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Travelpack or no travelpack?


anniedesigner

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Hi there. I live on the cut and my current boat has a travelpack (built-in diesel generator) and whenever I need to recharge the batteries I put the travelpack on and charge my laptop using a 240v socket. Also charge phone etc at this time. I also have a 300w inverter that I plug into a 12v socket to charge my laptop at other times. The boat also has a built in inverter but I don't use it. I run the engine for about 20 mins twice a day and charge my laptop once or twice in 24 hours.

 

Unfortunately I need to replace the boat and have seen a suitable boat but she doesn't have a travelpack. Now my question is, what difference would it make, if any, if I didn't have a travelpack for my current electricity usage?

 

Hope I've given you enough information.

 

Thanks.

 

Annie

Edited by anniedesigner
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It will make no difference to your usage but...

 

If you did not have a travelpack then all your equipment would need to be 12v, (or 24v if a 24v system) you could still use the plug in inverter.

 

I assume the travel pack ran a battery charger to charge your batteries, if you do not have a charger then your batteries were charged via the engine alternator.

 

 

 

Seems strange to have an inverter but to use a plug in one instead and your battery charging seems a little suspect, do you monitor their SOC (State Of Charge)

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Hi anniedesigner..welcome to the forum. If your intended new boat does not have a stand alone generator (which very few have) then is it equiped with a built in inverter?

If so then your electrical usage,which i assume you are refering to the 240v items ,is not excessive and could be charged at the same time as charging the domestic batteries which would have to be done using the engine and alternator. You say you run engine at present for 20mins twice a day,i guess to get hot water. That will have to be increased to at least an hour twice a day, maybe a little more, that will depend on alternator and batery bank sizes and probably the subject for another thread.

If intended boat does not have a inverter,as previously said, all equipment will need to be capable of running from 12v,which can also be charged whlst engine is running to save running domestic batteries down when its not, or you can fit an inverter,another subject for a different thread!

Basicaly,to sum up, not having a stand alone generator would not be unusual and your usage of 240v power could easily be accommodated by a different routine,one that a great deal of liverboards live with daily.

Good luck with sorting a new boat

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Hi Keith & Klim 1. Thanks for the thoughts. I know I need to get a grips on electrics & the engine bay. There's 3 alternators on the boat - one for the starter battery & bowthruster, one for the leisures and another for the travelpack. Not understood yet what an alternator does, so why they are needed. Would you be so kind as to give me an explanation in simple terms?

 

I was told when I started as a boater that using the built-in inverter (2.5kw) uses up battery life when I put it on to use the 240v sockets for charging my laptop, etc, so I bought a plug-in 300w inverter for the 12v sockets thinking this would be better. Logic, to me, says that the 300w inverter uses less electricity than the 2.5kw inverter, but maybe it is the other way round?

 

As extra info, I have 300w of solar panels which should top up the batteries easily but the boat lives most of the time in the shade of trees, so they don't bring much charging, particularly now the colder shorter days have arrived. Yes, I do monitor the SOC regularly as the solar panels came with an MPPT - the most useful piece of kit on the boat as far as I am concerned!

 

So, am I correct in thinking that charging my equipment using the 2.5kw inverter, rather than the travelpack, with the engine running means that I need to run the engine for longer, but not excessively longer?

Edited by anniedesigner
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An alternator is a device that that enables you to charge batteries and run equipment.

 

 

You have doubled up on inverters, that was not necessary, yes inverters use a small amount of power from your batteries to just sit there and do nothing (if turned ON)

 

The bigger one may be more efficient (less power required to just sit there) than your plug in one.

Also the bigger one may give a better sine wave.

This would only be important if you run electronic equipment.

 

It is not the inverters that use 'battery life' it is the loads you connect to the inverter.

 

If you use 240v ac for only charging the laptop then you could find a 12v dc charger for your laptop, (may be difficult)

This would enable you to not run the inverter and do lots of conversion of voltages, ie. 12v dc to 240v ac to 19v dc (usual laptop charge voltage)

 

Example of 12v laptop power supply (not a recommendation)

 

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/12v-auto-voltage-carair-laptop-adapter-with-usb-socket-21a-with-9-charging-tip-a84la

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Not entirely relevant to your initial question - but might be important when evaluating your next purchase:-

Three altenators on the main engine is somewhat unusual, the norm is a small one for charging the starter battery and a much larger one for the domestics and bowthruster to gether with some electric trickery to balance those two.

 

It's not considered 'best practice' to use your main engine to charge your batteries (although many / most narrowboat users do - 'cos there's not a lot of room for a 'genny'). I suspect you have a much larger engine in your DB and running it for short periods in your case very short periods is Not a Good Idea. That's (one of the reasons why) many have a separate generator. They're also a lot quieter!

 

None of my business but your implied lifestyle is very spartan indeed (good for you) but you need to consider everything that can use electricity, heating lighting, cooling for example.

 

Edit: Are you in contact with the DBA (Dutch Barge Association) they have more relavant information:-

 

http://www.barges.org/

 

 

Edited by OldGoat
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You have doubled up on inverters, that was not necessary, yes inverters use a small amount of power from your batteries to just sit there and do nothing (if turned ON)

 

The bigger one may be more efficient (less power required to just sit there) than your plug in one.

Also the bigger one may give a better sine wave.

This would only be important if you run electronic equipment.

 

It is not the inverters that use 'battery life' it is the loads you connect to the inverter.

 

This is only true up to a point.

 

An inverter that is connected and switched on, but is not currently running any 230V device will still draw a residual standby current.

 

If you want to be frugal with use of power, but need to have the inverter on to power small loads, many small cheap inverters will use a lot less amps on standby, or when providing low outputs than will a large one. The very basic Maplin 300W inverter on our last boat, (all we had) was very much less demanding than the 1,600W Heart Interface Freedom we are now saddled with on "Flamingo", and the latter really isn't great news if only trying to charge phones and laptops.

 

I am seriously considering installing something smaller, as we only have a single alternator on a slow revving engine, and the amps used matter to us.

 

Clearly if you have the kind of generating capability you have on your gas free boat the standby current needed by any inverter will largely be insignificant, but it should not be dismissed by those for whom replenishing even small amounts of Amp hours may be significant.

 

Also for those who don't need the luxury of pure sine wave output, a cheaper modified (or "quasi" sine wave inverter may be more efficient in terms of its standby power usage.

 

I used to be a great devotee of the 12 volt converters for laptops, but we have now had several cease to work, and it is increasingly hard to find ones suited to some of the more modern laptops, which unfortunately have the capability of knowing they are not being powered by the original "brick" and hence refusing to operate fully on the third party supply. Dell at least are bad for this. Increasingly we are forced to use 230V and the equipment's mains "brick", unfortunately, hence having to run the inverter with its unacceptable overheads.

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So just for clarity, your engine alternator charges the starter battery. Your domestic alternator charges your domestic batteries, and your travel pack alternator produces around 300v which is converted into mains power by a "magic" box. This latter of course only provides useful power whilst the engine is running, whereas the first two store their power in batteries to be used later when the engine isn't running.

 

Personally I would stick with the large inverter, modern ones use less than an amp at idle and of course you can always turn it off when not in use. Small portable inverters may not have any less standby current and may give a less efficient convention to mains power. Depends on the specific models. Also your portable inverter may not have the same safety protections as the built-in one - and of course mains voltage is just as lethal from 300w inverter as it is from a 3000w inverter.

 

For your new boat I would say that a travel pack is a nice-to-have but not essential. In its absence I would want a decent (modern) inverter and a largish domestic alternator. If you buy a boat with a modern Japanese-based engine it's likely to have a decent alternator.

Edited by nicknorman
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Hi again.....since the clarification of your set up my original post dont really now apply.

Two alternators is now a very common setup,if a travel pack is fitted it entails a third alternator which is also quite common.

To try and answer your questions in easy terms..."whats an alternator do and why its needed"?....an alternator is a device driven by a belt on your engine which when running will produce electricity.As you know ,one charges your stater and bow thruster batteries,another chages your domestic batteries.The reason for having two is that the start battery requires much less chargeing ( just need to replace power taken out on starting before its charged)and the domestic batteries will require a longer charge and of a higher value as the drain will be ongoing.If an inverter is fitted,this will be supplied by the 12v from the domestic batteries and convert it to 240v. The ammount of power taken from the 240v will affect the amount of current drawn from the batteries,which has to be replaced by recharging.(hopefully still with me!) without these alternators the batteries would be useless.

Your third alternator(travelpack),is basically just another alternator that feeds into a box of "trickery" which is an inverter and will provide 240 volt when the engine is running.The big difference here is that it does not go via the batteries and is a self contained unit. The output power is generaly in order od 3.5 kw,which from a battery powered inverter requires a lot of power.

There is a lot more to all this but can get a bit heavy,for example ,without a travelpack the domestic charge alternator will need to be able to cope with the take off from any inverter

Not definative or covered the whole subject and issues but hope its of some use.

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The OP described her diesel generator as a 'travelpack' - which term is known to narrowboaters (at least) as the branded device originally developed by Electrolux and is a combination of (yet another) alternator and higher voltage inverter device.

 

So let's not confuse the OP and further.

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The OP described her diesel generator as a 'travelpack' - which term is known to narrowboaters (at least) as the branded device originally developed by Electrolux and is a combination of (yet another) alternator and higher voltage inverter device.

 

So let's not confuse the OP and further.

But she went on to say that the propulsion engine had a third travel pack alternator, so she does not seem to have a separate diesel generator despite the implications of her opening post. Perhaps she rarely uses the engine for propulsion hence it is to her mind a generator. Edited by nicknorman
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But she went on to say that the propulsion engine had a third travel pack alternator, so she does not seem to have a separate diesel generator despite the implications of her opening post. Perhaps she rarely uses the engine for propulsion hence it is to her mind a generator.

 

 

Umm - I read it as:-

"my current boat has a travelpack (built-in diesel generator)"

 

and later in another post

"There's 3 alternators on the boat - one for the starter battery & bowthruster, one for the leisures and another for the travelpack"

 

 

I understood the above to mean 'to charge the....' - especially as she'd describet the TP as a diesel generator

 

There's 3 alternators on the boat - one for the starter battery & bowthruster, one for the leisures and another for the travelpack.

 

There's still considerable confusion, in my mind, at least, but I wouldn't have the temerity to say I'm right or your wrong.

Perhaps she'll come back.

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