Jump to content

MoominPapa

Member
  • Posts

    5,600
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    10

Everything posted by MoominPapa

  1. That looks like a travel adaptor between shucko and UK plugs. I wouldn't use that, but if you have to, do the bonding in the UK plug that you're putting into it, connecting the neutral and earth pins. Much better would be to Ebay a rewirable Shucko plug and connect that straight to the cable, bonding the earth contact in the plug to the neutral wire. Note that which output of the inverter you bond is irrelevant, the brown and blue wires can go either way round in the plug. (that's providing the inverter output is floating, which it is in this case). What important is that in the cable going to the boat the blue wire and the green and yellow wire are the ones connected, NOT the brown wire and the green and yellow wire. Making this simple to avoid confusion. Get a shucko plug and attach it to the cable going to the boat. Brown wire goes to either of the pins in the plug, blue wire goes to the other pin. green/yellow goes to the earth contact of the plug. An earth bond wire connects the earth contact and whichever pin has the BLUE wire in it. MP.
  2. If you're plugging a single device into the inverter, swapping neutral and live is not a problem, but if you're feeding a wiring system on a boat with fused UK plugs and a consumer unit with single pole circuit breakers, it really matters that the neutral (ie the power conductor that DOESN'T have fuses, CBs or single pole switches in it) is the one that's earthed. If you neutral-earth bond inside the inverter and keep the reversible shucko socket then it's terrifyingly easy to turn the plug around and negate most of your protection devices. I'd either keep the existing socket and bond in the plug, or swap to a polarised UK socket if you want to bond in the inverter. MP. As an illustration of what can go wrong: consider a desk lamp with an Edison Screw bulb, plugged into a switched 13A socket. The bulb blows, so you switch the lamp off at the socket and change the bulb. As you're screwing in the the new bulb, you touch the edge of the metal cap of the bulb. That contact on the bulb holder is connected to neutral, and therefore via the earth bond the hull of the boat, and you're fine because both are at the same potential. Now turn the shucko socket around: the output wire of the inverter that's now connected to the hull of the boat is the one that's going to the live wire in the boat wiring, the one that you've disconnected by turning the socket switch off, and which is connected to the inacessible pip on the bottom of the bulb. The other side of the output goes to the neutral wire in the boat wiring and is therefore connected to the screw base of the bulb as you screw it in, even if the socket switch is off. There's 240V between that and the hull of the boat. If you're in contact with the hull you die. MP.
  3. I got £8 for a single 110Ah start battery from the scrapyard outside Nantwich last month. MP.
  4. We have the following system. There are hoses of various lengths which can be joined if necessary to make a long (or very long) hose. The hoses have female hozelock connectors on both ends. When not in use the hoses are coiled and the ends are joined with a male-male connector which stops crap getting into the hose and dregs of water getting out. The male-male connectors are used to join hoses when more than one is needed. We use a 3/4" BSP hozelock adapter on the water point to attach the hose. At the boat end of the hose we use a device which is permanently made up of these components, in order. A 3/4" BSP hozelock adapter, a standard washing machine valve (3/4" BSP one side, 15mm compression on the other) , about 5cm of copper pipe, a 15mm compression elbow and finally another 10cm length of copper pipe. The device allows you to turn the water on and off as required, and the elbow allows the discharge end to be hooked into the filler so it stays in place even when the water pressure if very high. All this uses components which are readily available and cheap and easy to assemble. I'd recommend using brass hozelock fittings. Plastic ones are OK, but they wear faster and need periodic replacement if you're a liveaboard and filling up multiple times a week, MP.
  5. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  6. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  7. The two taps at Gnosall have very different speeds. One being very slow. I can never remember which is which. At the other end of the scale, the water point below Three Locks, GU, capable of launching the hose out of the filler neck or drilling a hole in the bottom of the water tank. MP.
  8. You're outside my experience now. Maybe Heritage Marina could help with that? MP.
  9. You can get a car off the road at the CRT yard where the tap is. The gate lock isn't a watermate key, but there's enough room to park a car roadside of the gate, and gap big enough to carry cassettes through to the car. Bosely sani is 10 minutes from there by road and easily accessible by car. MP.
  10. There's a Morrisons within walking distance of the canal at Buglawton. You could combine a trip to the water point with a visit there. We spent a lot of lockdown 1 around Congleton with Bosley flight closed, doing a car shuffle to get the sh*t suitcases emptied at Bosely services.
  11. Still shuddering at the story of one of our fellow moorers at Henhull, who left his boat for several years due to reasons, came back and found a rat city inside. The whole thing is totally trashed. On the cow front, we had a cow fall in between the boat and the bank at the Devil's Graden on the Weaver in the small hours. Being awoken by a very big splash and the boat rocking violently is quite alarming. There's a whole story around getting the cow out again which involves firemen running around with torches also in the small hours which I'll tell you if you really want to know. MP.
  12. Hope the damage is not too bad. At least your living accommodation floats. MP.
  13. We're on the floating pontoon VMs in Macclesfield. I know the Macc is unlikely to rise very much, but you can't be too careful......... MP.
  14. Today, between Aqueduct Marina and Wheelock, we've been past an empty hire boat or two at pretty much every road bridge with access to the canal. It looks like the hirers were told to get within luggage-carrying distance of a road and collected with their stuff. I imagine that there are not that many hire boats out at this time of the year, so the boats themselves can be collected as the companies have available staff. MP.
  15. Came down Stanthorne this morning. The queue was what I'd describe as normal. Three boats in front of us when we arrived, and three more had arrived behind by the time we were going into the lock. The repair looks pretty tidy and durable. MP.
  16. We're in the house. The heating had been on sporadically but not really doing much. Yesterday was a miserable wet day in Ireland so we used that as an excuse to try out the new batch of firewood that was delivered last week. The stove was lit with four logs at tea time and that was all we burned all evening. MP.
  17. Me too, mainly between the canal and Aldi. It's further on the way back with loaded shopping bags. MP.
  18. We re-joined our boat at Norbury a couple of years back by public transport. Train to Stafford, then bus to Gnosall and walk the last couple of miles up the towpath, as I remember. Nantwich has a railway station. MP.
  19. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a forum which requires at least 10 posts to view.
  20. Floating Pennywort? Last time we were that way, is was worst at the top of the flight and got better pretty quick as you went East. That's a couple of years back though. MP.
  21. I'd guess the ban, if it came to pass, would be on petrol two stoke outboards with total loss oiling systems which, by design, dump their lubricating oil into the water. The owners of historic semi-diesels would continue to be free to deposit their used oil on the boat roof and the face of the steerer. MP.
  22. You'd think so, but actually: no. I discovered this when a boat in a marina where we moored sank due to gas locker floor corrosion and added a layer of diesel to the surface of the water which dissolved our new blacking. The boat's insurance didn't pay out because the owner had broken the contract by not maintaining the boat in canal-worthy condition, and that included not covering third-party liabilities. I even went as far as reading the law: The Road Traffic Act contains a clause enforcing the condition that a motor insurance policy's third party provisions cannot be nullified by the insured's negligence; the British Waterways Act, which otherwise borrows identical language, is missing that clause. In our case the options were to sue a fellow moorer whose boat had just sunk, claim on our own insurance, or stand the costs ourselves. MP.
  23. I'll take a small bet that Calor is saving a fortune in tax because all those deposits are a big negative contributor to the balance sheet. The fact that most will never be redeemed because the bottles get passed on or abandoned or lost is irrelevant. MP.
  24. There are an increasing number of angry people everywhere in the UK. I've been noticing it for a while but it's more obvious when you go elsewhere and then come back. If they were all angry about the same things that could be a positive, but unfortunately they're mostly angry with each other. MP.
  25. To clarify for those who've not been there. These gates rise from the bed of the channel, so the up position is closed. They're down when stowed on the river bottom to allow navigation. MP.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.