dmr

Let me just be boringly logical for a moment CaRTS biggest issue is an increasing number of boats that hardly move at all, like less than 5km a year. How does fixing cameras at major junctions spot these boats when they never go to a junction? and why does CaRT need all this technology to spot them when they already know exactly where they are? This crazy scheme could only be used to monitor the boats that are already moving extensively. .............Dave

Surely an entire pumpout would be better, oops nearly started another controversy!

I think automatically adding points to a licence is rather tame, long prison sentences for overstaying would be better, and capital punishment for having too much stuff on the roof. or Why don't we just make life on the cut so unpleasant that boaters find a different hobby/way of life then we could turn the canals into roads, didn't a certain Mrs Thatcher have a similar idea? ............Dave

I know a fair few people have had these fail, and the availability of spares suggests they are prone to failure, but I am surprised that the design has not been changed. The top of our tank was a little flexible which allowed the pan to rock which may have put extra stress on the bolts. I made a giant strengthening washer out of a half inch thick sheet of engineering plastic to fix this. It is also possible that the OPs failure is due to the screws that hold the lower flange to the top of the tank pulling out of the tank, though my money is still on those flange bolts failing. ..............Dave

I believe one very well known engine maker "officially" sanctioned their technicians to use the handful of Vim cure, but on strict instructions not to do it whilst the customer was present! As Tony says its not ideal as it is likely to produce mostly vertical "honing" though turbulence may reduce this. I believe the Morris's product was discontinued as it used chemicals that were bad for the environment. I think it was also an abrasive so again not an ideal approach. I guess if the engine is a lost cause then its worth trying Vim to extend the life before a rebuild. ..........Dave

If you are a practical person, or are employing someone to do this for you, then make your own bolts. Get some stainless steel coach bolts (I am 90% sure they are M8) and angle grind and file the heads to roughly match the flange on the original (but they can be quite a bit thicker). It will only take an hour or so and they will last forever. If you just use the "proper" bolts this will all happen again in a year or two. (this is based on first hand experience rather than just a whim!) .............Dave

eek! what a lot of money. I thought they usually went quite cheaply, maybe the new enforcement regime is having an influence. I noticed this year that Darlington wharf was almost empty, and Bath itself was not very busy till the Stag boats turned up. .............Dave

We are moored in Bristol right now and the harbourmaster patrols about once every two hours so unless you can find a way to get to the top of the long mooring waiting list there is no way to "unofficially" moor in Bristol. Short term visitor mooring (two months maximum????) is about £30 per day depending on length. The river Avon is no place to moor unless you are very experienced. There are a couple of boats "squatting" on the semi tidal section and the harbour authorities are aware and concerned about how they will cope in the high spring tides this weekend! CaRT are indeed clamping down on towpath mooring in the Bradford-Bath area with many boaters now needing to make visits to the East of Devizes to remain compliant. There are CaRT moorings in Claverton that come up for auction from time to time. The surveyor is the least of your problems. ..............Dave

Its a really good idea and I think I have proposed this in the past. Its nice to spend more than 14 days in many towns and have time to explore and get to know a few of the locals etc etc and make the place feel a bit more like home. Sadly, as Jenlyn infers, the 14 day rule is one of the few incontestable bits of legislation that CaRT have so changing it is not top of the list. Flyboy, I could easily do 1000 miles in a year and still spend 28 days in a few of my favourite places!!!!!! ...........Dave

You really really need to charge Trojans at 14.8v ..............Dave

Trouble is that us boaters never spin them fast enough, we choose pulley sizes to just about get almost maximum current which is about the worse thing for an alternator, any further speed increase would give lots more cooling and only a small increase in current. In my case I really couldn't increase the speed so I reduced the speed a bit (bigger pulley) and accepted a bit less current. .................Dave

I am not sure that temperature will have stabilised after a half hour. Also there is a general rule that says things last less long as temperature is increased. This is the method used to determine the life of electronic components. People don't really run things for 100,000 hours and wait for them to break, they run them hot for a much lesser time. I suspect something similar applies to the varnish on the windings,and so the alternator spec. may well give one maximum temperature for continuous running and a higher temperature for intermittent use. I think maybe I hit an unfortunate combination of pulley sizes but in my case connecting the Adverc significantly increased the maximum temperature of the alternator. .............Dave

Not sure about this. Some two pack blackings are quite thick and so give a rough finish which, even on your boat, might look a bit wrong, so you may be better with different two packs top and bottom. Norton Canes boatbuilders say on their website that they like spraying two pack so maybe you could persuade them to use matt black. ............Dave

Bigger Frame alternator but more amps so again probably working very hard already. There was a thread a bit like this one a while ago and NickNorman who has the 175 amp alternator did say it runs hot! ............Dave

I have heard that Beta suggest not to fit an external controller, I suspect that in some cases the soft regulator characteristic is preventing the alternator from getting too hot. If you have the standard size 100 amp jobbie then that is pretty close to the limit for an alternator of that size. .......Dave

As far as I know Adverc only do one controller, though it's available in 12 and 24 volt and "positive and negative" versions. I think its called the mk4a. http://www.adverc.co.uk/products/1 It has no voltage adjustment, it's just a black box, so is normally set to the correct voltage by Adverc. The voltage is actually set by a preset (twiddler) on the circuit board but you would have to break the warranty seals to get to this. I have moved the preset on mine so that I can adjust it from outside the box. They do turn up on eBay from time to time.. The Sterling equivalent is more sophisticated and also has a float mode so might be better if you are a leisure boater and cruise long days. If you are off grid liveaboard the Adverc is better as float can be very counter productive. .............Dave

Possibly/probably! The latter part of the charge is cycle, once full voltage is reached, will be the same. It appears to be the middle bit which is the transition from bulk to acceptance that changes. With the Adverc this is fairly rapid but without it there is a long phase of "in-betweenness".. A possible down side of the external controller is that it makes the alternator run hotter for longer, so if things are already marginal this might be a problem. ..........Dave

I have noticed something very similar on my Iskra. I suspect that the regulators in some alternators are very "soft" (low loop gain) so won't apply the maximum voltage till the current has fallen to quite a low value. Connecting the Adverc results in the maximum (bulk) current going on for much longer and the alternator getting to its maximum voltage much quicker. .............Dave

Part of the historic stone built wharf at Pewsey (K&A) has been destroyed and CaRT have built a substantial fence, half on land, half in the water, to prevent access so I assume no repair is planned in the near future. How did this happen? Two widebeam workboats were loosely tied up there, breasted up, for a long time. I assume the constant movement due to wind and passing boats has knocked the supporting wall away. A workboat (one of the above?) is now similarly tied up (long term) at Devizes wharf where it will probably do exactly the same. It is also occupying one of the very few places on the K&A where a boater can drive a car right up to the boat for unloading heavy objects. At Kintbury two workboats occupy a very popular visitor mooring with a gap between them just short enough to prevent a boat getting in, so effectively occupying almost 3 boat lengths. (and they have their legs down on the bottom so no way can a boater move them!) ..............Dave

Fuses must always be installed at the terminal from which the electricity flows, otherwise in the event of a failure the electricity will spill out and make a dreadful mess! but seriously and philosophically, all these ideas of current flow and electrons are really just abstract concepts to help us understand what is going on so the "it doesn't matter" answer has some truth in it. One side of the battery, usually negative these days,,is connected to the steel work of the boat (or car or house) so the fuse goes in the other side, the conceptual flow doesn't matter. ..........Dave.

Should this new draconian rule be applied to boaters with a home mooring, or do you feel that only continuous cruisers should be penalised in this way?. Last year we spent a fair while cruising (and trading) in the midlands and this entailed numerous visits to central Birmingham, and 4 visits to Banbury. We also went to Cambridge. I enjoyed last year a lot and want to carry on with this sort of cruising pattern. I've also spent the last 6 weeks just going up and down the same 15 mile long pound on the K&A, but in a few weeks I will be in Liverpool! What is wrong with this style of CCing? ............Dave.

400 amps?? That's real proper electricity. At that current I would also use a clamp current meter. What load did you use to draw 400 amps? An issue is that the volt drop is almost certainly non-linear, which is one of the issues that the op has not fully grasped and probably why there is not much info on the internet. Its non linear (and time dependant) because its not just an ohmic resistance inside the battery, but will also include surface effects on the plates etc. For this reason the volt drop really needs to be measured at the typically current draw that occurs on the OPs boat which is why its much better if he makes his own measurements. My measurements in the link above gave a volt drop of about 0.1v at about 6amps which is 0.017 volts per amp which is about twice your figure which is probably reasonable as this was from Trojans which are not starters! ..............Dave

This is the thread where I posted a graph of on-load terminal voltage. http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=73575&hl=smartgage&page=3 .............Dave

I am genuinely pleased that I am amusing you, the forum should be an entertaining as well as informative place. Smartgage is expensive so I understand your desire not to get one, I held out for several years, but now I have one I know its worth every penny. You effectively want to do your own smartgage on the cheap, so you must already have a voltmeter. Get a low cost clamp ammeter then you can make your own measurements of volt drop which will be much more useful than anything the forum supplies (or doesn't), and by the look of this thread a lot less aggravation. There are a few people here who understand electricity, but many more who don't but still keep repeating incorrect facts that they have previously read on the forum or heard from their mates, so even if someone answers your question how will you know if what they say is true?. Is there a facility to search ones own posts??? if so I will try to find my volt drop graph???? ..............Dave

No! A shunt based system is fine for measuring current. Also all this stuff about thickness of cables and quality of connection is nothing but a red herring. The OP is interested in BATTERY volt drop so if he has any sense he will be measuring voltage at the battery terminals, just like Smartgage does, so cabling is irrelevant. A volt drop of tenths of a volt will still be measured and this volt drop is within the electro-chemistry of the battery itself. ..............Dave