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Returning to the cut after a long time


Quillan

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39 minutes ago, Quillan said:

 

 

Mentioning TV, digital was not around when I left the cut. I wondered if it is any better than the old analogue system for boating. Some boats I see have built in satellite dishes that automatically find the satellite. I have a UK Freesat box and thought of using that.

Not had telly on board for the last couple of years, but before that I've had the old fashioned steam television, freeview digital and freesat. Freeview suffers from the problem that it either works in a particular location, or it doesn't. With analogue telly it degraded in a graceful fashion and if you were happy to watch it through a snow storm that was fine. Freeview terrestrial digital needs rescanning each time you move to the patch for a different transmitter and you may need to alter polarisation from horizontal to vertical, as well as align it with the mast. There are omni directional aerials and boosters, but ultimately there has to be a signal to work with.  Freesat works OK and one scan works everywhere on the network. There are various dishes available that can be bodged on to some sort of mounting on the boat. You have to align it each time and this is more critical than with terrestrial. A compass and a satellite finder spliced in to the cable make this reasonably easy. A location with trees, or buildings in line of sight of the satellite will stop it working.

Or you could read a book, listen to the radio, listen to the bird song, go to a pub, if they still exist in the post pandemic world.

 

Jen

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My two-penny worth -

 

If you want 240v for cooking  and fridge and freezer, then 24V batteries are more sensible than stacks of 12V ditto.

24V high power altenerators are more reliable and better built than 12v kit because they're used in lorries and buses where they're working hard all the time, thus have to be made well.

I'm not a fan of 240v  main engine alternator / inverter sets - there's no choice over here and quite expensive for what they are.

 

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58 minutes ago, Loddon said:

There are several on here from that era I will let them out themselves.

It was mainly newsgroups and mailing lists, uk.rec.waterways and canals.com/ blacksheep etc.

Google groups has a reasonable archive of some of it.

Internet took off for me over 25 years ago its been expanding ever since ;)

I remember various marriages and deaths to many to name on here

 

Good old Blacksheep

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27 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

My two-penny worth -

 

If you want 240v for cooking  and fridge and freezer, then 24V batteries are more sensible than stacks of 12V ditto.

24V high power altenerators are more reliable and better built than 12v kit because they're used in lorries and buses where they're working hard all the time, thus have to be made well.

I'm not a fan of 240v  main engine alternator / inverter sets - there's no choice over here and quite expensive for what they are.

 

The most common back then was an Electrolux 230v alternator but very expensive. An old friend of mine said try Dynawatt. They made (and still do) 240 volt alternators for emergency vehicles like ambulances back then and far cheaper like half the price. Thing is if you couple them via relay for shore power to the Mastervolt system which automatically goes into charger mode when 240v is applied they can charge the batteries far faster than an ordinary 12v DC alternator and still give you enough power to drive a washer dryer in tumble dry mode. What I liked was once installed you never touched it and I never had a problem with it.

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1 hour ago, WotEver said:

Many (most?) folk declare 60/40 with the 60% being heating/generation. It’s entirely your decision to declare what you believe to be the truth. I’m unaware of HMRC taking anyone to task over their declaration. 

Thank you that's just what I wanted.

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3 minutes ago, Quillan said:

The most common back then was an Electrolux 230v alternator but very expensive. An old friend of mine said try Dynawatt. They made (and still do) 240 volt alternators for emergency vehicles like ambulances back then and far cheaper like half the price. Thing is if you couple them via relay for shore power to the Mastervolt system which automatically goes into charger mode when 240v is applied they can charge the batteries far faster than an ordinary 12v DC alternator and still give you enough power to drive a washer dryer in tumble dry mode. What I liked was once installed you never touched it and I never had a problem with it.

That's worthy of following up - one question is how do you keep the frequency constant (or constant enough). Soem equipment is frequency sensitive and others are voltage sensitive?

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1 hour ago, Loddon said:

There are several on here from that era I will let them out themselves.

It was mainly newsgroups and mailing lists, uk.rec.waterways and canals.com/ blacksheep etc.

Google groups has a reasonable archive of some of it.

Internet took off for me over 25 years ago its been expanding ever since ;)

I remember various marriages and deaths to many to name on here

 

Gosh I had a quick look at uk.rec.waterways and it' still active, well I never after all this time.

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7 hours ago, Stilllearning said:

Speaking as an ex boater now very comfortably living in France, all I can say is good luck.

Speaking as a proper boater living very very comfortably in the UK all I can say is go for it its fantastic.

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Just now, OldGoat said:

That's worthy of following up - one question is how do you keep the frequency constant (or constant enough). Soem equipment is frequency sensitive and others are voltage sensitive?

The clever bit is the control box. Below is a photo I have from Merchant in which you can see the Dynawatt controller and the Mastervolt inverter/charger below. New ones are much slimmer. The frequency of the AC is pure sinewave but the kw changes with speed. I think it was at about 2,500 rpm it delivered the whole 3.5kw on a BMC Calcut engine. With a hospital silencer you wold hardly know the engine was running inside and out.

 

Picture_0146.jpg.7b786eec95c51160d32834bf5a6c0f90.jpgPicture_0147.jpg.2b9e74cf2937aaa80d611095f3ff4e68.jpg

 

This is the control and battery management panel that came with the Mastervolt inverter/charger.Picture_0148.jpg.316824cce6a6a02e61299a7bfe6b3c6f.jpg

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26 minutes ago, Quillan said:

The clever bit is the control box. Below is a photo I have from Merchant in which you can see the Dynawatt controller and the Mastervolt inverter/charger below. New ones are much slimmer. The frequency of the AC is pure sinewave but the kw changes with speed. I think it was at about 2,500 rpm it delivered the whole 3.5kw on a BMC Calcut engine. With a hospital silencer you wold hardly know the engine was running inside and out.

 

Picture_0146.jpg.7b786eec95c51160d32834bf5a6c0f90.jpgPicture_0147.jpg.2b9e74cf2937aaa80d611095f3ff4e68.jpg

 

This is the control and battery management panel that came with the Mastervolt inverter/charger.Picture_0148.jpg.316824cce6a6a02e61299a7bfe6b3c6f.jpg

Aha!

I submit m'lud that it's not so much a 240v alternator as an alternator / inverter combo that takes whatever the rotary bit of 'leccy and converts it into usable domestic mains A/C power.

A nice box with up to date electronics that delivers smooooooooooth power to all the gizmos that are demanded by modern living (even 'leccy cookers now want 50Hz stable power).

 

I had an early SeaPower unit that didn't last long to such an extent that the Nice Mr. Cox couldn't fix it....

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Actually it's a three phase 240v ac alternator. The speed in RPM sets the frequency. I tried to explain but not much good at it so I deleted and added the following link which explains better than I,

 

https://www.sterki.ch/de-wAssets/docs/Downloads/Manual-4-5kW_08.18_engl.pdf

 

 

Edited by Quillan
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