Another new electrician :(

[LadyG]

OK, so an electrician recommended by another boater, he changed over the two bow batteries, though ordinary leisure 2 x 110 ah things rather than expensive deep cycle, anyway, I assumed after full sun for eight hours yesterday we would be topped up. They are not keeping pace with fridge, so that's another fail.

Problem number two, fitting the new car radio, Its fitted but it does not pick up radio signals, not much use to me, as I bought it to listen to, as you do, not messing about with downloads, wires and dongles.

Very disapointed. Especially when advised to run batteries down on a regular basis, nothing about charging to keep them alive for a few years  

Turns out he's got a car business, obviously little idea about narrowboats, another brilliant idea was more solar, and wash the panels, crickey, I ve got 550w and only the fridge in summer, then the silver bullet  ..... buy a generator, wtf! Rant over.

Anyway, today's Q, is how do I get the radio to pick up a signal, there never was an aerial as far as I can see, the only aerial is the one that works the vhf.

Second Q of the day, my internet signal very poor sometimes intermittent, I may be getting signal from nearby boats, is this possible?

Third Q the tablet and the other , bigger older, computer are side by side, one gets the internet,the other ,the tablet,which is modern is much worse, why?

I am thinking about getting an aerial extrension, the Huwei E5785 is designed for this, but I need to find a method of feeding the very thin wires to the outside of the boat,

There seems to be two choices of antenna, cheap and with magnetic base, or Poyntin, or other but no mast, I think it's the banks of the canal that are stopping the signal travelling to my boat.

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by LadyG

[Alan de Enfield]

23 minutes ago, LadyG said:

but I need to find a method of feeding the very thin wires to the outside of the boat,

 

Deck fittings (from all good chandlers)

 

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

25 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I assumed after full sun for eight hours yesterday we would be topped up. They are not keeping pace with fridge,

 

Where does the wiring from the Solar panels go to ?

Are the bow-batteries connected to the solar ?

How far away are the batteries from the solar controler ?

 

Is the fridge a 3-way (Gas / 12v / 230v) model ?

[cheesegas]

It's not possible to get 4G or wifi signal from nearby boats accidentally, the only say is to intentionally join a nearby wifi network. Get an external antenna for the 4G router.

 

You can get magnetic base masts which stick on the roof. Run the cables through a mushroom temporarily, and then buy a fitting as mentioned above. I prefer the ones which mount on the side of the boat with the cables and gland facing down as there's less chance of water getting in, but they don't look as nice.

 

You'll need a car aerial for the radio, a lot of them are designed to use the car's metal shell as their ground plane, so you need it mount it as close as possible to your roof as it would be in a car. It won't work just dangling on the end of its cable. 

 

As for the power, do you have any sort of current monitoring so you can see what's going in and out of the batteries? What solar controller do you have fitted, and how is your boat connected up with regards to isolator switches, starter/leisure batteries and solar controller?

[Tony Brooks]

1 hour ago, LadyG said:

OK, so an electrician recommended by another boater, he changed over the two bow batteries, though ordinary leisure 2 x 110 ah things rather than expensive deep cycle, anyway, I assumed after full sun for eight hours yesterday we would be topped up. They are not keeping pace with fridge, so that's another fail.

Problem number two, fitting the new car radio, Its fitted but it does not pick up radio signals, not much use to me, as I bought it to listen to, as you do, not messing about with downloads, wires and dongles.

Very disapointed. Especially when advised to run batteries down on a regular basis, nothing about charging to keep them alive for a few years  

Turns out he's got a car business, obviously little idea about narrowboats, another brilliant idea was more solar, and wash the panels, crickey, I ve got 550w and only the fridge in summer, then the silver bullet  ..... buy a generator, wtf! Rant over.

Anyway, today's Q, is how do I get the radio to pick up a signal, there never was an aerial as far as I can see, the only aerial is the one that works the vhf.

Second Q of the day, my internet signal very poor sometimes intermittent, I may be getting signal from nearby boats, is this possible?

Third Q the tablet and the other , bigger older, computer are side by side, one gets the internet,the other ,the tablet,which is modern is much worse, why?

I am thinking about getting an aerial extrension, the Huwei E5785 is designed for this, but I need to find a method of feeding the very thin wires to the outside of the boat,

There seems to be two choices of antenna, cheap and with magnetic base, or Poyntin, or other but no mast, I think it's the banks of the canal that are stopping the signal travelling to my boat.

 

 

1. The radio - does it light up when turned on? If its not a cheap one have you gone through the auto-tune/setup procedure? Is the aerial you have got compatible with the wave band you are trying to receive? (Assuming you have an aerial, if not then that's the problem). Aerials for AM (long & medium wave) are not likely to perform of well for FM  and no realistic chance for DAB. You can get aerials that are supposed to do all bands but they are amplified and need a 12V feed to them. In my experience they are not reliable in the long term. If its an FM set and an FM aerial there is a good chance the aerial down lead has water in it or something. I was amazed at how well the Halfords magnetic DAB aerial worked for DAB. no good for FM or AM though.

 

2. The batteries. I talked about volt drop on long cable runs a fair few times in respect to your boat so what is the charging voltage at the batteries and the voltage from the charge source? If your solar controller is set to charge at 14.4V and the volt drop along the out and back charging cables is 2 volts you will never full charge the batteries. That is what Alan is alluding to. Its worse than that because solar controllers seem to drop to float on a timed basis so although you had sun for 8 hours the controller may well have dropped to float after 3 or 4 so the lower voltage plus any volt drop may would mean the fridge is taking more out than can  be put back in.

 

3. Not much experience on the mobile phone internet signals but the strength is very location dependant and who your chosen carrier is. You boat forms an effective Faraday cage so unless the E5785 is in a window or close to one AND the local mast is in line with the window you will get poor reception. As for the different computers that has much to do with their chipset and any internal aerial. I very much doubt you are getting signals from other boats because they would probably have password protected connection set.

 

4. Running LA batteries down regularly!!!!!!!  You don't have much luck do you.  I think you are moving south so if you get within say 30 miles of Reading I will happily take a look and advise but until you get all your batteries close to the charge source I don't think you will solve the issue.

 

Edited to add. I get me aerial into the boat by drilling through the front bulkhead just below deckhead and using a magmount close to the back of the cratch cover. Sealed with Dumdum left over from garage days.

Edited May 13, 2021 by Tony Brooks

[LadyG]

46 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Where does the wiring from the Solar panels go to ?

Are the bow-batteries connected to the solar ?

How far away are the batteries from the solar controler ?

 

Is the fridge a 3-way (Gas / 12v / 230v) model ?

They arecinbected but are  35 feet away, ie 70 electk feet

Coolnatic 12 volt compressor, 20 years old.

Edited May 13, 2021 by LadyG

[Alan de Enfield]

11 minutes ago, LadyG said:

They arecinbected but are  35 feet away, ie 70 electk feet

 

I don't suppose you know the wire size (cross sectional area - NOT overall diameter) ?

[LadyG]

57 minutes ago, cheesegas said:

It's not possible to get 4G or wifi signal from nearby boats accidentally, the only say is to intentionally join a nearby wifi network. Get an external antenna for the 4G router.

 

You can get magnetic base masts which stick on the roof. Run the cables through a mushroom temporarily, and then buy a fitting as mentioned above. I prefer the ones which mount on the side of the boat with the cables and gland facing down as there's less chance of water getting in, but they don't look as nice.

 

You'll need a car aerial for the radio, a lot of them are designed to use the car's metal shell as their ground plane, so you need it mount it as close as possible to your roof as it would be in a car. It won't work just dangling on the end of its cable. 

 

As for the power, do you have any sort of current monitoring so you can see what's going in and out of the batteries? What solar controller do you have fitted, and how is your boat connected up with regards to isolator switches, starter/leisure batteries and solar controller?

Solar controller is Epever, set to agm, fed by 550 watts new panels, 

There are three battery banks with isolators, all batteries are now new, in the last two years. Agm, with yesterdays two new 110, plus 3 x 135 ,

I should have 600 ah , that is a lot of power, say 300 ah, running the Webasto, not a lot, the water pump, and my internet.

Electrician suggested turning off the Victron 375 amp invertor, I could do that, but it's a faff.I might try it off overnight.

The reason I changed the bow bateries was that they had ben holding charge to 12.2 or more overnight, then . I got fed up nursing them, and a week of fridge use, they died. Not holding charge, even dipping in to the 10 s

IMPORTANT I used to get 13.4 surface charge on the LED meter, on a sunny day, that would drop tp 12.4 or 12.60 overnight, which makes me think that the bow batteries are being trickle charged from the solar.

I watch solar yesterday, and battery went from about 60 percent to 99 percent over the course of the day, I assume they are reading from the three x 135 s, but I don't know.

Of course the new 2 x 110 leisures may never have got topped up to 100 percent (ish), in fact they werenot given a chancr! Fridge is off today, 

At the moment, it is bright cloudy, not suntan , and controler taking in 18.5 amps, batteries shouwing 78 percent at the controller, bow batteries showing 11.53 and rising.

I'm going to run engine today for an hour or so. Turn off inverter once every thing charged.

I'll  be leaving soon, as am moored next to a boom box!

 

 

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by LadyG

[Naughty Cal]

I wouldn't say that the batteries you replaced two years ago are new.

 

They could well be knackered now by the sounds of your set up!!

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I don't suppose you know the wire size (cross sectional area - NOT overall diameter) ?

 

 

If for example you have 2.5mm2 cable you will be losing ~1 volt (over 9%) which is way above what is acceptable,

Ideally you will need 10mm2 cabling as that will give you just over 2% volt drop which is within acceptable limits.

6mm2 would be marginally acceptable at just under 4% volt drop

[Chagall]

If I were you Id get myself as close to Reading as I could and take up TB's kind offer! 

[cheesegas]

Even if you know the rough diameter it'll give us an idea of whether the cables are too small or not.

 

How are the battery banks connected, and are they all located within a few metres of each other? If they're further away, what size cable are they connected up with?

 

Sounds like it's not a very standard setup and could really do with someone seeing it, trying to diagnose through text is difficult.

Edited May 13, 2021 by cheesegas

[LadyG]

16 minutes ago, cheesegas said:

Even if you know the rough diameter it'll give us an idea of whether the cables are too small or not.

 

How are the battery banks connected, and are they all located within a few metres of each other? If they're further away, what size cable are they connected up with?

 

Sounds like it's not a very standard setup and could really do with someone seeing it, trying to diagnose through text is difficult.

I've had eight people look at it, only three have been allowed to do anything, and that was when I was desperate.

there is no way I am going to do anything radical. That would mean dismantling every thing, and I mean, I can live without a fridge, but I will be putting it on occasionslly to chill my gin and tonic, that seems strange, but it would work for me!

I know its a crazy xystem, I also know that as things die, they don't require keyhole surgery, its always major heart surgery, with hundreds of pounds anasthesia.

Still can't work out the internet, signal, working on one gadget, and not the other, sometimes never working, somethimes everything working, even TV. 

Stangely, the Huwei  E 5785 often works when right inside the boat, where you would least expect a signal, I have it outside at the moment, but it was inside all night, and worked on laptop thingy, just not on tablet.

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by LadyG

[Chagall]

21 minutes ago, cheesegas said:

 

Sounds like it's not a very standard setup and could really do with someone seeing it, trying to diagnose through text is difficult.

Very much so!  especially when she adds edit upon edit to previous posts.  

 

LG, it might be more helpful if you create another post with further information rather than using upper case text to highlight it in a previous one. Those that have given information may not have seen your edit. 

10 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I've had eight people look at it, only three have been alowed to do anything, and that was when I was desperate.

there is no way I am going to do anything radical. That would mean dismantling every thing, and I mean, I can live without a fridge, but I will be putting it on occasionslly to chill my gin and tonic, that seems strange, but it would work for me!

I know its a crazy xystem, I also know thatbas things die, they don't require keyhole surgery, its always heart durgery, with hundreds of pounds anasthesia.

Have you seen Tony Brooks offer? 

 

 

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by Chagall
took an e out of Brookes!

[cheesegas]

6 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I've had eight people look at it, only three have been alowed to do anything, and that was when I was desperate.

there is no way I am going to do anything radical. That would mean dismantling every thing, and I mean, I can live without a fridge, but I will be putting it on occasionslly to chill my gin and tonic, that seems strange, but it would work for me!

I know its a crazy xystem, I also know thatbas things die, they don't require keyhole surgery, its always heart durgery, with hundreds of pounds anasthesia.

Still can't work out the internet, signal, working on ione gadget, and not the other, sometimes never working, somethimes everything working, even TV

Do you have any of the info we have asked for? Cable size?

 

Not letting people work on it until you're desperate may be why you keep on killing batteries.

[LadyG]

6 minutes ago, Chagall said:

Very much so!  especially when she adds edit upon edit to previous posts.  

 

LG, it might be more helpful if you create another post with further information rather than using upper case text to highlight it in a previous one. Those that have given information may not have seen your edit. 

Have you seen Tony Brook's offer? 

 

 

Yes thanks, I'm not sure I can get to Reading, I'm heading east just now.

Wil get bach to him, 

Need to get dishes washed and deisel.

[Eeyore]

I suspect that the initial problem lies with the phrase “charged and ready to fit” which often crops up in an automotive context. The two new batteries would have undoubtedly benefited from a full charge before fitting. Whether they have been fitted correctly is a different matter of course.

[Tony Brooks]

38 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Solar controller is Epever, set to agm, fed by 550 watts new panels, 

There are three battery banks with isolators, all batteries are now new, in the last two years. Agm, with yesterdays two new 110, plus 3 x 135 ,

I should have 600 ah , that is a lot of power, say 300 ah, running the Webasto, not a lot, the water pump, and my internet.

Electrician suggested turning off the Victron 375 amp invertor, I could do that, but it's a faff.I might try it off overnight.

The reason I changed the bow bateries was that they had ben holding charge to 12.2 or more overnight, then . I got fed up nursing them, and a week of fridge use, they died. Not holding charge, even dipping in to the 10 s

IMPORTANT I used to get 13.4 surface charge on the LED meter, on a sunny day, that would drop tp 12.4 or 12.60 overnight, which makes me think that the bow batteries are being trickle charged from the solar.

I watch solar yesterday, and battery went from about 60 percent to 99 percent over the course of the day, I assume they are reading from the three x 135 s, but I don't know.

Of course the new 2 x 110 leisures may never have got topped up to 100 percent (ish), in fact they werenot given a chancr! Fridge is off today, 

At the moment, it is bright cloudy, not suntan , and controler taking in 18.5 amps, batteries shouwing 78 percent at the controller, bow batteries showing 11.53 and rising.

I'm going to run engine today for an hour or so. Turn off inverter once every thing charged.

I'll  be leaving soon, as am moored next to a boom box!

 

 

 

 

If your 60% and 99% came from the solar controller its almost certainly a downright lie, its likely to be less, maybe far less.

 

If it came from an amp hour counter like a BV then again its likely to be a lie and getting a bigger lie by the week.

 

The only reliable way most boaters can use to imply state of charge is rested voltage or a properly calibrated Smartguage during discharge only. The only reliable  most boaters can use to determine the all but fully charged state is by tail current.

 

I would suggest that you run the engine for at least four hours checking the voltage at the front batteries every so often.

[haggis]

17 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I've had eight people look at it, only three have been allowed to do anything, and that was when I was desperate.

there is no way I am going to do anything radical. That would mean dismantling every thing, and I mean, I can live without a fridge, but I will be putting it on occasionslly to chill my gin and tonic, that seems strange, but it would work for me!

I know its a crazy xystem, I also know that as things die, they don't require keyhole surgery, its always major heart surgery, with hundreds of pounds anasthesia.

Still can't work out the internet, signal, working on one gadget, and not the other, sometimes never working, somethimes everything working, even TV. 

Stangely, the Huwei  E 5785 often works when right inside the boat, where you would least expect a signal, I have it outside at the moment, but it was inside all night, and worked on laptop thingy, just not on tablet.

 

As others have said, whether you get an internet signal depends on many things! The strength (if any) signal in the area, a line of sight to the mast, the electronic contents of the device, the ariel of the device. For example, Iain and I can sit side by side on our boat and only one of us can get a signal yet we are both using the same provider, just using different devices. 

 

haggis

[Mad Harold]

My knowledge of boat electrics is probably little better than yours.I do know that a fridge can flatten a battery overnight,and incorrect size wiring can result in stuff not working.

I suggest you make the effort to get close to wherever Tony Brooks is and take up his offer of help.

[Alan de Enfield]

37 minutes ago, LadyG said:

I've had eight people look at it, only three have been allowed to do anything, and that was when I was desperate.

 

Unless you are prepared to put in a little effort and answer the question(s) asked of you then you will continue to have problems. and no one on the forum willbe able to help or give guidance.

The answer is in your own hands.

[tree monkey]

7 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

The answer is in your own hands.

What, an egg mayo butty, agreed it's an answer to being a bit peckish but I'm not sure to much else

 

[cheesegas]

31 minutes ago, Mad Harold said:

My knowledge of boat electrics is probably little better than yours.I do know that a fridge can flatten a battery overnight,and incorrect size wiring can result in stuff not working.

I suggest you make the effort to get close to wherever Tony Brooks is and take up his offer of help.

A compressor fridge like hers certainly shouldn't flatten a bank that size overnight unless you have a bunch of other stuff drawing power as well, or the fridge compressor is running too often because of a bad door seal etc. May be a combination of things; a phantom current draw from a chafed wire pulling the batteries down, plus badly wired solar not recharging properly and voltage drops between battery banks and fridge.

 

I have a similar setup to LadyG albeit with less batteries and a more conventional setup which I wired with a 3% voltage drop calculated. Four 110aH cheapo sealed leisure batteries which are over 3 years old and the fridge, three routers and toilet extract fan stay on 24/7. At this time of year, I go to bed at 11pm with them on 12.7v and wake up around 8am at 12.4v. Those voltages are when I've turned the isolator off to let them rest for an hour before checking. With her setup, a fridge overnight should be fine.

[David Mack]

Why do you have a separate set of batteries to run the fridge? Do they serve any other purpose? If not you would be far better off running a new set of suitably beefy cables direct from the fridge to the main fuse box. That way they would share the battery with your other electrical kit, and be closer to the sources of charging. It's a simpler arrangement and what everybody else does, and it works.

[Alan de Enfield]

10 minutes ago, cheesegas said:

A compressor fridge like hers certainly shouldn't flatten a bank that size overnight

 

I installed a new 12v compressor fridge (Waeco) and it ran continuoulsy, irrespective of the postioning of the thermostat - long story short, the cabling was undersize and it never seemed to get down to temperature so just kept running (for hours and hours on end). The only time it worked properly was when the engine was running - the freezer box would freeze fine, but by morning (no engine overnight) there was a big puddle and soggy cardbard in the bottom of the fridge.

 

I replaced the cabling with 8.5mm2 (it was only a 10 foot x 2 run) and the problem immediately went away. Fridge worked perfectly.

 

Even a compressor fridge can demand 100s of AH per day if there is a fault,

Edited May 13, 2021 by Alan de Enfield