Inverter

[mrsmelly]

3 hours ago, Pastida@1 said:

We were thinking of using the washer once a week ish. Thought it's best to plan for all options so I don't regret fitting stuff that we want to upgrade in the near future.  I only want to do this once.  We plan on being self sufficient with power.  Solar power and engine should be enough to get by.  

Put simply you need a Mastervolt or Victron inverter and to do it right have a Travelpower fitted to the engine and you are fully sorted.

[Pastida@1]

Fantastic information there.

Thanks for that

Cheers

John 

[nicknorman]

We shared some locks last with a chap who had a very high tech boat - we were comparing notes - and it transpired he had splashed out for Mastervolt Lithium batteries. He was chuffed to bits with them. They've been CCing for 15 months with no battery problems, and of course there is no worry about sulphation etc. In fact when they are not cruising, he never recharges beyond 90% as charging the last 10% actually shortens the battery's life slightly.

[Robbo]

1 hour ago, nicknorman said:

We shared some locks last with a chap who had a very high tech boat - we were comparing notes - and it transpired he had splashed out for Mastervolt Lithium batteries. He was chuffed to bits with them. They've been CCing for 15 months with no battery problems, and of course there is no worry about sulphation etc. In fact when they are not cruising, he never recharges beyond 90% as charging the last 10% actually shortens the battery's life slightly.

Lithium does make sense for off-grid use.

[Pastida@1]

Thanks for that

Its something worth looking at

Cheers

John 

[Robbo]

6 minutes ago, Pastida@1 said:

Thanks for that

Its something worth looking at

Cheers

John 

There’s a few threads recently on LiFePO4 batteries, but if your on shore power in winter and solar n cruising in summer you will hardly be deep cycling your batteries so standard leisure or traction batteries will be sufficient and more cost efficient.  Lithium batteries hold there own when totally off-grid.

Edited August 24, 2017 by Robbo

[Pastida@1]

Great info

Thank you

Cheers

John 

[Drayke]

6 hours ago, Robbo said:

I would also recommend this book as well (AKA The Bible), it's a tad expensive but it covers quite a few areas...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Boatowners-Mechanical-Electrical-Manual-Essential-ebook/dp/B006QA720O/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

 

Just don’t buy the paperback.

[Dylan]

10 hours ago, nicknorman said:

There are quite a lot of luddites on here who think that boating should be an endurance test, and anyone who has more than a couple of candles is a  techy fool!

My advice is to buy Mastervolt. More expensive, but more robust and less flaky!

But one point: it's all very well having a huge inverter and a big battery bank, but remember that whatever you take out of the batteries has to be put back, and this takes a LONG TIME even with plenty of charging power available. The chemistry of batteries intrinsically means they take ages to fully charge. You have solar to help charge the batteries. Great in summer. Near useless in winter.

Try to avoid running the washing machine from the batteries, and then recharging the batteries. Better to run the washing machine only when the engine is on, with a decent alternator. Fill the wash cycle with warm/hot water, heated "for free" from a calorifier. Consider a compact washing machine - ours only takes 1600w when the heater is on. Once the heating of the water on a wash cycle is finished, the washing machine doesn't take much power.

Agree with all of that, except Mastervolt, where I remain neutral (no experience of mastervolt.)
 

[rogeriko]

I would buy 6 Large 1000ah forklift batteries they will last for years and deliver the current you require. Better still I would buy 12 and use a 24 volt inverter.

[Bargebuilder]

11 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Solar will be of absolutely no use at all for 5 months (or so) of the year - at the time when you are using most electricity you are producing the least.

Hi John,

I did as you are doing some 8 years ago, building a liveaboard from a sail-away.

My wife and I live 1/4 mile from the nearest mains electricity and so are completely off grid. We have all (well most) of the usual domestic appliances, apart from a washing machine, because we prefer to do clothes washing 'ashore'.

Our only means of generating electricity are 940w of solar panels and a small wind turbine that is slightly better than useless. We do have a diesel generator that produces up to 120 amps at 12 volts, but last Winter we only needed to run this for about 4 hours on three separate occasions.

We do not cruise in the Winter and I would never run the main engine just to charge the batteries: It really isn't good for a diesel engine to be run unless it is under load, and two 100 amp alternators isn't enough to load my engine. Prolonged such use will, of course, glaze the cylinder bores.

To say that solar is of no use in the Winter is rubbish. It quite obviously produces much less power during the 'dark' months, but if your boat's systems are well designed and you choose your appliances carefully, it is very easy to cope without shore power; we do.

During the Summer, with solar generated power I can heat the water in my calorifier and use an electric kettle, during the Winter I use a gas water heater and kettle.

Heating is mainly from our mulifuel stove with two diesel space heaters as backups and we are always 'toastie'.

We have a gas hob and oven and don't use a microwave.

All lighting is 12v led of course and our refrigerator is a low energy one.

We even use a heated underblanket when the nights are chilly.

All this with solar panels with mppt controllers and a Rolls battery bank of about 1100Ahr C20.

Off course what you are hoping to achieve is possible. Good luck and have fun with it!

 

 

[Robbo]

7 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

Hi John,

I did as you are doing some 8 years ago, building a liveaboard from a sail-away.

My wife and I live 1/4 mile from the nearest mains electricity and so are completely off grid. We have all (well most) of the usual domestic appliances, apart from a washing machine, because we prefer to do clothes washing 'ashore'.

Our only means of generating electricity are 940w of solar panels and a small wind turbine that is slightly better than useless. We do have a diesel generator that produces up to 120 amps at 12 volts, but last Winter we only needed to run this for about 4 hours on three separate occasions.

We do not cruise in the Winter and I would never run the main engine just to charge the batteries: It really isn't good for a diesel engine to be run unless it is under load, and two 100 amp alternators isn't enough to load my engine. Prolonged such use will, of course, glaze the cylinder bores.

To say that solar is of no use in the Winter is rubbish. It quite obviously produces much less power during the 'dark' months, but if your boat's systems are well designed and you choose your appliances carefully, it is very easy to cope without shore power; we do.

During the Summer, with solar generated power I can heat the water in my calorifier and use an electric kettle, during the Winter I use a gas water heater and kettle.

Heating is mainly from our mulifuel stove with two diesel space heaters as backups and we are always 'toastie'.

We have a gas hob and oven and don't use a microwave.

All lighting is 12v led of course and our refrigerator is a low energy one.

We even use a heated underblanket when the nights are chilly.

All this with solar panels with mppt controllers and a Rolls battery bank of about 1100Ahr C20.

Off course what you are hoping to achieve is possible. Good luck and have fun with it!

 

 

You get around 10% if that of your summer output from solar in winter, so unless you want to very over spec your solar and look like a solar farm it’s best to regard it as 0 when figuring out how you are going to generate power in winter.

[WotEver]

8 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

To say that solar is of no use in the Winter is rubbish. It quite obviously produces much less power during the 'dark' months...

Very much less. Less than 10% of summer output on average. 

[Alan de Enfield]

7 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

Hi John,

I did as you are doing some 8 years ago, building a liveaboard from a sail-away.

My wife and I live 1/4 mile from the nearest mains electricity and so are completely off grid. We have all (well most) of the usual domestic appliances, apart from a washing machine, because we prefer to do clothes washing 'ashore'.

Our only means of generating electricity are 940w of solar panels and a small wind turbine that is slightly better than useless. We do have a diesel generator that produces up to 120 amps at 12 volts, but last Winter we only needed to run this for about 4 hours on three separate occasions.

We do not cruise in the Winter and I would never run the main engine just to charge the batteries: It really isn't good for a diesel engine to be run unless it is under load, and two 100 amp alternators isn't enough to load my engine. Prolonged such use will, of course, glaze the cylinder bores.

To say that solar is of no use in the Winter is rubbish. It quite obviously produces much less power during the 'dark' months, but if your boat's systems are well designed and you choose your appliances carefully, it is very easy to cope without shore power; we do.

During the Summer, with solar generated power I can heat the water in my calorifier and use an electric kettle, during the Winter I use a gas water heater and kettle.

Heating is mainly from our mulifuel stove with two diesel space heaters as backups and we are always 'toastie'.

We have a gas hob and oven and don't use a microwave.

All lighting is 12v led of course and our refrigerator is a low energy one.

We even use a heated underblanket when the nights are chilly.

All this with solar panels with mppt controllers and a Rolls battery bank of about 1100Ahr C20.

Off course what you are hoping to achieve is possible. Good luck and have fun with it!

 

 

Maybe I should not have said 'useless' - maybe 'almost useless would be more accurate.

My experience obviously differs to yours (although you have not quoted figures and have just adapted your lifestyle to suit), I have found that on average during the 4 main Winter months I average 5% of the panels rating – some days may be 10%, even 15%, but then on typical Winter cloudy wet days I can get virtually 0% for days on end.

Working on a reasonable Winters (daylight) day of 6 hours and using your 900w panels as an example I would expect to average 45w x 6 hours to give 270Wh per day, or to put it another way around 23Ah per day which is not enough to even run a fridge.

If you doubt my figures ask others – MtB is a good ‘liveaboard’ example who has consistently bemoaned the solar panels output.

[rusty69]

8 hours ago, Bargebuilder said:

To say that solar is of no use in the Winter is rubbish. It quite obviously produces much less power during the 'dark' months, but if your boat's systems are well designed and you choose your appliances carefully, it is very easy to cope without shore power; we do.

Although I am sure its possible,. It won't suit most on a day to day basis, as you would need a pretty minimalist life style 

I think chubby manages it

@chubby

[Pastida@1]

Great feedback guys.  All this input is very useful to me.  

Cheers

John 

[Phil Ambrose]

3 minutes ago, rusty69 said:

Although I am sure its possible,. It won't suit most on a day to day basis, as you would need a pretty minimalist life style 

I think chubby manages it

@chubby

Everything is possible regarding power on a boat but you have to be prepared to live a pretty minimalistic live style, it wouldn't suit us because though we live on a boat, we ain't camping.

Phil 

[jddevel]

18 hours ago, rusty69 said:

Its an internet forum, you can expect what you like,but will get what people decide to post!

I have participated in this forum as a sailaway builder for the last few months and have learnt at least two important things 1)That you first need to read and re-read what you`ve written before posting to ensure that you have as near as possible  explained what you need to know 2) Have a thick skin because with the best of intentions contributors seem to forget that they too were learning once and may make comments that you find not to your liking but these may be caused by a lack of communication on your part or empathy on theirs. I`ve certainly been helped a great deal and found the forum a fountain of knowledge even if on more than one occasion requiring a steep learning curve on my part.

[rusty69]

1 minute ago, jddevel said:

I have participated in this forum as a sailaway builder for the last few months and have learnt at least two important things 1)That you first need to read and re-read what you`ve written before posting to ensure that you have as near as possible  explained what you need to know 2) Have a thick skin because with the best of intentions contributors seem to forget that they too were learning once and may make comments that you find not to your liking but these may be caused by a lack of communication on your part or empathy on theirs. I`ve certainly been helped a great deal and found the forum a fountain of knowledge even if on more than one occasion requiring a steep learning curve on my part.

3)The advice is freely given. 

[jddevel]

1 minute ago, rusty69 said:

The advice is freely given. 

And that is an example of the lack of empathy and communication on my part. You are so correct rusty69. 

[jddevel]

15 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

Travelpower fitted to the engine and you are fully sorted.

Having a Beta 38 pre-installed in my sailaway I`ve no option for a Travelpower in my boat unless I upgrade to a 42. That`s of course unless the forum can advise otherwise? Is there anyway around this?

[Robbo]

8 minutes ago, jddevel said:

Having a Beta 38 pre-installed in my sailaway I`ve no option for a Travelpower in my boat unless I upgrade to a 42. That`s of course unless the forum can advise otherwise? Is there anyway around this?

Is it worth you upgrading to the 42 for just the TP?

[mrsmelly]

10 minutes ago, Robbo said:

Is it worth you upgrading to the 42 for just the TP?

Absolutely.

[jddevel]

6 minutes ago, Robbo said:

Is it worth you upgrading to the 42 for just the TP?

Logically as a leisure user I would have thought not although have not looked into that possibility. I suppose a unused-at present -Beta 38 would have a value as either a part-exchange or sold privately but would have no idea of the labour cost and therefore unable to quantify. Have forum members any advice /ideas?

[nicknorman]

I'm very glad we went for the 43. Although you may think that the 38 is only marginally less than a 43, in fact it is quite a bit smaller engine with quite bit less torque. It makes up some of the output defecit by having fairly good torque at high rpm, but the bottom line is that a Beta 43 produces 10% more torque at 1000 rpm than a Beta 38 does at its max torque rpm of around 2000 rpm, and at idle its 107nm for the 43 vs 85 for the 38. Which is 25% more torque.

An engine with a TP and a big 12v alternator (and a propellor!) needs to make a lot of torque coming off idle to allow the engine to accelerate when the electrics are under heavy load.

Edited August 25, 2017 by nicknorman