Silkhay

Thanks Nicknorman, that's exactly what I did

Thanks bottle but it is the same when the engine is running and the alternator is pumping out 14+ volts straight to the battery terminals which the SG is reading.

I've had a Smartgauge installed for several years and am, on the whole very satisfied but it has developed a strange behaviour. It is installed with Batt 1 installed on the domestic battery bank which seems to give me good information on voltage and SoC percentage. Batt 2 is connected to the starter battery and here is the problem, it always indicates Lo (low) on this battery even when my multi-meter reads 12.4 volts at the gauge end of the wire where it goes into the Smartgauge. I have tried emailing Merlin, who have acquired Smartgauge, and received absolutely no reply. I have done a factory default reset but it has not made any difference. Any Ideas?

I've had a Smartgauge installed for several years and am, on the whole very satisfied but it has developed a strange behaviour. It is installed with Batt 1 installed on the domestic battery bank which seems to give me good information on voltage and SoC percentage. Batt 2 is connected to the starter battery and here is the problem, it always indicates Lo (low) on this battery even when my multi-meter reads 12.4 volts at the gauge end of the wire where it goes into the Smartgauge. I have tried emailing Merlin, who have acquired Smartgauge, and received absolutely no reply. I have done a factory default reset but it has not made any difference. Any Ideas?

It is a Prestolite 66021590, its only rated at 90Amp but I decided that was sufficient and it would also reduce the load on the v-belt which really is not man enough to handle the load produced by the 110, it does actually produce up to 119 amps on the test bed. All you say about the warning light wire is correct except that the 12v feed to the warning light which is used to initiate the alternator comes from the ignition switch which is connected to the starter battery circuit and not the domestic.

I've just spent a week trying to sort out a failed domestic alternator on my Barrus Shire 45 engine and I thought if I recounted my experiences it may help someone else and save them from repeating my travails. It is a Build 5 Shire 45 with the 110 Amp domestic alternator driven by a V-Belt, not the multi V introduced on later build standards. I noticed the failure while we were around Gayton Junction and ended up going into the boatyard there for assistance. When we contacted Barrus they told us that they did not support that type of alternator any longer but would gladly provide the replacement 140 Amp Alternator complete with multi V belt, new crankshaft pulley and assorted brackets, bolts, nuts etc for the sum of approx £460.00 (incl V.A.T). The boatyard knew a specialist who might be able to repair the dead device, they could not but had a new alternator which they had sold before as a replacement; we decided to go with that solution. Fitting the replacement went relatively well, just had to space out the adjuster bar to suit the slightly differing size of the upper mounting point. On testing the output of the alternator seemed fine for a few minutes until it starting climbing through 15.5 volts ( if you don't know you shouldn't apply more than 14.8 to charge a 12 volt battery). After a couple of days of head scratching, installing, removing, re-installing it turned out that Barrus, in their wisdom, takes the battery voltage for the warning light cable from the starter battery regardless of it being the domestic or starter alternator. I seems that because my batteries were fully charged after several days on shore power this caused a voltage imbalance which stopped the alternator regulator working. Changed the supply for the warning light to the correct battery bank and lo and behold it all worked perfectly. Sorry if this is a bit long winded but I hope it might help save somebody else having the same problem.

My Panasonic DAB radio works just fine connected to a normal flexible car radio aerial mounted on the roof of the boat

You need to be aware that this prosecution was under the Bye-Laws for the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal and river Severn Navigation which are different to the "BW By-Laws" applicable to most of the rest of the Inalnd Waterways System

Assuming you've got Phone type AV inputs then one of these works, I've used several http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Module...20&doy=14m8

From Astra 1 (19E) turn about 5 degrees left and tip forward a tad Astra 2 (29E) is a bit lower in the sky because its further round the equator, works every time. Astra 1 is quite a lot stronger signal, I almost invariably hit it first but then I know I'm roughly right. Good Luck Martin

I'm not saying it is the case but recently on the G&S we had somebody not read the instructions and put down the bid for the whole 3 years, perhaps this is the same. Needless to say it went to the second bidder

I too have had this problem, if you go to the web link earlier in this topic there are a number of downloadable instruction sheets on how to maintain the cassette, including how to remove the blade and seal thus making the hole bigger. Well worth downloading and reading. In my case it was a case of the magnet having come off the arm and lying in the bottom, a spot of super glue and problem solved!! Good luck, by the time you've washed it out its not too bad but you won.t be able to do it in situ if you want to remove the seal and blade. Martin

I had a similar problem and discovered on striping down the pump a bui;ld up of crud (calc) on the rubber diaphram valve within the pump, don't know the proper name, wipped/washed this off, re-assembled, problem solved. Good luck Martin

I recently asked a similar question, this link should take you to the appropriate topic. Moorings around Cambridge I've not followed any of the answers up yet, lack of time Good luck Martin

Thanks to all, that'll give me somewhere to start looking Martin

Saul is a must, the "Folk on the Water" side of the festival is great

I suspect that this question may have been asked before but I can't find it despite lots of searching. I am probably going to have to move to North West Suffolk / South West Norfolk / Cambridgeshire in the coming months and it will be a long trip to the boat on the Gloucester Sharpness. Any advice on finding a mooring closer to home would be very much appreciated; I know the waterways around there don't belong to BW so I'm not sure where to start looking. I'm not looking for a liveaboard, just a very frequent all year round visitor Thanks in anticipation Martin

It doesn't have to be that accurate but if you are relying on the signal strength meter in the decoder it can appear so. It can take up to 45 seconds for that to react by which time you've moved the dish out of the beam again; I can't recommend highly enought the value of an inline meter! As to tree height, if its more than 20 or 30 yards away it would need to be the height of a Sequoia to interfere. Good hunting

I use one of these dish / decoder combos all of the time. First you need to go to the menu / satellite setup menu and change it to Astra 2. Get yourself a proper compass and point the areial to 146 Mag, it varies slightly depending on where you are in the UK but only by an amount too small to register on most compasses. The connecting bar between the dish and the LNB needs to be about horizontal. Then you may need to move the dish around very slightly until you get a good signal, I would recommend a signal strength meter which you can get about £15 from B&Q which has a far quicker response than the signal strength meter on the screen. If you get a good signal but no picture you are probably lined up on Astra 1, which has a much stronger signal than Astra 2. You can check this by changing the decoder to Astra 1 and you will see a nice selection of German programmes (How's your German?). This is the one I usually hit first. If this is the case then you need to swing the dish about 3 - 4 degrees left and lower the LNB a tad. Note you don't move it 9 degrees, that is the difference in their Longditude over the equator not the line of sight from the UK. Incidentally, before you do anything make sure all your connections are clean, and no chance of short between the coax core and the screen. If I can be of any more help please ask

I am sorry to have to tell you all that due to the adverse weather the Saul festival has been cancelled. Both the car pak and camp site are under several feet of water. Please pass this news to anybody you know who was planning to attend.

We to run this machine off a 2Kw Mastervolt combi, no problems and it works well. Martin

Can't answer that one, I too have nothing to do with the mobile phone industry. I just wanted to clarify the point on what the limit applied too. but I would guess they "get away with" it because that's what customers will pay.

Chris, I think you are getting your speeds confused with your data file sizes. Somebody has already mentioned the number of bits in a byte so I won't. The speed of your connection has no impact on your download limit, slow connections just take longer. This 250 Mbyte limite is the volume of data you can download. I page of MSword document is approximate 25 Kbytes so for one meg, sorry 1 Mbyte, you can download 40 pages (ish). Although photographs are big, sensible use of format and compression makes them not much bigger than word pages, perhaps twice as big. Even quite large and complex project plans don't go much over 4 Mbytes, and how many of those do you download every month. The only time you may eat up your allowance will be if you download a lot of music. You've really got to be an avid browser / downloader to exceed 250 Mbytes. regards martin

Spent a very peaceful and secure night tied up at the Camp Hill BW facility a couple of weeks ago, can thoroughly recommend it Martin