taken as a test run before implementing your solution, would you allow a test run using the temp setup (with selector switch set to generator) for charging only, to ensure it can charge before i tear apart my rcd and selector switch for the permanent install?