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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.

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

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

Hi there, We have recently been having problems with losing power on our batteries, so around 4 weeks ago, we have 4 new leisure batteries fitted. However the problem has continued. Our inverter has started beeping and the fridge is cutting off, so i think the batteries have lost power. -We had the batteries fitted by experts, so I think they were fitted properly. -We charge the batteries from the engine. And have been running the engine for at least an hour a day and sometimes up to 4 hours to attempt to recharge. -We have only been running lights, fridge, tv (sporadically) and water. No charging/laptops etc. -We only turn the inverter on when we need power from the sockets, which is around an hour a day. -We have been reassured that they were top quality batteries If anybody can help with advice as to why we are losing charge/not charging up, any advice would be appreciated, as we have no power at the moment. I am also worried that the £450 we spent on new batteries has gone to waste and that the batteries are now dead. Thanks

Hello all, I've search the forums to the best of my abiities but I can't fing any answers... Here's my setup: Alternator goes to battery bank (2x110 leisure and 1 starter via relay) via a sterling 4-step alternator booster (the old fashioned yellow box type). The batteries are hardly getting a charge as they're receiving about 13v. The alternator is sending 16v and of course the high voltage trip light is lit up on the sterling unit. What I've done so far is replace the alternator regulator to no avail. What do you think the source of the probem is? I get a sense it's either the alternator or the wiring. I don't see how it could be the latter as the batteries have charged in the past at 14v (according to the dashboard). Since living on a boat for just over a year, this is the first time I'm had to work with the batteries,and the first time I've even touched the alterator. Here's what I could do: 1 - take the alternator out and get it tested/serviced at a garage and if it's dead get a new one. 2 - run some further tests based on the vast wisdom available here 3 - be told by you guys that I'm in over my head and should get a pro to come have a look (I won't be offended!) Thanks!

BoatMON A comprehensive Monitoring & Control system for inland boaters I am looking for a few people who would be interested in trialling a system that I have been working on for the last two years. The genesis of the project was that I was new to boating at the time and was anxious that during the prolonged periods away from my expensive investment I could be confident that it i) hadn't sunk and ii) wasn't frozen up! As my background is in electronics and for the last 20 years IT it seemed reasonable to combine these skills; thus was born BoatMON. In it's original format it simply worked as a glorified frost protection system using the Webasto heating system to keep the cold out during the winter months and monitored whether or not I had shore power. However during the intervening period much has been added and what started off as a laptop and a large box of electrical ironmongery has reduced to a unit no bigger than a lunchbox. I know there is at least one other product out there (Boat Warden) that purports to do a similar job but to me it seems that this device is not really aimed at inland boaters and to be honest seems expensive. My aims are thus: Reliability Cost effectiveness (I am hoping to be about the £350 mark for the finished article) Flexibility, I am trying to build in as many features as people request. What can it currently do? Monitor 2 DC supplies up to 20v (Starter/Aux batteries) Monitor 2 AC/DC supplies up to 300v (Shoreline/Generator/Solar output - nice to graph this!) Can control diesel heating systems (tested on Webasto so far) via a clean relay contact, optionally can switch up to 2Kw of electrical heating.Heating setting is set by a scheduler, essentially a heating 'diary', start time is automatically offset to achieve desired temperature & time. Additional On/Off and Custom temperature override settings are available, however even when Off it will still frost protect. If required can also use diesel heating to control hot water if piped to do so.Multi-zone security system with most of the features that you would find on a modern alarm system, alarm time-out, auto rearm, zone omit etc.Bilge alarm - operates a local alarm as well as remote notification.Ability to remotely switch up to 4 x 240v/10A relays to operate something of your own choice. One thought I had for this was for an automatic generator start to recharge batteries.Virtual Fuel gauge and electricity credit meter The whole thing is driven from a web interface which can be accessed local through the WiFi network or remotely via an internet connection from anything that can browse the web, PC, smartphone, tablet .... If you don't already have an internet router I can supply one suitably configured with a 'Three' data sim. As well as presenting real-time data in the web interface it also stores data for one year and presents this data graphically again in a web browser. I have found it fascinating over the two years (yes I know I'm sad!) watching the trends not only of temperatures but battery voltages as they change with temperature and age, the latter can be a useful tool in diagnosing failing batteries. BoatMON can email or text you with messages which are prioretised as info/warning/critical so you can choose which to text & which to email SO! where do YOU fit in? I am initially looking for 2-3 people to trial this for me, during the trial you will obviously have direct support from myself, updates and fixes will be downloaded directly to your device and I will try to incorporate all reasonable requests for enhancements into the updates - so you get a chance to have your personal enhancements built in at no cost. I will unfortunately have to make a charge to cover the cost of the kit but I am offering a six month no questions money back guarantee if you are not happy, all I ask is that you have a reasonable attitude to bug fixing and product development and wait until the end of the six months before demanding a refund! I genuinely welcome all comments, pro and against. Remember that I am happy to customise where practicable. So... over to you!

Hello, and it is customery to apologise for ones daftness in these situations, so uhh, sorry about that! But as the darkness and coldness approaches...I could do with some advice Here is the rub 1. Batteries no longer receive charge when engine runs. 2. Batteries do not hold charge adequately.(drops to 10v at night) About my set up. I have 3 80 watt solar panels and mppt controller I have 40 amp alternator I have sterling 4 step alternator regulator I have 2 little black boxes one of them has relay written on it The battery light no longer dims when engine runs Need to fix, spending as little money as pos. What do ya reckon? Cheers Martin

Hello all! This question must do the rounds, but i am in the market for new leisure batteries for our liveaboard narrowboat. we have two solar panels, but recently even after cruising we have a shortage of electricity in the evening. seems like they're just not holding their charge (i just got a multi-meter - will test them tomorrow). they are a little over 2 years old anyway. i am planning to fit three new ones - currently we have 2 x 110 ah lesiures but there is space for 3. i have been looking at the numax 110 ah for around 75 quid each, which apparently come off the same shelf as Lucas batteries. What about these traction batteries, although we only have a 55amp alternator. we are pretty careful with the electricity we use, but we have just bought an electric fridge (!) - a Shoreline RR102 (can't find amp/hour usage rates - anyone?). Can we realistically operate this fridge/freezer (along with lights, radio etc) with 3 leisure batteries, running the engine once or twice a day for an hour or two? If not do you have any suggestions? cheers!!

Hi all Could I have some advice if poss on lamps from house shall i just get rid of them,are they too much of a drain on battery?Same applies to normal stereo before I sort out something thats 12v, should i take on the boat or give away?Thanks guys!!

Hello everyone, I was hoping to start a discussion about power systems on a narrowboat. I've read both of Paul Smith's books about living aboard and the very informative Tim Davis articles about narrowboat electrics. What I don't know is what people down-on-the-ground actually *think* about different power strategies. At the moment we are trying to choose between two boats that we like and think are practical. We have lined up a remote semi-permanent mooring with no mains power (basically a friend-of-the-family is giving us a mooring at the bottom of his field) but for us, about 40% of the appeal of a boat is cruising, so we would like to do that as well. However, just "running the engine in the morning" doesn't really appeal to us (why not just move the boat? and also the farmer doesn't want too much of that) and isn't it true that you shouldn't do that with an older engine? So may I ask which boat the knowledgeable liveaboards living here would pick? (they are comparable in every other way.) I feel like Boat 1 is pretty appealing, but it doesn't have a generator. We've got some cash for buying new batteries - we just assume we'll need them - but man, those build-in generators sound freaking expensive! Boat 1 A Beta 43hp engine 240v landline (not very interested in this, but could be useful) Mastervolt 1200v inverter with a Sterling battery charger 3.5kva travel pack 300w solar panel with a control panel 1 starter and 3 leisure batteries Sterling battery management system Boat 2 ~60 year old Lister JP3 engine rebuilt 2002 (not sure if you should even run this just to power the batteries - isn't it bad with the older engines, or is that an old husband's tale?) 240v landline Waeco 2kw inverter, Sterling charger built-in Honda 2.2kw silent generator (PETROL) 1 starter and 2 leisure batteries Would y'all mind telling me which setup you prefer, or what you have on your boat?