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  1. Please go gently and explain like I'm 5, cos I'm new to this & have no idea. Also sorry it's a long post but I don't know what is relevant & what's not so am including everything. I'm boat sitting for a friend. He told me long before I moved in that the leisure batteries were starting to fail and not hold charge. I moved in 2 months ago and it has steadily got worse until now they are barely holding any charge. The battery display panel inside the boat, the owner tells me, gives different readings depending on whether the battery is currently charging or not. So if I look at it when the sun is out it reads over 13v but he says that's the voltage going into the battery from the solar, not the voltage of the battery itself. In the evenings (without running the engine) presumably it's not charging at all. But it always reads at least 12v without load. The problem is as soon as you use any electricity it starts to drop. You can see it ticking down and after a short time using anything it goes below 12.4 which I'm told is bad for it so at that point I turn everything off. There's only one solar panel currently & it won't be doing much in this weather so I wouldn't expect much charge. But the other night I ran the engine for an hour & had the inverter on (charging up a hoover & laptop) & soon after I stopped the engine the voltage started to drop visibly and I had to turn things off. A fellow boater had a look at the batteries for me with a multimeter. There are 4 batteries (cells?). At first he tested each one and got 7v. Then he said, "oops I did it wrong, they are wired in pairs". He tested again, but still got 7v. He told me I need to replace them as they are totally kaput. I'm confused on various counts: 1. How could they measure the same singly as in pairs? 2. If each one measured 7v singly, doesn't that mean they are doing really well? (Cos shouldn't they be 6v each to make 12 as a pair?) Which is contrary to my experience of how they are behaving. 3. If they measure 7v across each pair, then why am I getting a readout of over 12v (when not under load) on the display? I'm clearly not understanding something, can anyone shed some light on it? (Which is more than I've got on my boat at the moment 😔) Thank you!
  2. Spending my first night on board my new home. Everything seems in order but I can't work out my battery % has dropped to 89 when I am connected to mains power. Not my area of knowledge so any help would be much appreciated : )
  3. Hello! Having found some very useful anwers on here previously, I was wondering if someone might help us with a problem we've got concerning the engine. To turn the engine on, we turn the key 90degrees clockwise and wait while it beeps for about 10 seconds. This is supposed to heat the engine. Then we can turn the key down once and this will turn on the engine. Since yesterday, after having turned the key down, the engine turns on and makes a happy noise, but the beeping doesn't stop, even after a few minutes of the engine being lit. Looking at the electronics control panel,one warning light is on: "Batteries D". (We were also told that the batteries should always remain above 12.8V. The inverter is off, however, they are now at 11.7V.) Is there anything we could try to do to fix this problem? Can we run the engine anyway (we were told that the engine should be run every day in winter)? Any help or indications on this topic would be much appreciated! Many thanks
  4. Hi there, I’m looking into connecting my BMV600 battery monitor to a PC to access all the charging data etc. Has anyone tried that before? Would it be as easy as getting RS232 to USB connector cable and downloading Victron software? Thanks!
  5. Hi all, I have 2 x Trojan T105 6v batteries producing 12v with a capacity of 225 amps. I also have a solar panel that is now actually becoming useful now the sun has come out to shine! What settings should I set it at? Bearing in mind the table listed by Trojan below: Daily Charge: 14.8 Float: 13.2 Equalize: 15.5 The settings on the solar controller are: Load On (Voltage): Presuming this is the "Daily Charge" setting? Load Off (Voltage): Presuming this is the "Float"? PV Off (Voltage): No idea what this is PV: Showing the current amps the solar panel is producing Thanks in advance!
  6. Hello folks. I'm about to replace my battery bank with three new large leisure batteries. Alpha Batteries come up a lot in internet searches and I was wondering if anybody here had experience in ordering from them? I'm deciding between 3 x 250ah Banner Energy Bulls or 3 x 225ah Xplorer AGMs. At the moment I'm leaning towards the Xplorers. Cheaper brand, but with the special offer on the AGM might work out better for the same price than the Banner. I'm a liveaboard and about to get a hefty 600W solar charging system installed.
  7. Hi! We're new to boating and are on a boat with 4 leisure batteres (Xplorer 120Ah). Very annoying power issues: the batteries don't seem to hold charge well at all, but it doesn't seem to be a busted cell (paid a guy to come around and tell us that much, but unfortunately not much more). We can charge to well above 12V and leave overnight with little drain, but as soon as the batteries are in use, or god forbid the inverter is on, they drain like there is no tomorrow. Also using certain items, like the 12V fridge, results in lights dimming, fllushing the loo results in radio resetting, etc) Is this all due to weak batteries? The problems do seem to be less when they are charged more. Our solar arrives tomorrow, which will be a god send (we are continuous cruisers). At this stage we are considering taking the hit and just getting 4 new batteries. It is a real bother to run this loud old lister for hours to charge them up, disconnect them and wait for them to drain so I can test them each in turn. The thing is they were expensive batteries, and some of them might be fine. If I buy some more batteries, is there a place I can test and sell the old ones? Do I even need 4 of them? If I could test them prior to buying new ones, wouldn't it be best to replace all of them at the same time anyway? Is there a big chain in London (aside from Halfords) where I can just rock up and get a good deal on leisure batteries? Any help or advice would be much appreciated!!
  8. Hi there, I'm about to buy a boat which has been fitted out (electrics-wise) for shore power, with loads of 240v plug sockets everywhere, TVs, Kettles etc, but we don't anticipate or want to be hooked up at all. What I was wondering was if anyone has had experience in changing this sort of setup over to a 12v, battery-based setup, and what challenges they faced whilst doing so. Is it just a case of removing the external hookup point, connecting the internal wiring to the existing 12v loop (which runs the cabin lights etc) and replacing the 240v sockets with 12v ones? Maybe keep one or two and run through a separate, inverter-containing loop from the battery bank? I don't expect it to be that easy but hopefully it won't mean ripping the walls apart! Cheers, Alistair
  9. Hey everyone, new to boating and still very dumb about it but trying to learn. The problem relates to the batteries, I have a solar panel and charger and the charger tells me the voltage of the batteries. When I charge them via the engine, the voltage can go up to 13 - 13.2 volts which says to me they are charged but it only takes an hour or two. I've been told I'm not charging them for long enough but if I leave it on charge for longer it generally stays the same voltage the whole time and when I turn the engine off, it goes to 12.9-12.7 which I'm aware is fully charged. An example today is my voltage was at 12.2 so I charged the batteries for 2 hours, the batteries were at 12.7 when I finished charging and they're back down to 12.2 again after only 2-3 hours even though I've only had LED lights running and 1 usb charger for a mobile. What I'm basically asking, which has been mentioned on my previous posts, are my batteries knackered or do I need to leave them charging for longer regardless of what my controller says? I've ordered a generator and battery gauge so hopefully that will give me more answers. Thanks! Oh also, I have 2 x 110amp leisure batteries.
  10. So I've got a Honda EX1000 charger and it bust my first 50amp charger, I've since had this replaced and it's literally done the same thing (part of the circuitry blows). I have no idea what's going on, I thought if there was too much power going to the charger the fuse was blown. Is this more of a charger issue or a generator issue?
  11. I know this is possible, but is it realistic? Coffee roaster on the boat, it pulls max 3300 watts at full power for about 15 minutes, then about 300 watts for 3 minutes, this is the time per roast of 1kg beans. Now if i was to fit this on the boat and run from batteries, i would need a hefty invertor and bank, or just run it from a genny, but then is a genny that supplies 4kw too much?
  12. Hi, I am about to start fitting out a widebeam sailaway boat. I need an electrician to connect up the leisure batteries to the alternator and then to a fuse board. Once this is done I am confident to do the rest it is just this stage I am unsure of. I am struggling to find an electrician who will come to my boat to do this, the boat is currently at Hayes and Harlington and I wonder if anyone knows any good electricians who would be able to come to my boat to do this stage for me? Kind regards, Will
  13. Just thought i'd post this as it came as a bit of a surprise to me, I've been maintaining my t-105's based on the data sheet here, but also have come accross the trojan batteries user guide which specifies different values for Equalise voltage (16.2v) and absoroption (14.1 - 14.7) I've contacted Trojan in the UK and US and they both recommended going by the user guide, NOT the data sheet. I asked for clarification on the charging values for the T-105's and the reply was: Use 16.2V for the EQ voltage setting. Your absorption voltage of 14.8 is correct. The Float setting can be 13.2V up to 13.5V So there you go! - not that you can't equalise at 15.5, but it takes much, much longer. (in my experience) Next problem is getting my Victron Phoenix to charge at 16.2. I can get it up to 16v in absorption using the VEConfigure II Software (that's the max value), forced equalisation seems to top out at 15.5v. Be interested to hear anyone else's experience here.
  14. I have one of these: It doesn't appear to look like anything on the Sterling web site or anywhere else for that matter. Does anyone else have one? If so do you have a manual for it? What I'd really like to know is whether it has a starter battery charging circuit or not.
  15. I am about to order 6x 6v t105 trojan batteries and will need to connect them in a series parallel arrangement in order to get 12v. I've read through a few posts and the smartguage article on battery balancing, but i'm not sure how to connect these properly. Has anyone done this? Thanks.
  16. Hi there I am looking to buy AGM batteries for my boat and wanted to purchase a Varta LAD115 but cannot locate stock anywhere. I have been given details on two Lucas batteries AGM 140ah and a 120AH (which will fit in the space). However, I have spoken to a company called Shield batteries who have suggested their own battery which is an AGM battery. Here are the links to the one they are suggesting: http://www.shieldbatteries.co.uk/products/sterling.html However when you look at the product in detail it shows it as a lead acid battery? http://www.shieldbatteries.co.uk/uploads/h140-12.pdf I think there are two types of AGM battery so not sure if this one is any good - the guy on the phone said it would need venting? I have a Pro Combi S inverter Are there any differences between the Lucas, Varta and the Sterling battery (no connection with the Sterling inverter people btw). It just gets more confusing the further I go..........
  17. Good evening everybody. This is my first post here after joining so forgive me if my questions are a bit basic (or thick). I am serious about moving on to the water to live. It is something I have been wanting to do for a long time as bricks and mortar are not really for me. However I am a complete novice when it comes to the world of canal boats. I have been on them and even stayed on one before but I have never been involved in owning one or knowing anyone who has. And so before I buy a boat which I have seen I have a few basic questions relating to making a leisure boat suitable for living aboard, and please forgive me if these questions have been answered a thousand times before. And so in no particular order, if anyone could help me with these questions to start: Survey: Not knowing much about boats I assume it would be sensible of me to have the boat surveyed first, can anybody give me a rough idea of costs involved? (I was chatting to another boat owner when I went to view it and he had worked on the boat and said it was in really good order mechanically,had low hours on the engine, had recently been blacked, and had a long safety certificate etc... Plus he said it was the same owners for 14 years and they looked after it really well and this is reflected by the overall decent condition the boat was in when i viewed it) Electrics: The boat currently has a 12V system running the lights and a 12V fridge. As I have a small number of appliances which would require traditional mains sockets what would be the most cost effective solution to providing power for these? Batteries: The boat has been up for sale for quite a long time (over 9 months i think) and the owner only comes out every now and again to turn over the engine and occasionally take her out. Is there a simple way to check the state of the batteries or would I need to rely on a full survey? Hot Water: The hot water is currently supplied by this method: 'engine cooling water circuit is fitted to a vertical calorifier' - As i understand it I would need to run the engine every day for a couple of hours or so to provide hot water. What is the best/most cost effective alternative to this system so that I could have hot water without running the engine? Heating: The boat currently has a solid fuel stove which is connected to two radiators for heating. Is this the most effective way of heating the boat or are there better alternatives? These are the most basic questions I have at the moment and I would really appreciate any advice you all can give (after browsing the forum for a while I know that have more money is probably the most valuable advice). Finally, my plan is to be as independent as possible which means not using a residential mooring and so having limited access to on-shore power so any advice on starting up, converting a leisure boat to a live aboard or any other general advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for all your help Dave
  18. Forgive me, I have searched and I cannot find the answer. We have three leisure batteries, we have a Victron inverter, which is used to charge laptops, phones (one a smartphone), the MiFi unit and a couple of lamps. Last night, we had my smartphone and OH laptop plugged in and the inverter started singing. So turned it off - it had been on for about four hours - this morning, when we turned the engine on, it started and the charge in the batteries was 13.5, so, is it the batteries not holding charge (the alarm going off due to.low power) or something wrong with the inverter? We do not have microwave or TV (from choice) and washing machine & vacuum cleaner I use when engine is running only. Just puzzled really & looking for some ABC answers
  19. i have 3x 110Ahr new domestic batteries and a smaller starter battery. i have a 295 W solar panel with a 20 A MPPT charge Controller that has a feature to turn on a load for an hour before sunrise or an hour after sunrise, (probably for lights). i lay the boat up for winter with all batteries fully charged; and the solar keeps the domestic batteries well topped up through out. but last spring the starter battery was down to 11.1V. so I'm thinking of using the load timer to top up the starter battery for an hour daily after sunset when the voltage will probably be around 12.5 V, I'll include a 10A fuse with 4m of 16A cable. will this work? and will it cause any problems/damage? some years i have permanently connected the batteries together with no problem, but if there was i would then have all batteries flat!
  20. I have been working on a series of four articles on Batteries and Battery monitors based on my experience researching them and fitting one on Floydtilla.co.uk They are now complete and can be read in the correct order at:- Part 1 – Battery Monitors Why I wanted one https://floydtilla.co.uk/2022/03/01/batteries-and-battery-monitors-part-1-why-we-needed-one/ Part 2 – Battery Selection https://floydtilla.co.uk/2022/03/07/batteries-and-battery-monitors-part-2-battery-selection/ Part 3 – State of Charge and Lead Acid Batteries https://floydtilla.co.uk/2022/03/14/batteries-and-battery-monitors-part-3-the-state-of-charge-soc-calculation/ Part 4 – Shunts and Monitors https://floydtilla.co.uk/2022/03/21/batteries-and-battery-monitors-part-4-battery-monitor-the-shunt/ I hope you find this useful Thanks David
  21. Hi! I have two 12V 230Ah domestic batteries with two large big solar panels, a beta marine 43 that seems to charge the battery well (I’m pretty sure it’s not an alternator problem). The issue is that my batteries seem to drain SO quickly. Just charging phones the level sits around 12.9ish but I can put my lights on (LED) for literally 3 minutes and my voltage will go from 12.9 to 12.2. I don’t have an inverter, I use a plug in 12v inverter to charge my laptop and I cant use that at all without the engine on. I turned my 12v fridge off at the end of summer as the days got shorter but as the suns put more the battery health seems worse than ever! The batteries are 6 years old but maybe they’re just old but I’m not sure. Any comments would be incredibly appreciated! And any advice on maintaining battery health ❤️
  22. Came back to the boat yesterday in the hope that we could get out for a short trip. We've never left the boat this long without running the engine before. Starter battery was new in March last year. While we've been in the marina the domestic batteries have been kept on charge, unfortunately not the starter. Result: domestic 13.3V (will drop when I disconnect), starter 11.7V. Starter turns the engine over but doesn't have enough oomph to start it. Is it a good idea to use a jump lead from the domestic bank to the starter? What are the possible problems with this approach? In particular is there a danger of causing damage to either alternator when the jump lead is disconnected?
  23. Hi all, next thing to go wrong on my boat... My battery charger seems to have overheated and melted itself! After about 15min of charging this morning my breakers tripped and upon investigation I found brown bakelite smelling goo coming from the unit (top of image) You can see it's dripped down onto the sockets. Not great! I'm guessing either something has stopped the fans or the temperature control in the unit has died. Either way, I am reluctant to turn it back on and my it potentially worse, so no battery charging for me. Anyone have any advice? Is this beyond repair? Cheers!
  24. Has anybody experienced this problem before? Let me know if you need any more information. I am no electrician, so might have used the wrong terminology here and there, do forgive me! We live on a 60ft 2009 narrowboat in a marina, always connected to shoreline when moored. Problem: 230V power will suddenly cut out when connected to shoreline, regardless of time of day/temperature outside/what is running When power has gone off, lights (indicating battery on float charge/fast charge/inverter on) on inverter (Sterling Pro Combi S) not displaying Power can be turned back on by switching from shoreline power to inverter, which comes on, then switching back to shoreline - BUT has also switched itself back on When shoreline power is back on, inverter shows battery is on fast charge - takes approx. 1 hour to reach float/trickle charge Last occurrence: 21:30 Tuesday: 230V power turned off, 12V remained on. Nothing special turned on using 230V apart from usual fridge/freezer etc. Reading on DC Distribution: 12.7 and -07 Didn't check inverter panel Switched to inverter - working, and back to shoreline - working again Checked inverter panel - battery on fast charge (Switched between BATT 1/BATT 2 on DC Distribution. BATT 2 (starter battery) not showing on panel - discovered that was because isolator had been switched on. Switched off isolator and starter battery working as normal, engine started. Probably not related, but noting here just in case.) 22:30 Tuesday: battery on float charge 07:00 Wednesday: battery still on float charge Later on: Switched engine on, unplugged from shoreline, switched inverter on - working 08:50: Plugged back into shoreline while engine still running - no 230V power, 12V still working. Inverter panel lights not showing 09:00: 230V turns itself back on, engine still running, inverter panel - battery on fast charge 10:00: inverter panel - battery back on float/trickle charge Might also be relevant: When connected to shoreline, inverter won't switch on. Will only switch on when disconnected from shoreline - so when we are able to switch the inverter on when the 230V power goes off, does this mean that the inverter isn't registering that it is connected to the shoreline? Is one battery on its last legs/dead and causing the whole thing to cut out/drain so suddenly? I have pics of 230V/12V circuit I can attach if needed. Could there be a problem with an isolation switch for the domestic batteries, hence why 230V still off when engine running/connected to shoreline? Batteries last changed 3-4 years ago. Why did the power cut out while the engine was running, and the battery was on fast charge when it came back on? Why does whole inverter system go off when power cuts out?
  25. Hi there, I’m wondering if someone can help me. I’ve just installed 2 solar panels (in series) and they don’t seem to be charging my batteries. 2 x 320w panels (mono crystalline) 1 x 60A outback MPPT charge controller 4 x 6v Trojan t-125 240AH batteries in series and parralell connection giving 480AH in total. Ive checked all the connections. Seems fine. Battery monitor is saying the voltage from the charger is what the batteries are at. However the perctage on the monitor has stayed the same. Can someone please help?! I thought I’d have full batteries everyday with 640W of solar but so far nothing! Hope thats enough info, thanks in advance!
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