nicknorman

I'm not a great aerialist but rubber duck aerials normally have inherent attenuation - but don't require a ground plane. Aerials that require a ground plane can be accommodated by connecting the lead's screen to the hull, but by means of a small capacitor so that there is no DC path.

Thanks Dan. Can you see that it is easier to respect and therefore accept the decisions of mods who have "served their time" on the forum by being regular contributors, vs those who are virtually unknown to the forum and have never participated in the routine cut and thrust of the forum? And I suggest, this is not without good underlying reason since those with practical experience of the forum are more likely to make decisions in tune with the general ethos of the forum. Perhaps this could be born in mind next time!

Maybe, don't know, but we do know that some folk volunteered but weren't selected, so there must have been a selection process of some sort. Since some of the new mods had, as I said, no real previous presence on the forum, again it begs the question about how or why they were selected.

Certainly I think it was a mistake to select mods whose personalities weren't really known to the forum since they barely if ever participated. It does beg the question how these mods were selected, are they Dan's personal friends?

Some LED bulbs (the cheapest ones) use resistive droppers. They don't create interference but they may overheat if the voltage is high e.g. whilst engine is running. LEDs that are tolerant of voltage have switch mode power supplies (SMPS) to regulate the voltage. These can be a source of interference if badly designed. Trouble is, I'm not sure how you can tell the badly designed SMPSs from the good ones. Retail price may not be a good guide. Possibly, and if you are good with a soldering iron, you could fit a high frequency capacitor to the LED's pcb at the supply connections, something like 0.01 microfarad hf ceramic might do. This might help, but eliminating rf interference can be a bit of a black art.

It depends on the exact wording but yes it can be attacking the post not the person (unlike calling someone "stupid") however it is an unintelligent attack whose only point, other than expressing extreme frustration, is to antagonise and escalate. Which in fluffybunnyworld is frowned upon. And anyway it tends to cause the argument to be, if not lost, then suspended, since the person on the receiving end is likely to react in similar terms and a bickerfest starts. This is why it is used by people who realise they are losing the argument and want to smoke screen. It is a transparent device that causes everyone else (with any intelligence) to lose respect for the perpetrator, especially if it is used frequently.

I think the lift pump doesn't have that good a seal for returning fluid, well that must have been the case with our one. As I said, we had similar symptoms to you and a new filter head /manual pump fixed it. They seem to be a known issue to everyone except Beta! Isn't the warranty still "valid" at 2 years? If your engine is the same as ours there is a small valve with a knob where the pipe from the filter joins the injector pump, it's the air bleed valve that links to the bleed-off pipes. We leave ours open but when I had the problems it was one thing Beta suggested - close it once the engine is fully bled. Didn't make any difference when we had the problem but might be worth you trying closing it (presuming it's open). Going back to the manual pump, is there any trace of diesel around its base when the engine has been running? There shouldn't be!

No. I was extremely frustrated by that poster's behaviour (as were many others) and it wore me down until I cracked. My fault, and I got ticked off by Dan for it which was fair enough. I am not perfect, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try to be nor encourage others likewise.

But it doesn't add anything to your argument, it merely antagonises your opponent and escalates conflict. If you want a heated screaming match then fair enough, but that doesn't seem to be PC on here. Arguments are better served cold IMO.

Yes you can. Oh you want an answer too? It is to (nearly) eliminate interference from magnetic fields from other wires etc in the vicinity. The voltage from a shunt is pretty low (75mv max) so rather prone to interference. The twisting of the cable means that on a small scale, the two wires are always exactly parallel to each other and therefore any current induced in one conductor is pretty much exactly cancelled out by the same current induced in the other.

^^^^^^^ Wot he said!

On the smartgauge point, it has an "over voltage" alarm which is set to 15v (can't remember if you can adjust it) so you would get nuisance over voltage warnings, not the end of the world.

I refer you to the answer given some moments ago (by DMR!)

Thank you for explaining it properly! "Rubbish" should only apply to a post which doesn't actually make a recognisable point!

It's probably OK in the short term but ideally, try to get down to 1% or less occasionally. Even that is not fully charged, our batteries will finally stabilise at about 0.25% if charged long enough. New or present capacity? I suppose probably present makes sense. Just by way of practical example, today we started cruising at about 10:00am with 70% SoC and stopped for a pub lunch ~1hr (no electric kettles etc) and now at 16:30 we are on 2A at 14.5v which is a little under 0.5% (450AH). We have a 175A alternator but whilst the charge current is initially 150A or so, it soon decreases. Rather than looking at the absolute charge current, perhaps a better idea is to look at the rate of change of current and once it has stabilised so that the current is much the same after an hour, it's probably fairly fully charged, bearing in mind that ultimately there's no such thing as "fully charged", it's always a compromise.

No I didn't say there was no place for passion or emotion (quite the opposite). But saying something is "utter nonsense" usually happens when the person dislikes the other viewpoint but can't think of a good counter argument either because they are too lazy or too stupid. A good debate contains passion, emotion and opinion without resorting to personal abuse. I would like to think that I have never said "utter nonsense" to you (apart from just now which was a JOKE - remember them?) but if I did it was wrong and I had clearly slipped into bad practice by being surrounded by it.

I suppose it depends on whether you like to be surrounded by people who agree with you, or whether you like the challenge of being surrounded by people who disagree with you. Or perhaps, a bit of each is best!

That's utter nonsense. There is no need for the former bit "that's utter nonsense" - it doesn't add to the discussion it merely tries to dis the opponent without any rationale and invites tit for tat bickering. Some people have a different way of looking at things, get over it! There is only need for the second part where the counter argument is put forward. If the counter argument is strong, that is end of argument.

Jon Firstly I should explain that I'm well aware of the perils of online bullying etc, it can be horrendous especially for young people lacking self confidence. So my point about it "just being a virtual world" needs more explanation. If someone on here feels they are being bullied or upset then they should of course contact the mods who should sort it out. However if 2 robust people want have a bit of robust discussion, I don't think bystanders are likely to be damaged and ultimately if they don't like it, they should read something else. That said I am also against pointless tit for tat arguing that goes on and on, especially when it becomes personal, simply because it is boring and distracting for everyone else. My point was more about the urgency of it all - we hear the mods bemoan that it was half past midnight and they had 1 bar of signal on their phone whilst waiting at a rainy bus stop, having to deal with a crisis. When the reality is that such things don't have to be dealt with on a minute by minute lifesaving basis. It can wait until morning / a more convenient time and no-one is going to die - allowing more time for rational thought as opposed to knee jerk. I totally agree with you about posts starting (or containing) "that's utter nonsense" etc but unfortunately that is one area that seems to be allowed, it happens quite often. If you can't think of a cogent argument to make your point, better not to post at all! Finally I'm not clear about your specific reference to my behaviour, I can't recall any reactions to threads about government - are you sure it was me, and if so please give me more of a clue! I reacted to a post from PB suggesting that it might be a bit hypocritical, I got back one of those "you are an idiot" posts which remains standing despite me reporting it as a personal attack. I then did try to find out more about the poster, but that was because I was wondering if I had got it wrong and it was a case of mistaken identity - surely nothing too sinister in that?

Yes most likely cause is air getting in at the manual pump atop the filter. Ours had this problem from new but because we also had an electric lift pump the symptom was it would fire up then cut out, a couple of times, after which it would be fine. Or if I left the ignition/lift pump on for 20 secs before trying to start it would be fine. I'd try to get a new filter housing under warranty.

No I think if you look at the number of greenies awarded to Matty's opening post, it is quite a large proportion of people who actually post. Of course, it's a very small proportion of the overall membership most of whom are dormant or at least virtually never post. CWDF is of course primarily a spectator sport but if those who actually provide the entertainment become disenchanted then no more forum. Anyway your post reads as though somehow the majority need protecting from the "nefarious individuals" as if, were it not for the heroic mods, they would be round to our houses / boats to burgle and assault, eat our children etc. Sorry but this is just a virtual place, no actual humans were harmed in its ongoing creation and I think some mods forget this. Don't big it up beyond what it is! Finally I'm not sure that "have a problem with" is particularly helpful phrase. We had something good, it is being destroyed due to poor judgement, we'd like it back please.

How long does it take for the rads to warm: Depends on the BB size, different makes of stove have different sizes of BB (in terms of the KW they absorb). A gravity system is likely to have more volume of water than a pumped system (bigger pipes) which will increase the heat-up time a bit. In general I don't think a solid fuel BB +radiator system is renowned for fast heating up but that is not how it is normally used - normally you would keep the stove in 24/7 and even if away for say 9 hours at work, this should not be too hard if burning coal. Other means of heating such as gas or diesel are probably faster and easier to start, but they cost much more to run. Gas, much much more. Instant hot water systems: Good in that they are instant and you can't run out of hot water (unless you run out of gas) and bad in that the maximum flow rate of hot water can be quite low especially if the cold water is very cold. Also with a calorifier you get "free" heat from running the engine. If no calorifier then all that free heat is wasted. So overall it is probably more expensive to run (if you need to run the engine anyway, to charge the batteries). Also no calorifier means no immersion heater which might be a nuisance if you had access to shore power.

Seems a little insulting for those who like to be called Dan. And politically incorrect in so many ways! Anyway, it was good enough for Dan Dare.

I think it's a matter of context. If you have a 13.x v alternator charging via diodes, then clearly a means of increasing it is a good thing. If you have a 14.6v one charging direct, then probably not. The point is that there is an optimum voltage and thus, by definition, having more voltage is a bad thing. Otherwise we would be recommending to those with limited charging time to charge at 100v or whatever.

Trojan recommend a lower absorption voltage and then a higher finishing voltage. One interpretation would be that the former is to charge the batteries ASAP and the latter is to mix the electrolyte and remove any sulphation. Otherwise, why not just go for the higher voltage for the duration?