Ermenilda

good god - pathetic

woof! right over my head - not a clue what you on about there (must be before my time) but sounds funny... Gibbo undoubtedly has a strong following on here but I don't see why that excuses him errr yeh right you are then... errr yes and I am also a Russian spy... Is it not painfuly obvious to others what he is doing? but listen - I would much rather stick to the point than spend time getting further into a drawn out argument - I have and am still trying to move things on - but if Gibbo's response to anything I say is that he won't look at it becuase it is drivel/can't be prooved/I made it up then - surely there must be others on here that are willing to discuss ideas without being so judgemental and dismissive? PS - FYI - I am not Chris - whoever he is

interesting... conflicting... surely this would have been a perfect post for here

are you referring to me as being 'Chris'?

Give it up Gibbo - you're the one having a bl**din laugh and making yourself look the fool now you are REFUSING to understand the point I am trying to make out of pure bloody mindedness - pathetic I know full well what wikipedia is all about - I had no idea it was added last night and you are right in that some of it seems to have been edited out now - I do hope you are not trying to insinuate that I added it! (and I wouldn't suspect that you were the one that got the article edited would I?) it was just something I posted off the cuff last night but I have since found lots of other info relating to the use of capacitors similar to this I am only exploring what's out there - if you have a look around the net you will find plenty relating to this same idea - It is out there happening right now whether you and your stuck in your ways mind wishes to accept it or not! You seem to have succeeded in turning a number of posts into pathetic tit for tat arguments which I never intended or wished to get into and on the whole really is not very productive or pleasant reading. I have tried to keep to the point and whilst evidentally I am not 'getting' what you are saying I am trying my best to understand as you are getting ruder and more arrogant by the post - your approach is not going to disuade me from free thinking but I must admit you are doing a damn good job of trying and doubtless are putting others off from posting - shame on you

carry on like this and you are going to end up looking the fool as you are failing to realise that this post/observation has nothing to do with my stupid ideas - it is a totally seperate post about something I observed and was looking for an explanation - as yet I have not seen one from you other than 'it cannot be possible due to the laws of physics' - lets just leave it at that then shall we hahaha - can't take what you dish out? I countered your points and you didn't bother reading them? hahah didn't you even bother to read the bit about what the batteries were connected to? you oughta be careful where you cruise - you might drop off the edge of the world where there be serpents and mermaids... hmmm... are we back in primary school now then? Yes you have a great wealth of experience/knowledge but your style is now becoming childish - I have used the WORDS perpetual motion in reply to your post but NOTHING I have ever proposed or talked about is in relation to perpetual motion - I have not ONCE suggested anything that is purporting to be perpetual motion - quite the OPPOSITE as you pointed out the diodes for example would LOOSE energy follow the herd/grease up to Gibbo and just point and laugh at me

it's late and I was saving my post for tommorow but couldn't resist posting what I just found - check this out from wikipedi -> I put the bolds in - had to resist putting the whole lot in bold!

ooooo... that is a little risque isn't it? especially with all this talk about the heathen perpetual motion brigade flying about? haha - GOOD LUCK to you and your experiments sir - I look forward to hearing how you get on! (PS - I tried to measure the current on my laptop charger but the clamp meter not sensitive enough and didn't have time to unwire things to put a multimeter inline just yet - will let you know if manage to get round to it!)

OK - thanks - most appreciated - puttin it plain n simple - finally hahaha - alllll haaaiiillll Gibbo! hahahah errrr... one ends stuck to my... no seriously - and you say I am having a giraffe? the bleedin batteries! what else! you can see it clear as day in the first picture. Just to clarify for those in the back though - the battery charger is connected to the battery and the multimeter is connected to the same battery and the clamp meter is on the positive cable coming from the battery charger - errm that's about it really... hahah - hahahah - sorry - but wow you are one tough customer! I am not concluding anything - it is completely baffling me! nor am I starting any vain attempts to search for a magic connection! I just put up what I am witnessing first hand. At least this time you didn't say I must be measuring it wrong... in fact it is not equal charge into each battery (4A and 4A) - as you can see from the pictures the last one shows 2.34A flowing into the second battery and as I stated, but did not photograph, there was ~6A coming out of the charger (this was about 10-15 mins after initial photo's as I realised I had not taken a picture of this) therefore more flowing into one battery than the other - not 50-50 jeeez... look - I don't KNOW why it is doing it - but it sure as hell IS doing it... I am not trying to bend the laws of physics or pretend this has ANYTHING to do with perpetual motion (who was it started banging that gong?) the only guess I made at why it was doing it was because of something to do with the way the battery charger works - where am I bending laws!??! This is independant of all my stupid ideas although admitedly once I understand what is going on it might help out with them the charger goes up to 20A - it has a min and max and a boost which is the only time it belts out 20A+ (as I think justme said and is obviously familiar with this bog standard machinemart I think it was battery charger - OH! and there is NOTHING wrong with the switch - it is working just fine) As a rough estimate whenever it is on Min the actual output is about 3A and on max it is about 6A (I am talking average/what it settles down to/what I have witnessed on either of these settings when connected to one battery at a time as I have only just decided to start trying experiments with them in a bank becuase of this post) so FYI in these photo's the setting was on Max I have had them on charge all day now and the battery charger cable is reading ~5A and the voltage is ~13.6V (yes yes - these are KNACKERED batteries!) and the current between the two is ~2.1A - so it is closer but still not a 50/50 split BOTH! perhaps this'll make you laugh/wind you up maybe - have you heard about quantum physics? it might go some way to helping you out with your 20 year battery conundrum? whilst 4+4=8 there is more to this universe (and batteries!) than simple algebra nope - just you and errm who was it - roger someone I think - you're the ones that started goin on about perpetual motion - nothing I have suggested is remotely connected with perpetual motion (I've had a few ideas along those lines as I'm sure you mighta guessed but most are long since forgotten and consigned to the rubbish bin - you gotta dream tho eh!) yup - fine fine - I agree with this but am still a little confused why there would be different amounts of amps going into one battery than the other (rememebring that the start of this thread was about putting an 'alright' battery in with a bunch of gooduns) also I don't understand why the battery charger that has still not got a couple of bateries up to a proper 14.4v bulk charge should then start pulling back on the amps to 5A when the batteries are only 13.6v ish and it has already clearly demonstarted that it can do 8A - but hey that really is another story for another day I think and one more to do with the characteristics of the battery charger I guess - it is the thing about unequal currents flowing into the batteries that is getting me... in fact! I just realised - god this is kinda doing my head in! on the boat - the currents running into each battery are not the same either! they are similar but not the same... I wish I had this clamp tester years ago! I could have tested the links between the old battery bank and what amps were flowing where and build up a picture of what is happening - NOT to start what was it - some magic connection - but to understand how this all works! there is another thread on here about someone wanting to learn electrics and being advised to buy a multi meter and prod about a bit! hahah - yeh - why not - some basics might help first tho eh! but essentially I go along with that approach - just be careful!

haha I guess... I'll let you know how he gets on tho blodger - many a surprise from me but I already write mini essays every time I post that I can't fit everything in!

wow! on every level wow! I applaud you for having had a battery bank for 10 years so I know now that this IS achievable and the idea of chucking out batteries every couple of years is ridiculous secondly - 10 year old you say? well - from what I have learnt it is 'common' in the battery industry for manufacturers to produce good batteries initially but over time and with increasing raw material costs etc. over the years the quality/amount of lead etc. goes down but they keep the same label and marketing bumpf on the battery! so could it be that you 'got em when they were good'? 10 years - really well done! arrrggghhhh me hearties yer might be right where/who's this bouncing Steve then?

yeh - so even the greatest minds don't have allll the answers? batteries really are little mystery boxes eh... I just did the experiment again - a picture speaks a thousand words the complete setup (ignore the compressor!) the Charger Battery 1 on charge independently Batttery 2 on charge independently Battery 1 & 2 together looking at all the pictures I then realised I did not measure the current flowing in the wire conneting the positives - here is it -> this is taken about 10-15 minutes after the initial reading and so the voltage (batteries were left connected in this config) was now at 13.32v and the amps running from the battery charger was about 6A PLEASE realise though - I am not trying to say/prove that you are wrong Gibbo! I am only very confused why this would happen and trying to come to terms with/improve my knowledge about how things work... I don't think this is one of those 'intelligent' battery chargers which might be the reason why it is 'compensating' or something? so all I want to do by posting this info is to get a response why I would be seeing this behaviour - NOTHING to do with any of my other posts/stupid ideas etc. I hope you can afford me an answer on this despite having been dismissed as an incompetent? wow - talk about stuck in your ways! perpetual motion? who's talking about perpetual motion? I know where you are coming from but who's talking about perpetual motion here? Gibbo - I understand it that you invented/developed this SG thing that's supposed to be the dogs wotsits - did anyone try and put you down and dismiss you as a nut? some must have told you what you were trying to do was not possible/would not achieve anything/was impossible etc? seems to me like you are willing to carry on blinkered through life now you reckon you've 'cracked it' with the SG and nobody/nothing else can even come close to improving upon the situation - I can't believe you can have such a closed view if you were open enough to think up the SG - I think really you are just dismissing me out of hand because it is in your opinion a nutty idea and you don't think too highly of my electrical skills - I think that is a shame for someone with such obvious knowledge about the subject you did explain in great detail that it would not achieve anything other than to loose energy via heat at the diodes - you did not explain that it would not work - ie short something out/blow up a battery/unable to provide reliable output at distribution or anything like that unless I missed something?

what? obviously I am in your opinion what? what does my idea have to do with Elecsol? the initial post was about Elecsols and still is but why the above prompted you to contact Steve when you never did before (but I wish you had) I don't know? what am I having a laugh about? who's steve? I thought it was a bloke called mike at Elecsol - might be wrong - but yeh - be happy to actually TALK to someone at elecsol rather than being hung up on all the time! PLEASE DO GET IN TOUCH STEVE! I'm the bloke who purchased the 2 X 220Ah batteries that you won't give me an invoice for and keep hanging up on all the time! I'm only suggesting an idea based on what I know about batteries and how they behave - Gibbo - you've told me that it won't achieve anything - you haven't once said that it is flawed (Keeping Up did - and I corrected my circuit diagram - he hasn't said it is flawed anymore and now seems to agree that it will work in principal but why not just use... a battery! becuase a battery takes a long time to charge - a capacitor doesn't - isn't this how you move things on?) you just think it is stupid and you've dismissed me as an incompetent (I am just replying to your other post about my giraffe (?) so I'll leave the details on there) so you've got your head stuck in the sand (ostrich) so once again - you have NOT said that it is flawed - only that in your opinion and with an equal state battery bank it will achieve absolutely precisley NOTHING other than to waste energy as heat from the diodes so what?? turn up the voltage limiter to compensate for this anyway - obviously you've made your mind up that I am nothing short of an incompetent stupid fool wasting everyones time and it is now time to bring in the Elecsol heavies to sort me out - hahah bring it on! such a shame to see such an approach from people that obvioulsy have an abundance of knowledge on the subject... I think others who are less knowledgeable/in the Gibbo gang/don't want to look an arse are refraining from commenting - again - a great pity I think in an open forum

hmmm... not really flawed in every way then really is it... I admire your persistance to dismiss this idea outright and your unwillingness to accept new ideas! the earth IS flat!!! you are totally right about the incorrect placement of the capacitor and what a fool I am to have missed that - I also did not put any of the Negative wiring in did I but it is only supposed to be a sketch - It is not yet ready to be submitted to the IEEE or patent office just yet... how about this? I don't know how the volatge limiter should be placed as I am not au fait with such a device (but by continuing on this path of submitting my proposal and receveiving hostile/non hostile feedback perhaps this too will be corrected?)

I talked him into it! he purchased the first one prob about a year ago and although he is a VERY (and I mean VERY) low consumer he's been very happy with it and is slowly building up with solar panels, electric outboard etc. the other thing (that baffles me really) is that (again on my advice/passing on the Elecsols sales bumpf) the owner of an outdoor market I know wanted to have an eco-market and so purchased I think it was 8 of the 110Ah's that they have put into stanley tool box things on wheels with an inverter on each one that they put to charge during the week - the idea is to get into wind/solar power eventually - they power the strings of lights above the stalls and have been working a treat - they're very happy with them! maybe it's just the 220's that are duff?

wow! would be great if they were gonna be 'chuckin em out' in two years! (aka this) agree with the comments at the bottom though - nothing really new about fuel cells - they're still extortionately expensive and therefore unrealistic (unless you can talk someone into lending them to you like they have!) BTW - I've a mate who's just purchased his second electric motor the same as these that he's putting onto his boat - solar and electric with a little genny for backup - he's already made it from one side of the cut to the other - does that count? (and guess what for those of you who know my other posts on here... he is using 2 X 110Ah Eeeeelecsols to power them!)

yup - thought you might say that and I pondered over doing it for a great deal of time then thought - sod it - it will mean less wires - shorter cable runs - less confusion - and perhaps a new starter solenoid at the least (I know these starters inside out - had one on a truck I had years ago and many an hour was spent stripping it down and fixing) although this seems to be going off topic/ a topic of its own - I just gotta laugh - if you think anything about boats is cheap especially electricity well... do let me know how you manage it! perhaps not - when your radio has used up all the juice the noise will undoubtedly get louder! It seems like nobody else is gonna give me the time of day/put their tuppence worth in on my latest crazy idea so I thought I would modify it a little thanks to inspiration from this post am sure this is gonna get some mad at me for persevering with this but IF it works then it has many benefits in that you can chuck any old 12v battery in - the only heavy duty cable you need is between the alternator and super capacitor and all the rest can be much smaller gauge/cheaper/easier to route/manage, including the electrical components, as they will only be dealing with low current sure there's undoubtedly problems (still waiting to hear from anyone what they are) but is it fundamentally flawed in some way?

kapow! another one! hahah (I vaguely recall hearing mention of Chris W and 'how he is' etc whilst reading other posts - I didn't fully grasp just 'how he is' but if it is along these same lines that he dared to think out of the box and y'all shot him down for it then tsk tsk shame on you) yes! most definately but not the forklifts - they are too tall and I never liked the way they were squeezed in etc. - at the moment I have 2 out of 3 of my original 8 year old DETA batts on charge off a mains charger trying out various experiments with equalizing off a DC charger and continous days on the mains charger - it's ONLY an experiment but is good real world experience! if I manage to get them into a healthier shape I might well try it - nothing to loose - they used to last at least a day off a 1-2 hour charge before being taken off the boat FYI - I had 3 DETA 180Ah Batteries (the ones I am talking about charging off the mains now) in a bank and the ~700Ah (purely at a guess actually!) forklifts as the other bank - 1-2 hours charging a day gave upto 2 days off the forklifts and just short of a day on the DETA's - vast improvement over the 1 hour charge = 1 hour use Elecsols! (and good ballast too!) I also just realised that I thought the DETA were a higher Ah but I just checked and that is what it says on the side - each one is VERY heavy - I mean VERY - but the 220Ah Elecsols I could carry half way up the tow path without breaking my back - despite being rated as 220Ah they are about a 1/3 of the weight of the 180Ah DETA's at a guess (more lead = better charge capacity eh! or the reverse as the case may be with Elecsols?) no problemo! who cares? think about it... The engine will rapidly charge the capacitor (which will also pass part of this charge via the voltage limiter to the batteries whilst the engine is running)-> turn off the engine and the capacitor continues to slowly discharge into/charges the batteries via the voltage limiter maintaining a 14.8v output running through these 'restricting taps' who cares about the loss at the 'taps'? we are talking about a small but continous current flowing into the poor little delicate battery watteries that only like to be charged slowly, kept cycled between top 20%, kept at 100% 100% of the time then chucked away and replaced with a new set every 2 years etc etc etc... you name it - we KNOW the physical realities of batteries and like it or lump it that's how it is... I guess the problem is something to do with the size of capacitor you would need to make this effective/don't have to keep running the engine for 5 minutes every hour or something but am sure that too could be 'thought out' I keep thinking/coming across UPS's - from what I know they are basically a 12v battery with an inverter that can provide enough power for X minutes to computers/electrical equipment but I believe there is also a capacitor in there too! Doesn't that mean it is merely a matter of working out how to do the same thing with differented rated equipment that can run off an alternator output rather than the mains?

there's one of them now? Keeping Up - I think you said it was an "Octopussian disaster waiting to happen" - which was definately funny if nothing else! but still I have not seen you or anyone else properly prove/explain why my theory will not work other than the fact that it will 'do nothing'? I am guessing the reason is that you think if you do then it will encourage me to keep going on and on trying to improve it/think up an alternative and clog the forum with more of my silly ideas that you will have to avoid reading... I guess you're right but it ain't gonna stop me unless creative thought is banned on this site or something and I get dragged off stage right by the moderators? BTW - where'd you get that emoticon? not one of the standards - I feel privileged you feel the need to have used it on me! haha

bring it on! Many a great scientist was ridiculed before his peers for outrageous ideas "the Earth is round not flat" PAH! ridiculous! it has been their conviction, determination and I believe ability to think out of the box/not follow the herd/listen to others/not to be confrontational/arrogant or blinkered in their approach that their theories have won through and helped change the very understanding we have of this world and how it works! (end of slightly ridiculous speech - will get off my soap box now and nooooo - I am NOT for a second trying to imply I consider myself to be in this league or that this Diode Octopus thing is anything short of pure ridiculousness and will never work! But it gives me the courage not to be afraid of ridicule so any ridiculers who wish to ridicule, ridicule away! be good if could keep it constructive tho eh? ) *yikes - now I've done it!*

soooo confused all I've ever read/heard/discussed about adding a dud/older battery to a bank has been strongly advised against and that the bank will ultimately 'settle' to the state of the worst battery I can kinda go along with all the replies in that this battery doesn't seem to be too bad (but there seems to be absolutely no way any mortal can determine this short of smashing the thing apart to find out and isn't it slightly suspicious that 'one' of the old batteries is still good?!? how'd that happen? surely they all 'run down' together over the 2 year servicable life boaters seem happy to expect from them?) so am now entirely convinced that absolutely nothing about batteries makes sense From the experiments I did charging 2 batteries of dissimilar states (one had been charged for a day the other was dead flat) from a mains charger it was evident that more Amps flowed into each of the bateries when connected individually than when they were joined together in a bank (~5-6Amps individually against ~7A when joined) my conclusion was that the better battery was kind of partly flowing into the worse one (not really but 'compensating kind of thing') which once pondered upon for 30 seconds made obvious sense from what I had heard about putting a 'bad' battery into a bank - all the others 'help it out' and in the process get dragged down! when I first read this post I thought "yeh - chuck it my way!" (I just can't believe the number of batteries I see chucked out from boats - surely they can't all be duds!) but then of course I thought "what would I really do with it?!?" which got me onto thinking - wouldn't my Stupid Diode Octopus - whilst being stupid in terms of not providing any benefit for a bank of equal batteries at equal states - might provide a whole shed load of benefit for batteries of disimilar states to be joined together to operate as one bank without affecting one another? There was no mention that it would not work or that the circuit diagram was 'incorrect' or likely to blow anything up - only that it was stupid because it 'wouldn't do anything' and would cause power loss as heat through the diodes (not a big deal surely?) So would it be possible to gather together the best batteries you can find that have been discarded (= £0 /battery) and link them up as in the Diode Octopus configuration and VOILA! ultra cheap/free battery bank that you can add and add and add to! (limited only by available space which may of course be a problem for many but not all - I'd find the space if this worked!) OK - so it is obvious this will not be to everyones tastes nor will it equal a brand new battery bank in Ah's or aesthetics - but who cares about any of these facts if it works! Even if you purchased the new battery(s) every X months when finances allowed there would be no concerns of simply adding it to the existing bank using this setup is it really that stupid?

interesting you mention alternator earth - up until the recent reconfig (to eliminate/shorten cable runs as much as possible) I took out the Earth cable between the alternator and the main earth on the engine I put this cable there in the first place quite a few years ago in the thought that it would be better to run seperate earths all back to the same point - but in this latest battle I decided maybe best to remove it and let the alt earth through the bolt connecting it to the engine as it is at the moment I have the earth running from the main engine earth point to one of the batteries - which is linked to the next battery and then to the distribution the live goes from the alternator to the starter to the 1/2/both then to distribution and batteries I wonder if it is the earth playing about? oh and the bulb is an interesting one! noticed that on the other post too - I have no idea how you work out how it should be sized though? sounds like recommendation is to stick in a higher wattage one than what you currently have and see if it does anything?

yup! good idea could try and do that in the week I have the batteries off charging - small problem with getting a temporary replacement or a new alternator for that matter is that I had an oversized pulley put on as I also put a large pulley on the SR2 drive shaft which uses a huge thick tractor type belt between the two of them - would just mean bit of a pain getting it off the current one and putting onto another etc. also not sure if test place will be able to test with such a wide pulley but will seriously try and suss out a decent place I can take it to get tested as for the Diesel - yeh - similar situation - it has never been anywhere near as bad as this in all the years I put up with the old 'original' Lister parts bleeding the diesel - ever since the new parts were fitted it has been so much worse I think I missed saying that when I put the stirlingised reg back in - I left the sterling box completely disconnected and tried it but same thing as putting the old one back in - light would not light up properly it only lit up properly when the wire to the regulator (that is soldered on) was connected - this is when the charge light goes bright - this is the one wire that I deduced 'made things work' but obviously this wire is not even present in an ordinary setup so it got me kinda baffled all I know that should be in a normal setup is the charge wire from the alternator to batteries - and a small feed from the battery through a switch and charge bulb to the field connector on the alternator - and that is what I did with both the old and sterlingised [but not connected to sterling box] regulators - but only dim light and woudl not kick into charge plug in everything to do with the sterling box except for connecting the wire from the regulator and it turns on the sterling box but the chrage light does not come on - connect that wire and the bulb lights up bright - start engine - rev up - alt kicks in I don't mind wasting a few cycles on getting to the bottom of what these batts can hold - the Elecsol sales buff stuff says they can take abuse - they haven't been abused tho! but it says they can take it - it is one of the biggest selling points so I am not prepared to accept that in approx 3 months they can be knackered when they have been looked after as best they can in that time but yeh - it looks like there might be something going on with the charging system but here are the cold facts - even with all this funny alternator stuff going on - the batteries are still receiving about 10A when they were plugged into the mains they took initial of no more than ~7A for about 10 mins then fairly quickly fell to 2-3A which is pretty much where they stayed for just about 36+ hrs this 'charge' allowed the batteries to last, supplemented with daily charging approx 3 days at 10A from the alternator I would therefore deduce that every hour running the engine roughly equals 3 hours being on a mains charger I am just thinking that this is all coming down to the Elecsols not having the capacity they state and there is actually a big change in bank size from the forklifts that I have been used to and they are just a smaller 'reservoir' to store energy than before and therefore are getting 'worked too hard' if that makes any sense?

yeh - that sounds more like it - 1 hour = 1 day (of course I KNOW it depends on what you are running on the electrics but usage is like really minimal especially more so now compared to what was being used off the forklifts) I could of course put the forklifts back in to prove a point but they were taken out coz they were messy/didn't fit well etc. and would need to be all wired up together again etc. - would be a pain to do

Yes - am very familiar with the SR2 and did see your post about that - one of the problems I have is that the fuel filter is leaking - I replaced the old one with a *new* one because it had an annoyingly small leak that I just could not cure - extremely unfortunately this new one p***d out diesel 10X times worse than the old one as soon as it was fitted and it was evident the O ring was knackered! on a brand new unit! so I used a brand new one that I had in the gasket kit I still have from the time I rebuilt the engine and whilst this helped the problem it still leaked ever so slightly which has gradually got worse despite countless hours trying to fit it this way and that not too tight - tighter etc. but nothing will cure it... the same thing with the fuel pump - had a small annoying bleed like leak and so treated the engine to a new filter and pump at the same time when she was out of the water last year - BOTH items have had to have the best half/part of the old piece joined with it and refitted to minimize the leakage but both still have problems the reason I am saying this is that it is right next to the alternator and where my suspicions lie re: this dodgy alternator light occurring... thanks for the info re: alternators - I currently have a 130A and seems a shame to downgrade to a 70A although it seems to be a popular size for boaters and 130A seems to be considered too big/unnecessary - which frankly I don't understand - why isn't bigger better if you can afford it/physically fit it etc.?