Jump to content

Tom and Bex

Member
  • Posts

    761
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Tom and Bex

  1. Buy it direct from MCS, much cheaper than Midlands! https://www.mcsboatproducts.co.uk/our-products/freshwater We have there fresh water and pumpout tank gauges. Seem to do the job well enough.
  2. Similar to them allowing the Wednesbury Old canal on the BCN to become overgrown with reeds, then advising boats it's un-navigable and not to even attempt it😥
  3. Same here. In fact the first challenge we've not encountered any delays at locks, low pounds, getting stuck, or any other significant problems (other than the usual weed hatch trips!). Weed seemed to actually be the biggest problem this year which makes a very pleasant change.
  4. And very useful extra crew he was helping with the locks to burn off all that energy🤣 Not yet - seen no boats since turning right at Birchills junction. Next you'll tell me I've gone the wrong way🤣
  5. We've got an aldi battery one, and it's not got great pressure, but better than a hose. We use ours for boat washing and other general outdoor cleaning which it works quite well at, although very slow on cleaning wood. It's surprisingly very effective at cleaning the nonslip paint on the gunnels though, so much so it now looks almost new, when I thought it was so bad it needed a repaint! At the price I paid, it was worth it for that alone, nothing else seemed to work at all on the nonslip. Nothing like using a mains one, but if it's cheap enough, a worthwhile tool for use around the boat. Just be aware that the battery doesn't last long (at least on the aldi one, but luckily it's the same battery as the Bauker drills and other cordless tools I've got).
  6. Think most of them were heading up Lapworth flight yesterday! Took over 4 hours to do 19 locks when it usually takes us 2😥 Mind you the volunteer lockies weren't exactly helping the chaos.
  7. We just squeezed into the last space opposite Red Wharf! Shopping done, water tank filled, all set for the morning! No extra crew this year, so we'll just have to see how we go. Have trimmed our original route to account for lack of crew, so hopefully still get to Netherton before it's closed! Hopefully we've had all our bad luck and delays, and it will be a straightforward challenge for us🤣🤣🤣
  8. Re timings for this closure - if we have to be through the tunnel by 1.30, what's the latest time that boats will be allowed to enter Netherton from the North?
  9. Thanks Sue! Common sense has prevailed in the end, but not what you needed at this late stage.
  10. Looking at the teardown videos, I'd be worried that it might be the internal connection failing, and tightening that nut may just be a temporary fix. Definitely one to keep a close eye on and I'm not sure I'd have thought to check for voltage difference there as I can't see how that would occur.
  11. This stoppage will affect a lot of plans! Has this event been discussed with the planners? Could the event not have been postponed until after 2pm? Notice Alert Netherton Tunnel Branch (New ML) Location: Netherton Tunnel Starts At: Netherton Tunnel Ends At: Netherton Tunnel Saturday 4 June 2022 11:00 until Saturday 4 June 2022 14:00 Type: Navigation Closure Reason: Information Original message: Netherton Tunnel will be closed Saturday 4th June between 11am – 2pm. A paddle boarding event, organised by East of England Paddlesports is planned. Volunteers will be on site at both ends of the tunnel to make sure boats do not go through the tunnel at the same time as the paddlers. We kindly ask customers to wait for passage outside the tunnel until all paddlers have travelled through. The tunnel will re-open to boating customers after the event at around 2pm. You can view this notice and its map online here: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notice/22414/netherton-tunnel You can find all notices at the url below: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/notices
  12. Technically nothing i suppose, but water will take path of least resistance, and long runs of 10mm pipe, pump, and panel are much more than the straight 15mm Tee piece! Certainly never noticed any change in heat from the water compared to before. I've never noticed that, but that could be because the pipes run down to the pump that is mounted half way down the tank, before heading up to the roof again. Also, as above, the restrictive pipework probably help. We do lose hot water thermosyhoning to the eberspacher though which I keep meaning to sort at some point😥
  13. Still here occasionally😆 I Tee'd into hot feed from top of calorifier with 10mm pipe, and from there into solar pump. Output of solar pump feeds 10mm pipe up to solar panel - feed in one corner, output opposite corner. 10mm pipe then runs from panel back to Tee in cold feed at bottom of calorifier. Pump controlled by solarproject.co.uk controller which is really useful all year anyway as a temperature display to check how much hot water you've got! This set up would only work if there's no non-return valves in the calorifier, as pump wouldn't overcome them. My preference would have been to use a separate coil in the calorifier, but ours didn't have a spare coil, or an immersion boss to fit one. There is some points to be aware of for direct solar hot water. You have to be aware of risk of freezing. We remove ours early to mid autumn, and put it back mid spring when risk of frost has diminished. There's frost protection option on the controller, but this will take any heat in the calorifier and heat the outside air! The other point to be aware of is that the panel, pump, and all piping will be at full water pump pressure. Our panel is fine with this, but worth checking panel can cope with full system pressure. Overall it works very well, but can waste remaining hot water in tank under certain very limited conditions. 10mm pipe works well, and is well insulated throughout which is quite important to prevent heat loss. Most difficult bit is routing pipes out to roof. Our pipes run along the edge of the roof inside, then through drilled holes in roof and terminate in standard 10mm speedfit connector to enable quick and easy removal and draining of panel for winter. No problem of boiling in summer, we only have 1 panel, but have seen tank temp up to 80°c on very hot sunny days. Happy to answer any other questions you might have. Tom
  14. Admittedly not ebay, and not £10, but I bought this from Aliexpress to accurately test done used lithium cells and seems to work well. Certainly easier and more accurate than Alan's method! Think I paid about £22 so gone up a bit, but still good value. 150W 20A DC Power USB Tester Electronic Load Lithium Battery Capacity Monitor Discharge Meter Supply Checker With APP https://a.aliexpress.com/_veWsvX
  15. I guess that's where safety trumps pollution control! As an example of just one boat I was working on when the BSS was introduced - it was powered by petrol outboard, with the remote tank sat inside under the bed and next to a small gas cylinder. This boat also had a gas fridge and hob, connected to the cylinder via a plastic Y and perished rubber hose! Boats like that are now much safer than pre BSS, and that's not an isolated example. Most of the work I was doing at the time involved fitting gas or petrol lockers (or transom mounting) and work to bring the gas system up to standard. I did admit defeat and turned down a job to make a petrol inboard compliant.
  16. My understanding is pollution has always been part of their remit ever since the BSS was introduced. I do agree that a lot of their requirements are totally unnecessary, but having been involved in working on boats to bring them up to required standards when it was first brought in, there's no doubt in my mind that boats on the waterways are a lot safer now than before the BSS. Admittedly most boats were probably OK before, but some of the boats I worked on were a disaster waiting to happen, and anything to make those safer has to be a benefit to all users. There's no doubt that there's still unsafe boats around now, but a lot fewer than there would be with no BSS.
  17. I thought part of their remit was also to prevent pollution? That would be the reason behind labeling of the diesel filler - there's a good chance of significant diesel spillage if someone fills the diesel tank with water until it overflows everywhere! Not that anyone reads the label anyway, but they couldn't claim ignorance if it was correctly labelled. Same reasoning for the engine drip tray requirement, and some other BSS requirements.
  18. Aircon would be a godsend to help sleeping after a night shift on hot summer days! Trust me, we get a lot more than 3 hot days a year - they all seem to be when I'm working nights😅 It's definitely something I've thought about, but came to conclusion the cost and power usage just couldn't be justified, even with lithiums😥
  19. If our eberspacher breaks again I'll probably get something like this Chinese diesel water heater This is not a specific recommendation, but expect to pay around £200-250 for something like this (and around £80 -100 for the air heater). We've had an £80 Chinese air heater for 3 years now and it's been faultless during that time. Obviously you have to disregard most of the supplied installation bits (exhaust silencer, fuel line, clips etc). I know some people are very wary buying from Aliexpress, but as long as you follow due diligence you should be OK. Check seller feedback, and if it looks too good to be true it probably is! I also use a credit card to pay for anything over £100. Also be careful of postage locations - some items are cheaper when despatched from Russia😱
  20. This all seems very complicated when you could just have a correctly set up battery monitor and read the SOC at a glance😂 Ours gets synchronisation once a month or so, and now it's set up seems to give very accurate readings. Even after leaving synchronisation for 6 weeks it was still accurate to within 5%.
  21. https://www.sofabedbarn.co.uk/home/74-banbury-corner-sofa-bed.html
  22. Another vote for sofa bed barn! We've recently bought one of their corner sofas after being so impressed with how comfy our neighbours was.
  23. That's the difference a few years make. 3 years ago I paid £600 for 320ah of used cells! These new ones are still in the original boxes as shipped from China. Calb so not a cheap unheard of brand either.
  24. You can get the bare cells for that, but would need a bms to go with them. That's already in place with the existing cells in our setup. Minium would be ability to monitor individual cell voltages, and ideally control systems (or loud alarm) based on those.
  25. Sorry about the length of this post, didn't realise it would end up so long! Thought I'd provide an update, and my plans going forward after living with these for 3 years and just going into our 4th winter. Nothing wrong with our setup, it's just having lithium batteries has transformed our usage patterns, and we're beginning to notice the limitations of the original install. I've just completed a full charge/discharge cycle until low cell voltage cut off to check capacity. Batteries are still showing exactly the same capacity as when installed 3 years ago which is great news and such a welcome change from lead acid, particularly for full time family liveaboard! BMV reads between 12-13% when the BMS low cell voltage disconnects, same as it always has on these tests. After 3 years I've just about adjusted my thinking on charging and managing batteries. We now tend to run them between 85% and 20%, with only an occasional 100% charge to sync the BMV. I'm now beginning to wish I'd installed more capacity though, so have just bought four new 200ah cells from Facebook marketplace for £287.50 which I thought was a good price. He still has some available if anyone is looking for bare cells. https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/342945427217664/ I know they're a different make and capacity from what I have, but from reading around that shouldn't cause any problems. My plan is just to add an extra cell onto each existing parallel set to make a 3p4s battery instead of the existing 2p4s. They might take a few weeks to install though, as need to rebuild cupboard to fit the extra cells in, and new baby taking up lots of my free time! I'm also looking to increase charging rate. With our increased usage, we're now having to charge daily (until I install the extra cells), but would like to reduce charging time (and therefore engine running!) as much as practical. Initially we were charging at around 100A between the 2 alternators, but soon discovered this burnt out the domestic alternator! Since tweaking the settings on our alternator controller, we've settled on around 70A as being a good compromise, and not had any further failures since (around 2.5 years). That's with twin 70A A127 alternators, with the domestic one controlled from advanced controller, and standard engine alternator just paralleled until voltage rises to 14v. Engine alternator runs on a smaller engine pulley though. Plan is to change these to a pair of 90A Ford Mondeo alternators from ebay for around £25ea. I think this is probably the max I can expect to reliably run from single v belts, and changing to poly v jis ust going to cost too much. One is already installed as domestic alternator, and controlled from same controller as previously with same settings. This has already seen the charge increase to a consistent 90A+ and was a direct swap after changing the alternator pulley over. Just need to install the second one as the engine alternator now. Hoping when both are installed, to see reliable charging around the 120-140A which would be a very useful increase if it is! Will let you know how the upgrades go if anyone's interested. The rest of the system just seems to work with no intervention or maintenance, and has performed faultlessly for the past 3 years (other than initial alternator problems).
×
×
  • 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.