cheesegas

OP, Aldi have a surprisingly decent one at the moment for only £9.99, go have a look if they have any left. Really handy for fault finding anything electrical on a boat, there's plenty of tutorials on youtube on how to use one to measure voltage and continuity.

Their site isn't very good, you need to go into the Products page, select a pump and then click Downloads to get the spec sheet. Looks like it's around 7-10 amps depending on backpressure. https://daviescraig.com.au/media/694/1427092566.EWPSelectionGuideTechSpecs2009.pdf

The litres per minute assumes that there's no restriction on the output - depending on the pump, the flow will drop in different proportion to the pressure. Davies Craig publish theirs, can you compare it against your current pump? https://daviescraig.com.au/electric-water-pumps near the bottom. I've got a feeling the flow rate of the existing intercooler pump isn't much under pressure.

The other problem is that it won't be continuously rated, and uses a brushless motor so the service life will probably be in the hundreds of hours. Lots of cars use electric water pumps now, to supplement the engine driven one for intercooler or heater circuits. They're not cheap but are brushless, high flow and have a long service life as there's no mechanical seal on the shaft between pump and motor - it's magnetically driven. Most common one is the Bosch PAD12V but there's plenty of other options with higher flow and different output spigot sizes. As the pump has a built-in RPM sensor similar to brushless motors in computer fans, it can be used with a compatible controller to give a low RPM alarm...and the fancier controllers can also ramp up/down the pump speed at specific temperatures or run it on a timer after the engine's been turned off.

It's also worth noting that if you have a 2kw kettle which you switch on while running the engine, unless you have a massive alternator it will not be able to keep up with the 170 or so amps required. The batteries will make up the difference, and drawing sustained high currents from lead-acids isn't very efficient. They'll need to charge - slowly - after each kettle is boiled. However, a 750w kettle will need around 70 amps, most of which the alternator will be able to supply.

Take a closer look at the key - it's not a simple rack and pinion in there, with a universal key. The keys go into a four sided barrel with one set of tumblers and pins, so just like a normal Yale lock, using a screwdriver to turn the barrel doesn't work because the pins are in the shear line. There's a few million key differs with this design too. The mechanism also deadlocks the bolt so it can't simply be pushed back in. I have them on my front door and can confirm that just like a regular lock, turning the barrel with a screwdriver does sweet nothing.

I've always wondered this too. Silenced 10-20kva generators often have similar sized diesel engines, cocooned in a box barely bigger than the engine and are radiator/forced air cooled. They have to deal with cooling a bloody great alternator too, at full output at 1500rpm continuously. Guessing it's because you'd need a fairly big vent for the intake/exhaust air, which takes up a lot of space on a narrowboat and is difficult to duct into a cruiser stern. The radiator is also quite big and flat which is hard to hide on a small boat. Without baffling, the fans can be loud, and would need to be electric rather than engine driven due to the location. Adding complexity, you could even have a couple of smaller radiators, one each side on a trad stern but you'd have to have vents on the outside and would lose internal space.

The 501 is very old, and I don't think it speaks ve.direct as it has an RJ-11 port, so the ve.direct to USB kits won't work. I think the original PC interface kit converted to RS232 only, to give you some idea! There's no documentation available on the protocol so unless you happen to find the interface kit on ebay, you'd need to do some serious reverse engineering to find out what data it's spitting out. Chances are it's RS232/RS485 at a non standard voltage level... You'd be better off getting a Smart Shunt and a ve.direct to USB cable. I use a 712 with a ve.direct to USB with a RPi 3+ and it works very well.

It's worth investing in a decent battery meter which can measure current going in and out anyway - voltage only gives you half the story, as it will sag under load and recover. Likewise, if you charge a heavily depleted bank for an hour, the resting voltage after a few minutes will appear like it's fully charged. However, you're just seeing the surface charge on the plates and the batteries in reality aren't charged. Victron's BMV series and Smart Shunt (same thing but minus a screen) have data ports which can be connected to the Pi via a USB converter, and the ve.direct protocol is largely open source. The BMV pushes almost every parameter over ve.direct once per second, so you can harvest and log all the data you want on the Pi...current, voltage, state of charge, amp-hours consumed, starter battery voltage. The Smart versions have Bluetooth which is remarkably good, on a 45' boat it'll reach all the way to the front deck if mounted in a cupboard in the back. https://www.victronenergy.com/battery-monitors/smart-battery-shunt https://www.victronenergy.com/battery-monitors/bmv-712-smart

I have no idea what the fear of London is, guessing it's because people have never tried it or even been there? I've cc'd starting on the upper Thames, then up to Leighton Buzzard and slowly back round again, been in London for a couple of months now on my way to the upper Lea out of London. In central London, the community is probably more social than anywhere else I've found, and people are very willing to share help/tools/expertise and say hello. I've double moored a fair bit and made friends doing so, swapped fuses for cheese with neighbours and a guy built a roof box for me after I fixed his electrics and pumped the bilge out. If you get stuck for coal or kindling, a quick post on the Facebook group will often sort you out if your neighbours can't. There's a couple of areas which are known for being crime hotspots but apart from that it's pretty safe. Beats dealing with grumpy folk out in the country for sure...no one's got angry at me for running the generator to do my washing at 2pm on a weekday... Anyway, the Enfield type of garage door locks are good as they deadbolt and as the bolt is round, the hole in the frame is easier to cut than a square/rectangle hole for a mortice lock. Downside is the keys are long and difficult to pocket. https://www.lockshop-warehouse.co.uk/acatalog/d613-enfield-garage-door-bolts.html

Always have two bottles with a changeover regulator...happened to me once before, it's definitely mildly unpleasant, wrapping up in a towel to hop out the back door and flip the lever for the regulator. Hardly awful though, and I'd much rather instant hot water than waiting for it to heat up, or having to time showers with anyone else that lives on the boat so you don't use up all the hot water. Once the first bottle runs out, you have ample time to get it replaced, using the other one. A 13kg bottle lasts two of us 3 months at £37 for cooking and hot water which isn't too bad at all, considering we're not as careful as we could be about gas usage!

Unfortunately just sealing the condensate drain isn’t enough - they’re only spot welded together and considerable exhaust leaks out the seams. If you cover the outlet and drain with your fingers, it’s easy to blow into the inlet still. Lots of leaks.

Yep that’s fine. I was checking to make sure you weren’t intending on connecting both inverters outputs to your 240v circuit at the same time, so you could use one or the other. Keeping it totally separate is perfect.

All covered above for 12v DC-DC power supplies or a little pure sine inverter, but in case you’re interested, the gadget to convert modified sine/dirty mains into a pure regulated waveform is a specific type of uninterruptible power supply, designed for critical IT systems. Most UPSs are basically a charger, battery and inverter in a box with a relay to switch over very fast between mains power and inverter power, which doesn’t actually condition the power. Full cycle UPSs first convert the dodgy mains to 12v to charge the batteries, then have an inverter which is running all the time. These are very good at cleaning up dirty power, for the touring equipment racks at work we use them as they’re often run from generators or iffy site power. Also - no problem having two inverters, as long as you don’t connect their outputs at any time, eg plug both into your 240v circuit. This will blow up one of them, and if the inverters have a standard 13a outlet, one plug will have live pins! If you have chunky wiring to the 12v sockets in the boat, you could buy a little inverter to connect to the 12v socket when you need the laptop. Otherwise you’d need to install a changeover switch for the two inverters, by which point you may as well buy a big pure sine inverter. If you’re using a 12v to 19v converter (the best thing in my opinion) don’t get the mega cheap ones which look a bit like a CB radio mic. They have poor filtering on the output side, no protection and often run very hot.

If the stove doesn't have a replaceable collar, cut it off completely and fit a Morso Squirrel collar. Obviously modifying flue systems should be done carefully etc... On my Villager Heron, I cut off the remains of the collar, ground it flat and then cut two notches into the sides of the hole for the retaining clamp of the collar. It then fits perfectly with some fire rope and high temp (350C+) sealant.

Had mine blacked near Denham in the floating dry dock, they actually refuse to black any boats if it’s too cold as it doesn’t stick and they can’t warranty their services. Wait until April…

Shame it wasn’t a super silenced set at that size…usually, the bigger the generator the more space for sound insulation and the quieter it is. The 20kva trailer sets at work are much quieter than my 3kva inverter generator. In fact, the loudest thing is the cooling air coming out the vents…

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll take a feed off the Lucas CAV water seperator to a filter for the heater, I dip the tank regularly to check the level so I'm not too concerned about running out of fuel. Reckon the tank's around 250 litres based on my highly unscientific calibrated dipstick. The heater won't be used as the main heat source, only to get some instant heat into the boat while the stove starts, or if I get home late and can't be bothered with making a fire before going to bed. It won't be on the whole day so I don't envisage it using a lot of fuel. ...and yep, I've got a jerry can of diesel stored on the front deck just in case!

Hi all. I'm fitting a Planar diesel air heater into my boat hopefully before it starts to get chilly. Taking all the usual precautions - using branded stainless clips and a marine sealed silencer instead of the non-sealed automotive silencer included in the kit, loop in the exhaust between silencer and skin fitting, marine skin fitting, metal fuel lines/filter in the engine bay, fat wires from the batteries etc. However, the thing that's got me is the fuel supply. Some people have a plastic day tank out of the engine bay which I don't like, or have a metal one in the bay, some with a pump to top up from the main tank which adds a degree of complexity. I'd never want to run it on heating oil, only diesel. What's the best way to neatly get access to the tank? It's a cruiser stern with the engine being gravity fed and the tank forming the back wall of the engine bay down to the uxter plate. The top of the stern is the top of the tank. Options I can see are a dip tube in the top of the tank, but then it would need to be outside the engine bay and prone to being caught on stuff. Or taking a T off the engine's supply after the filter/water seperator, but then there's the possibility of air being drawn into the engine if the heater's dosing pump doesn't have a perfect non return valve. Maybe this is a non issue? I don't like the idea of drilling in the side of the tank as the penetration is below the fill line... Any more ideas? How's it done with other diesel Webasto/Eberspachers? Thanks.

I've seen a silenced 1800rpm 2cyl 5kva set from a set of temporary traffic lights installed in a boat. Worked really well, when it was running it just sounded like the water pump was running. Lots of work though, it had its own keel cooling tank, vibration mounting and a little acoustic canopy which stuck up in the cruiser stern as it was too high. They'd used the exhaust from the traffic lights and made a new skin fitting for it.

I cc around the south, from Northampton to the top end of the Lee, currently in London. There's plenty of spaces as long as you don't have some ridiculous 14' x 60' fat boat and don't want to be within a couple of miles of central London. I've never seen any boats triple moored, apart from when a fat boat doubles up with a narrowboat. As mentioned above, you can moor for 24hrs on the wall if you're waiting to go through the lock. If you need longer, go east up Limehouse Cut from the basin. On the right there's lots of space, about 10 minutes walk from the basin where the usual 2 week limit applies. Little Venice bookable moorings are reasonably priced and so far I've never seen them all full up. St Pancras is always full, don't bother looking there. edit: if you're coming from the Thames...what's your draught? The Paddington Arm has been pretty low for a few months now, if you're deeper than a narrowboat I'd avoid it. Lots and lots of weed too.

Have you tried removing the plunger from the solenoid as I mentioned? That will allow fuel to flow regardless of the position of the ignition switch, and you'll need to pull the red lever to the left to stop the engine.

I bought a 25 year old 45’ with a decent hull, engine and exterior for £25k late last year, with some work done pre sale…painted bilges and engine service. Inside was tired but liveable. Hope that gives you some idea, although the market has gone up since then.