davidb

Right I'll have a look at the brushes but the other day when I shorted the green wire to ground there was loads of power going through

Have you checked the brushes on the Alternator? It was new less than 12 months ago. I have just bought the top one off eBay thanks for all your help I'll report back when I have tried it.

It is beginning to look like that. I have another of the same model on another sea boat, so I will see what that does at weekend when we launch it, and then try swapping them over. At least they are made in Wolverhampton, and are repairable.

I have checked again where the red adverc wire goes and it is to the domestic isolator switch right next to the battery. I'm afraid turning the pot seems to make no difference i.e. 6 turns clockwise then back. 12 x anti clock then back. And the voltage remains at about 14.3.

Yes, and I won't make a habit of it. Will try the pot adjustment tomorrow, thanks.

It wasn't flashing with the bulb in series.

"OK to carefully short that fly-lead to the alternator case with the engine running while watching the battery voltage" I'm back at the boat now and have just done the above with the battery at it's highest voltage - 14.3. It immediately shot up to 15 or 16 and the adverc lamp started flashing. There seems to be a lot of current going through the green lead so the next time I did it through a 10 watt 12v bulb. The bulb glowed normally and the voltage climbed to 14.45 and now remains there. I have had the back off the adverc and the pot is obvious so now I propose to turn it clockwise a couple of turns then try again with green lead connected?

When I get back to the boat I shall disconnect this fly lead and measure the voltage on it with engine running through start-up to full voltage, that might tell me which side of the rotor it is connected. The red Adverc sense lead is extended right the way to the battery + terminal. I have rung the new alternator supplier and am going to send them a photo of their connection in it and see if I can change it, alternatively take it back to them to do it. Luckily, I have a spare standard alternator that I can fit meantime. "Once the Adverc is working you can persuade it to boost the charging voltage by putting a couple of diodes is series in the sense lead". that sounds like a good idea, I'll get some ready to take. "Trojans like about 14.8 volts so the Adverc should provide this during the high part of its cycle." that is what I now aspire to, in order to keep my 4 new babies thriving.

Yes, it does have one and it acts just like the ignition lamp, and it is the left hand lamp on the box I added with the bypass relay below, and the one thing that changed when I fitted it was that the alternator kicks in immediately the engine starts rather that as it was before when I had to rev it a bit to clear the ignition light:

Thanks, Tony for an easy -to - understand explanation, I'll go through it all later and ring the people who modified the alternator. No, I have been watching for the Adverc cycling it, but it doesn't. It must be a negative controlling Adverc according to its label:

Because the alternator voltage is being reduced by the diode and the Adverc is not compensating for it, even when the sense wire is connected on the battery side of the diode. "do you know about positive and negative rotor control?" Obviously not, maybe the new alternator I got last year was modified wrongly?

Searching the forum, I came across this old thread. We have been using our boat for about 3 months now with the 4 new Trojans and the tranformation in power availbility has been huge. But we never have access to shorepower and it is probably getting time to do an equalization charge. We have an Adverc connected, but Its not working properly and I have still not sussed out why not, but I do have the alternator temporarily wired direct on to the domestic bank and a relay I can switch on manualy to bypass the upper diode on the split charge when the engine is running to get the engine battery up to 14.2 The green wire to the Adverc is wired in to the alternator brushes, I am wondering if that can be interupted and a contrlled voltage fed to the brushes whilst watching the battery terminal voltage? There must be a way of doing this to get the batteries gassing now and then. Currently the voltage between the green wire and ground runs between 8.6 and 9.6

Yes lovely clear water you can see everything until you have driven through it. Even in the lock with still water you can see the paddle gear - never seen that before.

It is certainly the first time we have been through the BCN. Normally with careful use of Astern the prop clears itself very well, but I pulled over far too far to one side in one of the lock pounds and I think that's where the trouble started with a hoodie and a long length of thin wire. For the length of the wolverhampton level we didn't see one other boat moving until we met the the tunnel trip boat right on the blind Dudley canal junction.typical!

By our standards we had an epic day yesterday travelling from Brewood to the black Country museum. The Wolverhampton flight was a pleasure - everything worked and the locks were virtually all empty as we arrived. Between Wolverhampton and the museum was another matter altogether. The water level was down about 6 inches or more and the weed was really cloggy. Since owning this boat for the last 4 years I've only needed to go down the weed hatch twice, and both of them were yesterday afternoon.