nicknorman

You can’t agree with me because you misread what I said! There should be an RCD after the Combi. There is no point in having an RCD before the Combi. There is already an RCD at the bollard, just how many RCDs in series do you think one needs? If you feel the need to put another RCD before the Combi just in case you decide to open the cover when it’s live and start poking around (which in any case would be covered by the bollard RCD), well I think you should also devise protection against you deciding to remove a plastic bag from the propellor with your hands whilst still cruising along in gear. Some sort of solenoid bolt on the weed hatch linked to the gear lever should do it. And what about poking around inside the Combi when it is in inverter mode? An RCD on the (unpowered ) inlet isn’t going to save you. Better get arranging your funeral asap! We have a 2 pole RCBO on the boat - we need 2 pole due to the Travelpower being centre tapped. All the marina bollards I’ve seen have one device - a 2 pole RCBO.

Jolly good. You need to get the Victron app for your phone. I think it is possible to turn off the Bluetooth on the meter but the default is that it’s on.

Well IMO it is completely pointless to have an RCD at the inlet. RCDs are required before appliances. And before lighting circuits these days, for houses. Is there any house in the UK that has a RCD in the feed before the CU? No. For a boat, exactly what is an RCD before the consumer unit trying to protect against? There can be a case to have an MCB at the inlet, if it is a long way to the consumer unit.

It only applies to moored boats. So before lighting or refuelling, simply set off on a trip round the loop. Simples. Or even simpler, just untie and drift around a bit.

It is a separate company, but it’s owned by the same person.

I suppose it depends on how the consumption averaging works, in particular over what time period. I think with electric cars there is a bigger difference depending on speed. So if you are doing 5mph in a traffic jam it is going to be very economical (unless you have lots of heating etc on) whereas in a petrol car this is very poor in terms of mpg. So perhaps your car was accustomed to driving around an urban area or slowish roads, calculating the range accordingly, and then when faced with prolonged 70mph realised it had to reduce the range accordingly? As for costing you more to park in a charging bay after your car has been charged, I think this is good. It’s a shame CRT don’t have a similar thing at water points!

It’s partly because many light aircraft are either very old or to a very old design. Plenty don’t have proper fuel gauges and those that do can be pretty unreliable eg a float moving wiper over wire wound resistor etc, with attitude errors (climbing vs descending etc.). Or a sight glass with a ball that can stick. In a Supercub when the tank is full, the ball is out of sight above the top of the tube, and when empty it’s out of sight below the bottom. What could possibly go wrong! In car world we are used to accurate fuel gauging and accurate range remaining indications, no such luxury in most light aircraft. And then there can be the added complication of multiple fuel tanks with separate gauging and selection.

Lets hope the moorings opposite the Round House that they appropriated for their services are returned to general usage.

Well not really. Assuming the correct switch is used, it should not be possible to connect the shore input to the floating plug. If it is possible, then the wrong switch has been used. The switch of course should have 2 inlets and 1 outlet, which I would describe as a 2 way switch, although possibly a 3 way switch if one of the three positions is “Off”.

This thread topic is about upgrading electrics. So I suggest that rather than adding an unnecessary RCD to the inlet which, whilst your personal preference, has no following in any rules, legislation or “official” guidance, it would be much better, and much cheaper, to ensure that the earthing system is correct ie hull is connected to system earth. You seem to be inventing unrealistic scenarios to support your proposal. You mention “a couple of amps flowing from live to earth” and then “there’s nowhere for the earth current to go”. You can’t have a current flowing if there is nowhere for it to go, that is electricity 101. i suspect you are taking your land based electrical experience and applying it to marine installations, which is often shown to be inappropriate.

I disagree. If it was a “very sensible idea” then surely it would be mentioned in the ISO, the BSS, or the Combi’s installation instructions. But it isn’t. I don’t see how a class 1 device with metal case connected to earth (including hull) can ”give you a belt”. That is the whole point of earthing a metal case.

That’s an easy one. Change the surveyor.

Well not according to the ISO, unless it is a long way to the first breaker.

Arctic sheath covers the requirement for protection in the ISO - all the more so if some of it is in conduit. Unless it is a long way from the Combi to the CU with risk of damage? So I would just stick with the breakers (RBCO or whatever) in the consumer unit, rated as you propose. I think it would be normal to use type b for sockets and other non-surge loads such as the immersion heater and charger. I suppose the only other consideration is that with all those RCBOs in parallel, you could exceed 32A drain on the inlet without exceeding the current on any one of the RCBOs. If you tried hard! But in that case the shore bollard breaker would trip so, whilst that is a pain if its raining, I don't think its a safety problem.

The disadvantage of having one RCD and then MCBs is that an earth leakage fault trips the lot. RCBOs are better for this reason - you only lose the circuit with the fault. But of course they are more expensive. As said, you need to match the RCBO ( or mcb) rating to the cable downstream of it. So it you have 2.5mm radial then 32A is too much (probably, although it depends on the detail of the cable and the way it is installed), you should go for 16A. As far as I know there is no need for double pole RCBOs unless you have a "centre tapped" supply such as a Travelpower or some cheapo inverter, which you don't. You don't need a breaker between the shore socket and the Combi unless the cable run is vulnerable of over 3 metres (I think) and anyway that is only to comply with the ISO, not with the BSS (as usual with these questions, one first has to decide which standard one wishes to comply with!)

It’s worth bearing in mind that it’s not a binary thing - above or below 0C. As the battery temperature decreases so does the charge reaction speed, and if that speed is too slow to absorb the charging current, lithium plating occurs. So if the battery is approved for 1C charging, I would only want to do that above 5C. If I was going to charge at 0.1C and the battery was -1 or -2 it would be OK. If you have 600Ah of battery and you charge at 60A, then you don’t need to worry about being slightly below zero. Although of course the dumb BMS might not let you.

Hard to give a definitive answer without knowing the type of stern gear/prop shaft and its couplings. And the type of engine mounts (pictures worth 1000 words) In my case with a Centreflex coupling I undid the bolts holding the 2 flanges together, then check the alignment by offering up the 2 halves and measuring: For angular error, the gap (using feeler gauges) top, bottom, left, right. For axial error, when the 2 halves mate there is a central round “plug” that fits into a socket, so it is easy to see if there is any axial error. You then have to adjust the mounting to eliminate. In my case (Beta43) the mounts can be adjusted using the nuts vertically together or front vs rear to correct vertical axial or angular error, and the feet can swivel sideways to correct lateral angular or axial error.

As an aside there’s been a huge fire in central Glasgow shutting down the main station as an adjacent building collapsed due to the fire. The fire started in a Vape shop. At a guess I would say dodgy lithium battery to blame. Not LiFePO4 of course! So it just goes to show that whilst the BSS and insurance companies might be getting excited about LiFePO4 leisure batteries in boats, the real threat come from small cheapo carry-on Li powered devices. Maybe vape shops will become less viable due to insurance costs, which would be a plus!

Even though many Li batteries don’t have heaters, they should all have a BMS that disallows charging below around 0C. But anyway it’s worth bearing in mind that if you put the batteries low down in an unseated engine room space, the canal water a foot down will be a few degrees above freezing and this “warmth” will be conducted by the steel hull into the engine bay. So although in really severe weather it might hit 0, for 99.5% of the time it won’t be a problem. As to the location of the battery, yes it can be in the cabin if you want it to be. Ours is in a bit of a halfway house as we have a trad stern with modern engine so effectively the batteries, which as on the swim, are inside the cabin even though that bit of the cabin isn’t heated (unless the engine is running). I have never seen them hit zero C

Looks like it is on the other side for a Beta 38 vs our Beta 43 Do you mind! They are silver plated. That way, the butler has something to do when off duty (polishing the silver).

Almost certainly the valve on the sump pump. It should have been closed before it fell off (you only open it to pump the oil out) so no harm will ensue (until the next time you want to change the oil) but it is a simple matter to screw it back on again to the valve, which is below the T handled sump pump near the rear of the engine.