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Inverter is on the fritz, maybe


wandering

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29 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Long life milk is up there with margarine, and so called spreadable butter muck. Retailers worldwide should receive a minimum 3 years custodial sentence for selling the vile garbage!! Skimmed and semi skimmed milk should be a minimum 2 year sentence.

 

What particularly vexes me is when you ask for butter but get margarine!  I don't have proper cow juice, unfortunately it doesn't agree with me 😞

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19 minutes ago, wandering said:

Let’s see if this works:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Fu7Fk9gzJehNRbxT7

 

Those are the images of the Victron panel in my bedroom. Any one willing to translate into simple terms speak for me 

 

 

1. Hours to go to fully discharged - almost certainly a total lie

 

2. Not sure, it seems to suggest 19 Amp hours has left the battery, again probably a lie. You need the manual or someone else to answer this.

 

3. Again I am not sure, it suggests that you have an 8 amp discharge going on, almost certainly true, as is 4 and 5.

 

4. A battery (probably the engine battery) has  a voltage of 12.52 volts.  it implies it is about halfway to when the time it really should be fully recharged.

 

5. As 4, but probably for the domestic battery. It means it is discharged way below the level at which you should have started to recharge.

 

6. Probably means the stupid monitor thinks you have 239 hours of use before the batteries are discharged. Total bullshine. 

 

7. The idiot monitor thinks the batteries are 98% charged, another total lie, judging by 5 above.

 

 

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Just now, Quattrodave said:

 

What particularly vexes me is when you ask for butter but get margarine!  I don't have proper cow juice, unfortunately it doesn't agree with me 😞

Completely agree. It should say " spread " not butter :angry: The con artists who make/sell it put colouring in to make it look like butter when its not even remotely similar.

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16 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

There is a difference between voltage and capacity.

 

You can have a 12 volt battery the size of your finger nail, or one the size of a car. They are both 12 volts but their capacity (how many Ah) they have is the difference.

 

A lead acid battery needs to be recharged every day (ideally) to 100% state of charge, this can take 3-4-6 hours of engine running depending on how much you have used.

 

If you do not recharge it fully then it becomes clogged up with lead bits'sludge (it is called sulphation) this reduces the capacity of the battery. The next day you do not fully charge the battery again and it gets more sulpahtion, same next day, same next day and your battery that when new had a capacity of 100Ah now has a capacity of (maybe) 20AH.

 

Think of it like a 3 gallon bucket. 

It holds water (voltage) and has a capacity of 3 gallons of water (amphour)

Put some mud in the bottom and it is a still a bucket and holds water (voltage) but it now has the capacity of 2.5 gallons, add more mud and it becomes a 2 gallon bucket..

 

One a battery starts to sulphate then you will find that it charges quickly (because it takes less to fill it from empty) - think filling the bucket with water when it is already half full of mud. And because it has a lower capacity it goes flat very quickly.

 

Are you running your engine every day ?

If so for how many hours ?

from Jan (when I bought the boat) to three days ago I was in the marina on shoreline. I have run the engine four hours today and three yesterday. I am only one hour to two hours from the marina I was moored at. 
 

12 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

But which battery bank is it displaying?

 

Are you only seeing one image or six ?

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The Inverter is fitted with a cooling fan. So when you connect largish loads, like an electric blanket, the cooling fan will very shortly after whir into life.

Boat batteries,  even  new ones, are very capacity constrained, and then this capacity diminishes. And diminishes even much faster, every time you drain the batteries to the stage things start complaining, alarms sound, red lights come on and room lights dim.

Any demand for heat from a battery supplied electrical system is to be actively avoided. Dry your hair naturally, heat the water for your hot water bottle on your gas hob. Make sure all your light bulbs are led. And make sure any electric heating in your calorifier can only be connected when you are on shore power. 

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1 minute ago, DandV said:

The Inverter is fitted with a cooling fan. So when you connect largish loads, like an electric blanket, the cooling fan will very shortly after whir into life.

Boat batteries,  even  new ones, are very capacity constrained, and then this capacity diminishes. And diminishes even much faster, every time you drain the batteries to the stage things start complaining, alarms sound, red lights come on and room lights dim.

Any demand for heat from a battery supplied electrical system is to be actively avoided. Dry your hair naturally, heat the water for your hot water bottle on your gas hob. Make sure all your light bulbs are led. And make sure any electric heating in your calorifier can only be connected when you are on shore power. 

The blanket going on was a mistake; I only did it as that’s what I had been doing in the marina. Lesson learned! The meter macs monitor I used at the marina shows I don’t use much power really. I also have no solar. Got this boat from a retired couple who had to stop for health reasons. 

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1 minute ago, wandering said:

from Jan (when I bought the boat) to three days ago I was in the marina on shoreline. I have run the engine four hours today and three yesterday. I am only one hour to two hours from the marina I was moored at.

 

Nowhere near long enough from the position it looks as if you are in now. Serviceable batteries will require well over 8 hours charging at such an engine seed that allows maximum charge (it gradually reduces). It may take 10 or 12 hours. Once serviceable batteries are well charged AND you are being careful with your electrical use then the four hours a day may well be enough with a very much longer charge at the weekend.

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2 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Nowhere near long enough from the position it looks as if you are in now. Serviceable batteries will require well over 8 hours charging at such an engine seed that allows maximum charge (it gradually reduces). It may take 10 or 12 hours. Once serviceable batteries are well charged AND you are being careful with your electrical use then the four hours a day may well be enough with a very much longer charge at the weekend.

My pet theory, based purely on my own incompetence, is I drained the battery or remaining charge by putting the electric blanket on and I’ve not run the engine long enough to recharge it all back to good health and despite four hours feeling like a lot is actually not realistic after draining them so much so what you say does track.

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1 hour ago, wandering said:

I think they were fine but I’ve done something with that bloody blanket. 

That's one thing you don't have to worry about! A single ten-minute burst of electric blanket use may have drained the batteries of most of their stored electricity, but it will not have caused any significant damage. They were already well on the way to expiring, its just that while you were permanently hooked up in the marina you wouldn't have known that.

The particular lesson is that you can't use the blanket when on batteries, but you will be fine to do so again if connected to the mains.

Edited by David Mack
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8 minutes ago, wandering said:

My pet theory, based purely on my own incompetence, is I drained the battery or remaining charge by putting the electric blanket on and I’ve not run the engine long enough to recharge it all back to good health and despite four hours feeling like a lot is actually not realistic after draining them so much so what you say does track.

 

I suspect the batteries are very sulphated so when new and fully charged that may have run the blanket for several hours, but in the changed chemical state can only hold enough electricity for a very short period of blanket use. If I am correct and you charge for long enough to get them a fully charged as they will go (say 12.7 to 12.8 volts at least an hour after shutdown with no electricity load) or (when the ammeter reads 4 to 8 amps when charging at 14.2 plus volts - assuming 440Ah of nominal battery capacity) they will still discharge quickly.

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10 minutes ago, David Mack said:

That's one thing you don't have to worry about! A single ten-minute burst of electric blanket use may have drained the batteries of most of their stored electricity, but it will not have caused any significant damage. They were already well on the way to expiring, its just that while you were permanently hooked up in the marina you wouldn't have known that.

The particular lesson is that you can't use the blanket when on batteries, but you will be fine to do so again if connected to the mains.

I wish learning curves were cheaper 😆

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3 minutes ago, wandering said:

My pet theory, based purely on my own incompetence, is I drained the battery or remaining charge by putting the electric blanket on and I’ve not run the engine long enough to recharge it all back to good health and despite four hours feeling like a lot is actually not realistic after draining them so much so what you say does track.

Wishing you the best with now giving your batteries a really sustained recharge, shore power is best for this, as your engine does not really like running on the very light load that the final stages of charging entails.

Hopefully your batteries will recover to the extent that you will still get some more useful life out of them.

But periodic battery replacement is part of narrowboating, they are just consumables, and the previous owner may have been nursing near end of life batteries prior to selling. 

A good inverter will however last for years. The Victron Inverter I  bought for an off grid property is still working 16 years later.

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1 minute ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I suspect the batteries are very sulphated so when new and fully charged that may have run the blanket for several hours, but in the changed chemical state can only hold enough electricity for a very short period of blanket use. If I am correct and you charge for long enough to get them a fully charged as they will go (say 12.7 to 12.8 volts at least an hour after shutdown with no electricity load) or (when the ammeter reads 4 to 8 amps when charging at 14.2 plus volts - assuming 440Ah of nominal battery capacity) they will still discharge quickly.

Is this another way of saying replace with some brand new leisure batteries? Where should I look for that btw? Power use is pretty sparse aside from this minor (turning major) hiccup

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1 minute ago, wandering said:

I wish learning curves were cheaper 😆

 

I think David meant that using the blanket has done no long term damage to the batteries as long as you recharge them ASAP. I agree with him, but that does not mean the batteries were not in a bad way before that.

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13 minutes ago, wandering said:

My pet theory, based purely on my own incompetence, is I drained the battery or remaining charge by putting the electric blanket on and I’ve not run the engine long enough to recharge it all back to good health and despite four hours feeling like a lot is actually not realistic after draining them so much so what you say does track.

The first part appears correct. Your problem is that if a few minutes of blanket use flattened the batteries, the batteries are goosed.  You can fill them up by running the engine for a long time    but they will hold very charge.

 

I think the bullet you need to bite is to buy some new batteries.

 

Once you have done that, fill them up frequently.  Daily is ideal.  Full is when the amps going in are less than 5% of their new capacity and the voltage is 14.4 to 14.6.  Ignore all state of charge meters.  They lie.

 

N

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1 minute ago, wandering said:

Is this another way of saying replace with some brand new leisure batteries? Where should I look for that btw? Power use is pretty sparse aside from this minor (turning major) hiccup

 

I can't say that is the case, but it sounds as if it may well be. However, a new set could be damaged beyond use within a very few weeks unless you keep the well charged and do not discharge below about 12.2V with no current draw.

 

Where should you look for what?

 

If you mean the volts and amps I referred to then your meter will give you accurate readings on the volt and amp setting PROVIDING you ensure the voltage is set to the domestic bank and not the engine battery.

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20 minutes ago, wandering said:

Is this another way of saying replace with some brand new leisure batteries? Where should I look for that btw? Power use is pretty sparse aside from this minor (turning major) hiccup

I have used these

https://batterystore.co.uk/leoch-sfl-130dt-leisure-battery/

Lasted 4 years

Then changed for these

https://batterystore.co.uk/leoch-lagm-130-leisure-battery/

Last October

 

Battery Store is in Market Harborough so not far from you and will do discounts if you collect 3 or 4 batteries

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33 minutes ago, wandering said:

Is this another way of saying replace with some brand new leisure batteries? Where should I look for that btw? Power use is pretty sparse aside from this minor (turning major) hiccup

 

Platinum make good leisure batteries, as do Halfords actually.

 

Make sure size for size they will fit your space and match the terminal locations to make fitment simpler.

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40 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I think David meant that using the blanket has done no long term damage to the batteries as long as you recharge them ASAP. I agree with him, but that does not mean the batteries were not in a bad way before that.

I meant that the batteries were probably already pretty wrecked.

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4 minutes ago, David Mack said:

I meant that the batteries were probably already pretty wrecked.

 

I agree, but we can not know for sure because the OP can't, at present, give us the required test results or even what type of batteries he has (closed or open cell).

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It is true that electric devices producing heat should be avoided on a boat, but do note that electric blankets are probably only 100 watts so will draw 10 amps which is really not huge. If a boat has a good electric system and cruises a lot then half hour of electric blanket  at bed time is probably ok. I think the electric blanket might be a bit of a red herring here, or just the straw that broke the camels back.

Like many have said, I suspect the batteries have very little capacity left, but with a bit of learning (and help from here) the OP can work out what is going on because that Victron monitor can read volts and amps.

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1 hour ago, BEngo said:

The first part appears correct. Your problem is that if a few minutes of blanket use flattened the batteries, the batteries are goosed.  You can fill them up by running the engine for a long time    but they will hold very charge.

 

I think the bullet you need to bite is to buy some new batteries.

 

Once you have done that, fill them up frequently.  Daily is ideal.  Full is when the amps going in are less than 5% of their new capacity and the voltage is 14.4 to 14.6.  Ignore all state of charge meters.  They lie.

 

N

Agree with all of the above,

Except that if you have the Victron, or equivalent battery monitor, the voltage, and amp function, both in and out, are extremely useful, especially in conjunction with a clock. In fact without  instumentation battery management is flying blind.

Necessary to check the battery  rested voltage, no load, and then voltage when the fridge kicks in, and then once the engine is running, voltages and charging current.

And then periodically during charging, and immediatly before ceasing charging, as the charge current decays with time. And check then rested voltage say 20mins after charging has ceased. These parameters change as battery performance decays. 

Tired batteries charge much quicker but also discharge much quicker reflecting their degraded performance.

 

The state of charge function though is worse then useless. It is dangerously misleading in the hands of inexperienced people, and can lead to unnecessarily fast battery degradation.

This is because the indicated remaining charge trends towards being increasingly more optimistic as the batteries degrade.

 

So my advice to the OP is use the voltage and amp functions on the meter, to get a feeling on how long voltage and amperage take to change under load and charging  conditions.

New batteries will perform vastly differently, but then their characteristics will slowly change towards that faster charging, and  faster discharging as their capacity degrades.

The speed of this degradation is very largely dependent on how well you manage the charge and discharge cycles.

And the quality and size of your battery bank, as well as the loads they are serving.

 

 

 

Edited by DandV
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My campervan has been away at the local garage having a cambelt and new clutch fitted.

He has had it since mid November and the 'domestic battery' was down to 10 volts, I put it on charge for 3 days and got it back up to 12.8+ but the next day it was down to 11.8 volts.

 

I've had it on charge again today and it has spent several hours at 14.4 volts, so I've now switched it off.

 

Come the morning when it has had chance to stabilise I will start a discharge test using a car headlight bulb (55/65 watt) it'll at least give me an idea of the actual capacity.

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I'm surprised no one has suggested the installation of solar panels. To me this is essential for off grid boater unless they are going to cruise two, three, four hours (I'm not sure how long) every day.

I too bought a boat previously connected to shore power. There were far too many batteries on my boat, the huge capacity meant I would never be able to top up the batteries every day, so I replaced ( domestic bank), them with smaller capacity but same configuration. The guy who did this was able to identify which batteries were dying a slow death. He was pretty good,  and I still have his batteries four years later. All the batteries in one bank need to be replaced at one time.

I have two solar panels on the roof which top up the batteries for seven months of the year. In winter I am frugal with my electricity usage (I only have fridge on when engine is running, so I'm using it as a larder). It is always Off overnight, so no frozen food.

Regular trips to the launderette and a solid fuel stove with back boiler see me through the winter. I run the engine to top up batteries and it  also  heats my water. 

Most domestic batteries used by boaters are Flooded Lead Acid which need regular maintenance, not difficult if they are accessible. The capacity of the solar panels is critical, I replaced the original 100W panel with two 275W panels and a matched controller.

 

 

Edited by LadyG
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