Arnot

Do you know if it was updated to VE Bus? Regards Arnot

Hi! 1) Be aware that selecting the traction battery setting will increase the voltage applied to the batteries. This will charge them better but it will also main that they need topped up with distilled water more frequently and also that if you have any equipment running off the battereis whilst they are being charged they may get more voltage than they can handle reliably. Particularly look out for light fittings getting too warm. 2) I don't think that the battery setting had anything to do with your original problem. 3) Leave the shoreline setting at 16A if you lower it you may introduce other issues 4) If you can let us know a bit more about the inverter it may help. Victron have produced more than one 2000w unit. For example do you know how old it is, what series it is (Multiplus?) and if it is VE Bus enabled. Regards Arnot

It's a bit difficult without knowing which model or inverter you have but here are some general tips. 1) Check that the shore power limit has not been set too low. If this is the case as the current the batteries demad ramps up it will reach it's limit and may cut out after about 20-30 seconds. 2) Make sure that your shore power is in good order. As with point 1, if it has a high resistnce somewhere, as the battery charge current ramps up it may lower the incoming voltage to below the acceptable level and it will trip out. 3) If you are running it from a generator, make sure that the incoming power quality window is not too narrow (see settings), as they leave the factory Victron inverters seem to be set up for operation from mains rather than a generator Hope this helps Arnot

In general terms, the plain belt is able to transmit more power and the cogged belt can cope with smaller pulleys better. In your case, the starter battery alternator has to do very little so power transmission won't be an issue. As long as the belt is not frayed or shedding rubber dust, I would leave well alone. If you do really have to replace it, then a cogged one would probably be better in this application but it's best to get a new one rather than using one that has been stored for some years. Keep the older one for an emergency and sods law will mean it will never happen. I have often seen people replace a belt that is working perfectly well with one that has sat around for some years and started to perish only for them to have the replacement one fail prematurely. Regards Arnot

Just in case you have not yet had your sprayfoam done. As others have already said, yes - use some sort of trunking or ducting. I find it's best to lay a ring of trunking round the boat under the gunwales at the sides and as high as you can get it front and back. If this is done before the sprayfoaming and you tape over the fronts it secures the trunking perfectly and saves a lot of messy carving. I use the removable front rectangular trunking and it's best to woork out how big you want it and then double it. This makes it esier to route wires in and out, allows a bit of air for cooling and makes it easier to thread any new wires in or remove older ones without having to remove all the covers. The finger stuff looks like a neat idea but it's almost impossible to get a new cable through without it snagging and putting the front on properly takes too long. Fine for control panels, just not for boats. Then when you are laying the wires, cut a good number or pieces of front about 5cm long to use rather than having them all fall out during the process. Regards Arnot

Gaffer (see history and heritage section of forum) is now just south of the Braunston Tunnel and waiting for the next hop. The trouble is... all the crew except Marek have been struck by the lurgy so there is a shout for crew for Sunday and Monday if anyone wants an interesting trip. One helper would work, two would be better, particularly when it gets stuck on shallows. There is no accomodation on this boat (unless you don't mind a sleeping bag in the pan) but there is a pub lunch thrown in. Any takers pleae ring Marek on "oh seven eight eight six five oh five one eight nine" Regards Arnot

Gaffer is now just south of the Braunston Tunnel and waiting for the next hop. The trouble is... all the crew except Marek have been struck by the lurgy so there is a shout for crew for Sunday and Monday if anyone wants an interesting trip. One helper would work, two would be better, particularly when it gets stuck on shallows. There is no accomodation on this boat (unless you don't mind a sleeping bag in the pan) but there is a pub lunch thrown in. Any takers pleae ring Marek on "oh seven eight eight six five oh five one eight nine" Regards Arnot

Quite possibly true, my logic was that it was a main pos diode o/c and when the others took the load they would probably follow shortly anyway but it would buy a bit of time. Usually the 70A option in the Isuzu is a good ole A127 and they usually have rectifiers built of sealing wax and string. The non gen items seem to be better, what say you? Either way it sounds fubared...

It sounds like a rectifier problem to me. If this is the case then you will need to get the alternator off for repair or replacement at some stage but by the sound if it there is still some output. Continuing to run it will probably not make the problem worse but the unit may fail completely shortly anyway. Although it may just be a random failure, it might be worth looking into why it failed, rectifier problems are unusual nowdays. Things to look for are poor cooling of the engine hole and/or the alternator output being routed through a master switch that is starting to fail. Regards Arnot PS beaten by Snibble - again! Hi Snib.

Poop Poop!

The best stuff I have used by far is coir fibre, the results are quite remarkable. I don't know where you would get it but I see it is marketed in the UK under the name Spillfix if that helps. Regards Arnot

Just an update... Roger actually sold both Growler and Gaffer to a pal of mine called Marek late last year. Now, after a service, some rewiring and a couple of other minor repairs they are on their way to East London to become part of a fleet of various craft intended for use in and around the 2012 Olympics. Eventually it should have a mooring on the Hertford Union Canal but there is a bit of dredging to do first. Marek has got a surname but it's Polish (not that he is) and seems to consist entirely of consonants. The moving operation has been slightly stilted due to ice and stoppages but the rig is on its way again. It is also a bit of a challenge on the narrow canals, Growler draws nearly three feet and Gaffer (being empty) about eight inches. The good news is that a six cylinder lister and a 27" square prop manage to do a bit of moving of debris when needed. Regards Arnot

True, but they do seem to work reliably and the concept is more appropriate for a "domestic" load. Arnot

They are known as "continental" fuses and stem from the German automotive market. One word of warning, the original design had a ceramic body and copper or brass fuse strip and worked reasonably well. Then the bean counters got involved and sourced them from countries that didn't understand what made them reliable so that a lot of the replacement ones available now have a thermoset plastic body (bakelite) and white metal conductor. The white metal reacts with the brass fuse holder and forms a high resistance corrosion barrier. This then warms the contact up which burns the plastic body until it shrinks. Then, as a result, the contact pressure is released so the other end burns and arcs as well. In the short term try to get the ceramic body fuses, they are still available from Hella and Bosch. In the long term change the fuse box to one of the later blade types, these are less inclined to heat up and fail. Regards Arnot

Of course there is a reason... Cigarette lighter plugs are not intended for long term loads, that's what you use a 5A round pin outlet for. How about changing the outlet? Regards Arnot

This is exactly what I have done, or at least as near as the pulley choices allowed. (see below) There are some snags with this approach though and it may explain the Beta choice. The first is that as you start to extract large amounts of mechanical power from an engine at low speeds, the torque the belt has to transmit rises in inverse proportion and can lead to premature belt failure. My solution was to use triple 13mm cogged belts and so far it seems to be working fine. Second, with smaller modern engines there is a risk that the governor will struggle to cope with the steep rise of power demand with speed at lower and idle speeds leading to instability or hunting. In fairness I have never experieinced this but it is forseeable. A third is that on smaller engines there is a risk that because the torque demand of the alternator rises significantly faster than the torque output of the engine under heavy loading it can lead to the engine hitting a load induced rev limit. This I have experienced on a few engines, mainly the smaller one and two cylinder versions but I do have a customer with a Gardner 2L2 that has this problem. There is a solution but it isn't elegant, essentially you switch the alternator off until the revs rise and then switch it on again but this has to be done manually. Alternatively just stay moored up until the current falls a bit. My impression is that there isn't a perfect one size fits all approach and it depends on a lot of factors such as how you use your boat, the engine rev range, engine torque curve, avaialble space for pulleys, size and type of battery, and finally how much money money and/or you are prepared to throw at the problem. My thought is that the Beta 175A alternator installation is pretty near optimal overall. Regards Arnot My Alternator

Are you sure that was RCD and not MCB? Regards Arnot

It seems to me that the 4.5 metre thing is a standard disclaimer that stove manufacturers make on the assumption that the stove will be fitted in a building. Of course, in a narrow boat it's a bit more tricky but the essential physics of stoves don't very from one manufacturer to another. You just have to accept that the stove won't draw as strongly as it would with a full height flue so will be a bit more difficult to light and regulate. It's one of the reasons that the choice of fuel is more critical in a boat. Regards Arnot

Short answer is yes, I have done it a few times and it works well but the pipework is a bit tricky and it needs well planned. One of the issues is that you ideally need some sort of valve to bypass the radiators as far as the Ebespacher is concerned in the summer so you have hot water without having to heat the boat. This has to be done without preventing flow round the stove in case you do light it. Regards Arnot

I tend to use the adhesive lined version of heatshrink, it seals the joint more effectively which is what is really needed on a boat. The standard stuff is little more than cosmetic in this environment. As for the size to use, there are lots of factors such as the thickness of the insulation and if you forgot to put the heatshink on before you attached the terminal but I did find this company who sell a starter pack for not too much. Regards Arnot

Seems a good scheme to me too! I have a Leece Nevville mounting for a 2LW on file for laser cutting and can get the bits cut for you if you want. Regards Arnot

Well... It's not completely wrong, it's right and probably wrong at the same time. All I did was pass on a phoenomenon I had observed and the explanation I was provided by the vehicle manufacturer in question. That these particular alternators (there was a fleet of them) exhibited these symptoms was an observed fact. That it was some abberation of the regulator conflicting with the Adverk is inescapable. That it was due to bridge control of the rotor current is perfectly feasible but I didn't have time to go into it in any detail, the client just wanted their fleet reliable again. I did however find some evidence at the time that the manufacturers of the IC's used in regulators were promoting this feature, just why I couldn't answer. I understand your explanation but don't necessarily agree entirely. Of course it may be that the purpose of the clamping was for some other purpose such as interference suppression that the introduction of digital regulators may have given rise to. If I have the time I will have another look into it. It seems that some manufacturers use what amounts to PWM and others use some sort of pulse density, perhaps the pulse density ones could be causing a problem when the output is very low? Next time I find an example of this problem (but it is quite unusual) I will try to do a little more testing. In the mean time, I know that Adverk were aware of the problem and maybe they have looked into it further, hence my advice. Regards Arnot

Somehow I didn't think you would be! There are two types of inbuilt regulator that have this problem. The first (and most common)uses a technique called "active clamping" and when it detects a high voltage on the output, it connects both field wires to the same point (usually D+) to quickly kill the MMF. It's an attempt to minimise load dump. The adverk assumes that the field terminal will be eiher driven or disconnected and can increase the voltage to a level where the clamping is invoked. This is when the conflict occurs. The second is quite rare at the moment but could well become more popular are the alternators that have a rotor with both permanent and electric energisation. The regulation is achieved by driving the coil either way to augment or cancel the permanent magnet. I don't know of anyone trying an Adverk with this type of alternator yet but the outcome will be interesting... Regards Arnot

There is a slight snag with some aadvarks when attached to modern alternators, some have regulators with load dump protection. In this case, when the batteries are almost fully charged and not taking much current the aadvark will raise the voltage to a level where the inbuilt regulator tries to actively turn the rotor current off. Such conflict does lead to this symptom occasionally. It might be an idea to talk to Adverk about it. Regards Arnot

First, it doesn't sound as though your batteries have "exploded", trust me you would know - there would be bits of battery plastered all over and a lot of acid sprayed round the place. Also anything metal in the vicinity would be corroding away rapidly. I suspect that what happened is that you have one or more faulty batteries and this has lead to the charge current remaining above 4.5A so the charger has repeatedly applied full voltage. This causes the batteries to gas a lot and smell of rotten eggs. As a tip, under these conditions any faulty battery will often feel warm to the touch. WARNING! if the batteries have been on charge for a long period and you detect the smell, wait until the battery compartment has been well ventilated until you start poking about, there may well be localised pockets of gas in sufficient quantity to ignite. Edit - the motley collection of batteries does lead me to suspect that you have one or more faulty ones. Just possibly in defense of the the boatbuilder (if it's a new boat), it is commonplace to use whatever batteries are lying about whilst a boat is being built to allow the build to be done without using the life of the new batteries that should be fitted before the client takes delivery. Whilst this is done with the best of intentions, sometimes it is forgotten and the old ones stay on board. There is no reason why batteries in reasonable condition should not be left on charge ad infinitum on a good charger. I suggest that you have the batteries tested by a battery specialist at this stage in case there is one or more faulty ones, if you let them know the history they should be able to give you advice based on test evidence. All the forum can do is generalise. The decision on how many (if any) of the batteries need replacing should be based on the test results but as a generalisation, if two or more are faulty it's probably best to change them all. I also suggest that you have the charger tested in case it is faulty and is overcharging the batteries. If you have a monitoring system on your boat you may well be able to check the charging voltages and currents against the manufacturers specification yourself. From the sound of it, there doesn't seem to have been anything you could have done to prevent it. However there is just a small possibility that something left on could have kept the charger output above 4.5A and therefore at full voltage. Edit - I just saw that you have a fridge and might have left this on, this might be the problem. If you look at your manual you will see that you can set soem dip switches up to optimise the charger for yuor application. I suggest switches one and two "off" with three and four "on". It's not ideal but it should keep your batteries safe in cold weather and with a load on at the expense of increaing the time necessary to recharge them from the mains. Regards Arnot