DaveP
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Posts posted by DaveP
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It's an oar blade....
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Just now, churchward said:
The US Senate has voted 56-44 in favour of the trial and it being constitutional. 6 Republicans voted for the trial with Democrats. 11 more will need to be convinced of guilt to convict at the end so still not looking likely.
I watched a good deal of the presentation and debate from both sides. Impeachment House Managers (the prosecution if you will) presentation was very good and well argued but as one has come to expect the Trump lawyers etc. did quite a poor and unconvincing job.
Donald Trump impeachment trial is constitutional, Senators say in vote (usatoday.com)
No, no,no. That's Hot Air - a completely different (and usually on a different planet) method of (em)powering stuff.
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I've had solar for 7 years. The answer is normally 'more'.
Do your power audit - Bimble, as mentioned above, have a downloadable spreadsheet to assist. I use about 1kWh/day in summer, reduced to 400Wh in winter by turning my fridge off.
I have 4 x 320w panels (two in use during summer, and all four in winter). I aim to park with a view of the sun. The panels are laid flat on the roof in boxes, but can be tilted up to 45deg if necessary (and it is) to catch the rays.
In essence, winter input is about 1/10 that of summer, so cut out unecessary usage (ie the fridge) and have a large enough battery bank to see you through the days of insufficient sun. In winter this could mean up to two weeks, which is unobtainable - so go for the largest bank that you can recharge, using your alternator, in a full day of engine running (say eight hours); if you're using lead-acid and a 70-100A alternator then this means you're limited to about 800Ah of batteries (of which only about 400Ah is usable), if you're prepared for the expense and nerdiness of LiFePO4, then again 800-1000Ah of batteries would max out the alternator, but 700-800Ah is usable. But if you actually do this, make sure that your engine is quiet or be prepared to either live out in the countryside or invest in large quantities of alcohol to placate your neighbours with....
Boats are not houses - electricity is an expensive luxury. The first rule is to minimise your usage. The second rule is that generating it is ten times more expensive than the grid, the third rule is that storing it is like water in leaky buckets and the forth rule is that wind is even more fickle than sunshine.
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So the crt website says "Boat licence terms & conditions regarding moving every 14 days will be suspended until the restrictions come to an end. If you have any questions, please contact your licence support officer."
But says nothing about being allowed to occupy time-restricted moorings for longer than the stated period. So there's a load of boats on 2/7/14-day moorings (remembering that many (but not all) short-stay móorings revert to 14-days for winter) who should have shifted to elsewhere by now since it's only the 14-days in one place (neighbourhood) that's been suspended, not the local mooring place (boat-sized, or contiguous set of spaces)....
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CRT being economical with the truth as ever.
6 hours ago, Ray T said:Six new pre-bookable visitor moorings on former commercial boat moorings in Paddington Basin.
These were never commercial boat moorings - they might have wanted them to be, but never got a tenant. They've always (until they started charging/booking) been just another set of visitor moorings.
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Just now, jetzi said:
Don't mean to doubt you, but are you sure that the reason the heating element doesn't come on is because you use hot water from the geyser? Or are you trusting that the "cold wash" button means the heater is disabled no matter the temperature? The heating element of the Hotpoint doesn't come on either if the water is at least at room temperature, but for @cairanvanrooyen's purposes he wants to be sure that it doesn't accidentally trigger I think.
Yep, have run it without the geyser lit, no heater fires up (it's rated at 1250w and overpowers my 1000w inverter immediately - the older model of the machine had a 1kw heater which the inverter would cope with as long as the alternator was supplying power to the batteries to prevent voltage droop on the 12v side).
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14 minutes ago, cairanvanrooyen said:
Hi @DaveP - what size inverter do you have? Do you know if your machine has any anomalous spikes of peak power (similar to post #67 above)?
I have a 1kw pure-sine inverter. So, no in-machine water heating, just push the cold wash button and supply from a Morco geyser. There will be spikes as the drum motor starts, but the only time the inverter complained was when a motor start coincided with the fridge compressor starting.
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On 14/01/2021 at 10:21, cairanvanrooyen said:
On the off chance, i contacted Midland Chandlers, who said the following:
"Thank you for contacting us with your question on the candy washing machine, we would say the power consumption on a cold wash would be around 500w, I hope this helps but if you have any other questions please come back to me."...
Still waiting for Candy to respond.
I have this machine (3yr old). Using the 1hr wash on cold it uses about 10Ah with a maximum draw of 250w.
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Having done a little digging - a third boat, and famous!
http://www.canalscape.net/Canals on Screen/Canals on Screen.htm
Harmony - a cruiser stern starred in 'Travelling Man' a Grenada TV series.....
Also confirms that David Jones operated out of Taylor's Boatyard in Chester.
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9 minutes ago, DHutch said:
Seems like some faff, but a successful outcome?
Dunno! By the time I'd filled it out I was back in France, and the postage paid envelope obviously wouldn't work from there, so I popped it in with my tax return and asked HMCR to forward it. I'll be able to tell you in 90 years time when they release the records....
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I too have a David Jones boat (apparently, no plaque or actual evidence, just on the sales bumpf when I bought her) - but listed as Davy Jones, which gave me a palpitation on first sight.... She's from 1979, and is now 58' having been stretched in a couple of places and definitely not on her original engine....
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I applied for a job last time round as an enumerator; apparently I was lined up for one in order to reach the 'hard' group of cc'rs - until they discovered I was one and therefore was deemed not to have a secure location to store the census forms. I did eventually get hold of a census form and completed it, but that was complicated by the fact that by the time I'd got hold of someone in the office, I was in France and they wouldn't send me a form there! The form was sent to a local boatyard who were willing to hold it for me.
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Credit card, Phone with (big/unlimited) data plan, Chainsaw, backpack, spares and toolkit.
(Slightly hard to answer this, as the most vital bits are inseparable from the boat - so I'd count solar panels, batteries, wine cellar, mooring kit and stove as boat rather than 'items')
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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
Limehouse was owned (ultimately) by C&RT, once it was sold off to a management / Bank consortium it is quite understandable - and, I'd suggest that Covid is a reasonable justification.
Why should they 'give notice' ? The facilities are theirs to do with as they please, I refer you back to :
Within their rights to withdraw the service - I agree, but to do so without notice or publicity is a bit off. They didn't even bother telling CRT - who would have been able to let boaters in the area know, rather than make a wasted journey to the pontoon and back....
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6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:
In Post #3 I was going to suggest the removal of all sanitary facilities along with the removal of waterpoints, but decided that it was most likely that the 'boaters' would just tip-it-overboard having no consideration for other water users, and, giving even less reasons to need to move, As justification they would get the Baton-Twirlers legal experts to quote the court cases where Thames water have, on 'numerous occasions' discharged millions of litres or raw sewage into the Thames.
Why should a private owned marina want anyone and everyone using their facilities ?
Would you be happy if a bus-tour stopped outside your door and said we've come to use your toilet ?
Limehouse Marina facilities were open to all. Then BWML was sold off. There was no announcement, just a refusal to service. COVID given as an excuse.
14 minutes ago, Scholar Gypsy said:If the ghost percentage is really that high, I struggle to understand why people do this, rather than selling the boat. There are many nicer places in the country to keep a boat if you just want the odd day trip. Maybe they have gone to live with someone on the bank and are keeping the boat as insurance policy in case of relationship breakdown. But 75% of them?? Are there any facts on this issue, I wonder.
Having spoken to a fair few of the boaters when they did visit, this is the case - one partner owns the boat, the other lives on the hard. Lockdown kept them both on land. In several instances, because we were not near a pumpout and their tank was brimming.... As to those who never visited - I don't know.
Don't forget, the demographic of London boating is radically different to the rest of the country - there are a lot more young people....
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I've boated regularly through London for the last three years (three - six months at a time). The only area in which I haven't been able to moor against the towpath at the first time of looking is Camden to Islington tunnel - twice in five passages...
In terms of passing through the centre of town, the problem is Regents Park - there are no rings or moorings available from Lisson Grove to Camden, and with only 4 berths available above Camden locks, it makes for a minimum of 3 hours on the water before any mooring becomes possible. The high voltage lines under the towpath are now decommissioned, so the work to remove them gives an ideal opportunity to create another mile or so of moorings (~160). But see below!
There _are_ many boats on the canals there; the real issue is the lack of sanitary facilities - not helped by Limehouse Marina preventing non-residents from using theirs this year. There are no facilities between Little Venice at Paddington and St Pancras. Don't even ask about pumpouts...
In my two month lock-down sojourn in Mile End it was clear that only about 25% of boats were lived on, the rest were ghost boats (with about 1 in 3 being visited occasionally, and the rest not at all in that time).
So much for boaters - what about other stakeholders?
Anglers - seen plenty on the Paddington Arm, Regents (East of Hackney) and Lee. Again, Regents Park is a ghost town.
Walkers, Joggers, Cyclists - everywhere, all the time, except on the Lee north of the Olympic Park. But that's where the muggers take over....
Local residents - I don't know. Presumably they also form the previous category.
So what to do? Create more and better sanitary facilities, enforce movement and licensing (and make sure new owners get the rules). Make sure that problems are dealt with and not left to fester by not talking to local councils or neighbours. I was there when the idiot burned whatever it was below the St Mary's Hospital air intakes - all of us dobbed the twat in to CRT, but we still lost those four spots in the basin.
In the end though, I suspect CRT will create zones to be moved through (with lots of lovely new logo'd signs in plastic zip-tied to random railings) and then fail to enforce them on a timescale of 'have we got a decade-long grant from DEFRA yet?'
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Nothing's changed in relation to incorporating the Stroudwater and the Thames & Severn into the journey....
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Me! Me! Me!
I self-identify as a London Boater, and I'm on the loose in the Home Counties ATM. Where can I meet said snobby?
Love and peace, innit bruv.
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Just now, pearley said:
Incidentally once you have a MeterMacs account you keep it, even when you give up the mooring.
Indeed so; I still have £4 credit on mine and it worked in Hythe Bridge the other year. I am planning on making a booking on the Boris moorings for a week in January....
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Maybe electric narrowboats are almost here....
New kit costs:
15kw electric motor kit - 3k, 15kw batteries - 6.5k, 3kw panels (using about 12m of cabin top) - 2.5k. Total 12k.
Panels will produce 2kwh in the depths of winter, allowing a 30min cruise each day, and 1kwh for living. The batteries provide a week-long backup in the event of total panel failure to generate....
This means that you still need a solid-fuel stove and alternative cooking and water-heating (gas) arrangements - or a back boiler etc. [Living aboard, I reckon I use 3.5kWh of gas/day, and 48kWh of coal/stove /day when running 24-7].
A new diesel costs about 6k.
I'm presuming they're about the same cost to fit into the boat. But then the diesel has running costs(say 400/yr), whilst the electric gets a 25% licence discount from CRT(say 200/yr). So the break-even point comes after about 10-12 years.
It is the winter heating that's the elephant - needing a 2kw continuous feed....
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1 hour ago, pearley said:
Done that. Lots of agreement but no action.
Look at the VMs in Islington. Electric hookups agreed 2 or 3 years ago to appease local residents but not installed.
It's happening. Whole load of closures this and next month to install bollards from York Way to City Road lock. And then the moorings become bookable only, and only single mooring, and only for one week. If you're a cc'er you can't get an online account to use the bollards....
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3 hours ago, Blue Knight said:
G'Day All,
I've made a few short notes so that I can help configure a plan. I'll first need to see how my batteries are performing when I see the boat for its survey on the 14th Oct but other than that I reckon that Im now getting the gist of what you fine folk are advising.
Here goes:
1. @DaveP Consider 'redundency' for those dark drizzly days, 2. Panels are c.30% more efficient when angled, 3. Don't buy expensive batteries for your first set (get to know your usage rates first), 4. Check the effiency of the panels which I intend to buy, including the voltage and current specs and match the solar regulator accordingly, 5. Consider shorepower as a supplementary support method, wherever possible, and use the fridge sparingly during dark months.
Just a point on the last item. _Don't_ use the fridge. Each time you use it, a huge amount of power will be taken to get it down to operational temperature (disregard in the case of using a shoreline to do this).
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2 hours ago, Blue Knight said:
That's a really helpful set of points Dave - many thanks indeed.
As you say the main loads such as the washer-dryer will be supported by the Dometic PP so it's the 'power to be consumed later' bit that I need to focus on.
I've derived the 80Ah requirement from the compressor fridge, TV and the heating system and the rest solely down to the lighting/pump/phone charging requirements, beside other bits, as per your advice.
Your points on the seasonal variations is incredibly useful but what I find even more helpful is your explanation about 'redundancy' on those damp drizzly days when we don't want to move - which in theory should be quite often.
In light of what you've advised I best look at a suitable battery set-up first and then check to see if I can support its associated charging regime via both on and off-grid means.
Does this last bit sound correct to you?
Many thanks,
Andrew
I've moved onto LiFePO4 batteries which are a completely different ballgame, but from my experiences with lead-acids; don't discharge below 50% (as you've already said), recharge to 100% asap after discharge. They will wear out and should be considered consumables. Don't buy expensive ones until you've wrecked at least one set of cheapo's and have feeling for how they behave.
The problem being that the recharging current the batteries will accept reduces approximately proportionally to their current state of charge (ie the closer you get to recharging them, the less input they'll take). This means that running the engine to get them from 90% to 95% will take the same time as from 80% to 90%. This means you're wasting diesel putting small currents in. Solar though, will just sit there putting small charges in until you lose the light.
As to the panel from your screenshot - that's all marketing bollocks. Look at; the efficíency (gives you power per area of panel), max voltages and currents ( to match different panels, and the controller), thickness and weight (for handling them). Otherwise within a panel format, they're all alike.
Given the above, it's considered reasonable to carry a 2-day reserve of power ( don't forget that this can include going on a restricted diet for day 2!) and you need to be able to recharge them in the hours between returning to the boat and 8pm with the engine. If you've got access to shorepower, use that; it will be an order of magnitude cheaper, quieter, and mechanically easier.
My solution over the last couple of years was 400ah (Pb) batteries, 1200w of solar, and fridge off between November and March. I'm looking forward to see how the lithiums perform in the coming winter....
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You've got several different ways of providing power, so thought needs to be given to
a) Providing power that's going to be used now - eg for large loads such as a washing machine, or other electric heating apparatus
b) Providing power to be consumed later (and before the next opportunity to generate more)
The former is what the power pack is good for, the latter is for the charger and solar installation. So, how much of the 80Ah is sporadic loads like a washing machine over which you have the choice of when to run it, and how much is continuous load such as refrigeration, pumps and the like (plus entertainment and communications like radio, internet & TV, which although under your control can't realistically be time-shifted)
80Ah is near enough 1kWh. To provide this for the warmer half of the year will require around 500w of solar panels, for the shoulder months (Feb, Oct) around 900w, and in the depths of Winter around 1600w. This is all predicated on the panels being flat; if you are able to tilt them the winter requirement could be cut by 30%. However, with only 400Ah of batteries you don't have much redundancy to cope with more than one dull, drizzly, damp, grey, overcast day in a row.
The number and type of panel is going to be a function of how much of your roof you want for other purposes such as storage and walking on (If you're not single-handing there isn't much need for the cabin top to be a walkable area). Flexible ones don't have a great reputation for longevity or robustness, and can't be tilted. Flat panels need housing and apparatus to be able to tilt. But 700w of flat panels is only 4.5m2 these days....
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C&RT say don't empty your compost toilet in our bins.
in General Boating
Posted
I suspect this is a brain-fart by the author of the update. The Boaters Handbook on the CRT site hasn't been revised....