moiuk

Hi, I do actually have a flowmeter, which is a separate piece of kit from the MCS water gauge. It goes in line with my hose when filling the tank and has a digital display showing the water flow in litres.

I'll do a test next time I fill up, which will be on Monday.

I will call them when they are back. I can't see how they can fit a 1,000 l tank when the bow thruster is installed. The spec sheet I have could be a clerical error, but if it is for me, then how many others too ?

14.2volts, yes. OK have increased it. I am juggling the solar between the BT and the main lesuire batteries, so the quicker the better for the BT batteries as I still need my main bank to be fully charged by the time the sun goes down. A few long days of lots of sun, so i will relax and let it do its job. Thanks. Great. I use a different profile for the main bank as they are wet deep cycle, and the BT batteries are sealed lead-acid. I'll set it to 14.6, and keep and eye on the voltage on the BT batteries, and reduce it down when it gets above 14V.

Hi, Just switch it over. The solar controller has gone directly into absorbtion mode, with only 10/20 amps flowing to the BT batteries. The volatage at the solar charger is showing 14.2 amps (my absorbtion set voltage), the voltage on the BT batteries is showing as 13.2. Is this due to the long length of wire and the votage drop? Could I get more into it by setting a higher absorbtion voltage on the solar controller to compensate for the voltage drop?

Good point. I have it placed in the bow deck, so that the whole butt is above the filler point. I will manually fill it with a hose and it will flow down into the filler of the main tank. haha. We get on well with the previous owners, and it is more likely that nobody noticed as the boat lived in a marina for its 6 years of its life so far. We are the first to use it for unconnected living, and all the related issues are coming out now... yes I will ask this specific question, although they only had the boat for 1 year. Hopefully they are still in touch with the original owners as that might solve the mystery..

is it possible that collingwood installed 2/3 tanks, and my main tank is the only one connected? Would this be normal? It seems that with the bow thruster and tubes in place there was never enough room for a 1,000 l tank. Where do other widebeams with bow thrusters put a 1,000 l tank ?

I'm pretty sure it is full, yes. It was overflowin, and then I ran a load of water off through the taps and could see the water level going down via the filler point. If its not actually full, then the water level is at the top and going down at a steady rate whe used. You are right of course. I have seem other widebeams in London have them at the front which gave me the idea, but the more I think about it the less keen I am to be drinking it.....

It is very difficult to get an accurate measure of the dimensions as it is sealed into the bow deck. However, the bow thruster tube does seem to take up half of the bow space. If it is 2 m x 35cm x 55cm then that woukd be about the 380litre size tank and be about right. There is certainly not enough space for the 2m x 1m x 50cm that is needed for the specified 1,000 litre tank. One remote possibility is that the original tank was removed to install the bow thruster? And a smaller tank fit into its place... but the logistics of removing that size of tank after production would seem to be a big job, and the bow deck doesn't show Ny signs of being modified.

Definitely worth questioning, but has given the same reading twice and we are running out of water in 3/4 days which would be around 300 litres. no. They have good fitting lid, but i would not describe them as fully sealed. Unlikely to get flying junk or spiders in them, but not sealed.

I tried to call them today, but they are shutdown for 2 weeks.

So an update.. The tank was empty again today, so I checked through the filler hole and indeed it was empty. I filled it using a flowmeter and it reported the same volume of 345litres as it did the last time to fill it to the top. So it looks as though the most obvious answer is the correct one, the tank is smaller than specified on collingwoods delivery spec sheet (which states it is a 910 litre tank)... very difficult to come to terms with as the first thing I checked when buying the boat was that it had a large water tank, and now it appears it's smaller than the tank i had on my narrowboat.. 345l seems far to small to install on a large widebeam, so difficult to believe, but the facts seem to be stronger than my disbelief.. So now, I am planning on installing additional tanks wherever there is space to get the capacity up for 7 days off grid living which we need. I have 2 x 100 litre water butts in the bow deck, and am planning on buying 2 x 210litre plastic water tanks that will fit under the bed. The water butts will simply top up (manually) the main tank when needed, but will be an issue in winter when it freezes, and also I have concerns about using butts for drinking water over the long term. The under bed tanks I intend to have at the same level as the main tank, and join the outlets all together before the water pump, and have the air vents run out to above the height of the main tank vent. Hopefully this will give me one extended larger tank, with a single fill point. Any thoughts/comments/obvious flaws to my plan?

Thanks. Yes I have an isoloation switch between the panels and the charge controller which I will ensure is off before moving the cables.

Yes I think I will do this. Easiest thing with the wiring in place is to move the solar charge controller positive from the lesuire batteries to the BT side of the relay. I'll limit the current on the charge controller down to 30amps (its a 100amp charge controller) as its the wrong side of the fuse where I will be attaching it and the cables are quite small (Between 10mm-15mm).

Battery charger is mounted in the stern, a sterling invertor/charger multi. But you might be on to something if I use a standard car battery charger perhaps.