Batteries (Oh no not another thread....)

[OldGoat]

I was looking around for some photos of 'serious' fork lift truck batteries and popped across to Charles Sterling's YouTube videos that reminded me that he had  some Quite Interesting information which might help folks on here.

The first is his discussion on which type of lead acid is best / more suitable for 'your' type of boating -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJZlounw4oE

Remember he's not selling batteries - so has no particular axe to grind.

 

The second video is quite new - May 2018 and shows a long test of several battery types - shattering my view of battery types. If you can't be bothered to watch the whole vid: then start at about half way through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR34QF3xcCc&t=2s

 

The third - well I couldn't be bothered to start a separate thread for the old battery / mains fridge argument discussion. I'm about to replace my aged Batts 12/24v fridge unit with a Liebherr FF and ran my own tests at home which confirms much of what CS says

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUzbp18L9oc&t=6s

 

[mrsmelly]

6 minutes ago, OldGoat said:

I was looking around for some photos of 'serious' fork lift truck batteries and popped across to Charles Sterling's YouTube videos that reminded me that he had  some Quite Interesting information which might help folks on here.

The first is his discussion on which type of lead acid is best / more suitable for 'your' type of boating -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJZlounw4oE

Remember he's not selling batteries - so has no particular axe to grind.

 

The second video is quite new - May 2018 and shows a long test of several battery types - shattering my view of battery types. If you can't be bothered to watch the whole vid: then start at about half way through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR34QF3xcCc&t=2s

 

The third - well I couldn't be bothered to start a separate thread for the old battery / mains fridge argument discussion. I'm about to replace my aged Batts 12/24v fridge unit with a Liebherr FF and ran my own tests at home which confirms much of what CS says

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUzbp18L9oc&t=6s

 

Its not rocket science, hence why I always bin the 12 volt fridges and go mains. Cost similar to run and cost 14 million pounds less to buy a better fridge in mains. I suppose Fred Flintstone who doesnt have a good inverter would disagree. 

[MtB]

36 minutes ago, mrsmelly said:

Its not rocket science, hence why I always bin the 12 volt fridges and go mains. Cost similar to run and cost 14 million pounds less to buy a better fridge in mains. I suppose Fred Flintstone who doesnt have a good inverter would disagree. 

 

240Vac in a boat is inherently more dangerous than 12Vdc however. But who cares about safety these days? Old hat....

[mrsmelly]

3 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

240Vac in a boat is inherently more dangerous than 12Vdc however. But who cares about safety these days? Old hat....

You are correct but I try not to put my fingers into the sockets of the ring main 

[MtB]

1 minute ago, mrsmelly said:

You are correct but I try not to put my fingers into the sockets of the ring main 

 

I know a boater whose electricity bollard kept tripping randomly. Eventually I traced it to a 240V junction box under the gunwales full of water. Condensation. 

 

Like I keep saying, 240Vac is inherently inappropriate for the 'boat' environment.

[Chewbacka]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

240Vac in a boat is inherently more dangerous than 12Vdc however. But who cares about safety these days? Old hat....

Be changing your house over to 12v then?

[Alan de Enfield]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I know a boater whose electricity bollard kept tripping randomly. Eventually I traced it to a non-sealed 240V junction box under the gunwales full of water. Condensation. 

 

Like I keep saying, incorrectly installed 240Vac is inappropriate for a non-maintained, wet 'boat' environment.

Slight correction for you.

[MtB]

52 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Slight correction for you.

 

But still safe in a non-maintained 'house' environment. 

 

Like I keep saying, inherently inappropriate for boats given as you point out, maintaining a boat in a totally 100% guaranteed condensation-free condition 24/7/365 is more or less impossible. 

[Sea Dog]

1 hour ago, Chewbacka said:

Be changing your house over to 12v then?

That might not be entirely practical for heavier appliances and too expensive for others, but 115v is extensively used at sea for safety reasons and 115v appliances abound: it might have been a better choice ashore (in end user safety terms) if we in the UK were to have had the chance to start again.  There are, of course, other factors in play and more than one way to skin a cat.

 

It strikes me that one needs to understand the principles behind what's going on in the Sterling fridge video to draw a realistic conclusion - a few "take 2" moments might have helped get over the apparent scattergun approach, there are quite a few verbal "typos" to get beyond and he should definitely have stopped to change the Shoreline on the floor, which he always came to last, to No 4 in his table rather than continually get it and the Inlander muddled up.  Maybe there's a bit of interepretation of the results to draw his preferred conclusion too?  He also quotes a much higher quiescent current for "The Victron" than his unit, but mine draws 9w at idle in the fully on mode so quite where he gets 1.5 amps from I'm not sure.  Nevertheless, it was interesting to see such a trial and you have to applaud the effort even if you need to draw your own conclusion.

[Boat&Bikes]

As far as 240vac being dangerous has anyone knowledge of fatalities caused on narrowboats? I haven’t but maybe I’ve missed something? 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, ianali said:

As far as 240vac being dangerous has anyone knowledge of fatalities caused on narrowboats? I haven’t but maybe I’ve missed something? 

You (not you directly) could always take a wider view and include all the European production boats that have 220v AC.

 

My 'other' boat is French built (RCD compliant) and has 2 pin 220v sockets, even that does not pose any problems as far as I know.

[Sea Dog]

26 minutes ago, ianali said:

As far as 240vac being dangerous has anyone knowledge of fatalities caused on narrowboats? I haven’t but maybe I’ve missed something? 

 

It's Mike who's making the point - I was just pointing out the commonly used safer alternative really.  I'm quite content that I can ensure that my 230v AC system is as safe as possible, but does someone really have to give you statistics from narrowboats for you to accept that 230v AC can be a lethal voltage?

[Boat&Bikes]

5 minutes ago, Sea Dog said:

 

It's Mike who's making the point - I was just pointing out the commonly used safer alternative really.  I'm quite content that I can ensure that my 230v AC system is as safe as possible, but does someone really have to give you statistics from narrowboats for you to accept that 230v AC can be a lethal voltage?

Obviously AC current can be lethal. I also have aboard gas, knives, axes and stakes for vampires. My point was that I’ve not heard of any deaths caused by electric shock on a narrow boat. 

[ditchcrawler]

6 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

240Vac in a boat is inherently more dangerous than 12Vdc however. But who cares about safety these days? Old hat....

Same as the home

[Alan de Enfield]

1 hour ago, ianali said:

Obviously AC current can be lethal. I also have aboard gas, knives, axes and stakes for vampires. My point was that I’ve not heard of any deaths caused by electric shock on a narrow boat. 

Have you heard of many due to axes, stakes and vampires ?

[MtB]

2 hours ago, Sea Dog said:

 

It's Mike who's making the point - I was just pointing out the commonly used safer alternative really.  I'm quite content that I can ensure that my 230v AC system is as safe as possible, but does someone really have to give you statistics from narrowboats for you to accept that 230v AC can be a lethal voltage?

 

In addition, why would anyone go out of their way to inform ianali if someone dies from electric shock on a boat somewhere?

[peterboat]

9 hours ago, OldGoat said:

I was looking around for some photos of 'serious' fork lift truck batteries and popped across to Charles Sterling's YouTube videos that reminded me that he had  some Quite Interesting information which might help folks on here.

The first is his discussion on which type of lead acid is best / more suitable for 'your' type of boating -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJZlounw4oE

Remember he's not selling batteries - so has no particular axe to grind.

 

The second video is quite new - May 2018 and shows a long test of several battery types - shattering my view of battery types. If you can't be bothered to watch the whole vid: then start at about half way through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR34QF3xcCc&t=2s

 

The third - well I couldn't be bothered to start a separate thread for the old battery / mains fridge argument discussion. I'm about to replace my aged Batts 12/24v fridge unit with a Liebherr FF and ran my own tests at home which confirms much of what CS says

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUzbp18L9oc&t=6s

 

And this is why I had full tractions 13 years and still good with a hydrometer. [using them on the bathtub project]  I have now replaced them with lifepo4 batteries, which as his second video shows are awesome, secondhand £320 each with as little as 17 cycles on them, they should last me out, I have restricted charging to 13.8 volts to protect them and also prolong their lives. Its strange watching solar taking them to 13.8 volts and just sitting at that voltage once charging stops great things and recommend them as long as you know what you have and how to treat them

[Boat&Bikes]

2 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

In addition, why would anyone go out of their way to inform ianali if someone dies from electric shock on a boat somewhere?

Now that’s disappointing. You said you’d blocked me a while back.

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, ianali said:

Now that’s disappointing. You said you’d blocked me a while back.

Sorry - my fault I quoted you in my post #15, so it would be visible to even those folks who had blocked you.

[Boat&Bikes]

2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Sorry - my fault I quoted you in my post #15, so it would be visible to even those folks who had blocked you.

Phew!

[smileypete]

11 hours ago, OldGoat said:

I was looking around for some photos of 'serious' fork lift truck batteries and popped across to Charles Sterling's YouTube videos that reminded me that he had  some Quite Interesting information which might help folks on here.

The first is his discussion on which type of lead acid is best / more suitable for 'your' type of boating -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJZlounw4oE

Remember he's not selling batteries - so has no particular axe to grind.

Doesn't mean he's not highly opinionated, or possibly downright wrong, or that the sterling charger manuals may not contain misleading twaddle...

 

240V fridge makes sense in some cases but not always.

Edited June 17, 2018 by smileypete

[Richard10002]

2 hours ago, smileypete said:

Doesn't mean he's not highly opinionated, or possibly downright wrong, or that the sterling charger manuals may not contain misleading twaddle...

 

240V fridge makes sense in some cases but not always.

I bought a Sterling Pro Combi S 2500W inverter charger in 2012 and I recall the advertising guff suggested it had a low quiescent current - I cant remember the precise claim. In real life, measured on my NASA BM2 monitor, the quiescent current is 4A... which is extortionate, and would make it crazy to leave it running 24/7. The power saving mode might improve things, but the thing doesn't switch on for low power charging, like phones and Dyson, so a bit of a faff.

 

The point being - where he says the quiescent current of his latest 1600W combi is 0.9A, I'm not so sure I believe him. I'd also guess that he may have no qualms about exagerating the quiescent currents of his competitors units... although I may be doing him a disservice in this respect.

[WotEver]

7 hours ago, Richard10002 said:

The point being - where he says the quiescent current of his latest 1600W combi is 0.9A, I'm not so sure I believe him. I'd also guess that he may have no qualms about exagerating the quiescent currents of his competitors units... 

His own documentation states 1.2A quiescent, or 0.6A in power save mode. And no, I don’t believe much of what he says either. 

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0649/1945/files/combi.pdf?18179976823646981715

[bizzard]

i reckon more folk on boats get burn't with 12vdc rather than shocks with ac mains voltage. Almost all car fires are 12vdc related.

[Mike Todd]

7 hours ago, Richard10002 said:

I bought a Sterling Pro Combi S 2500W inverter charger in 2012 and I recall the advertising guff suggested it had a low quiescent current - I cant remember the precise claim. In real life, measured on my NASA BM2 monitor, the quiescent current is 4A... which is extortionate, and would make it crazy to leave it running 24/7. The power saving mode might improve things, but the thing doesn't switch on for low power charging, like phones and Dyson, so a bit of a faff.

 

The point being - where he says the quiescent current of his latest 1600W combi is 0.9A, I'm not so sure I believe him. I'd also guess that he may have no qualms about exagerating the quiescent currents of his competitors units... although I may be doing him a disservice in this respect.

We discovered the power saving problem several years ago, just after having the combi fitted (we have something different these days). We were new to that boat at the time. We bought a TV and, as instructed by the person fitting the combi, we used the power saving mode and, whilst other things worked fine, the TV did not. We therefore concluded that the TV was faulty. The store it came from was very good about it and took it back. The replacement had the same effect and it was then that we discovered this problem with the energy saving mode - the TV on its own did not generate sufficient load to turn the mode on. By the time we had sorted all this we were a long way from the original store (which was not the one where we bought it, just another branch of the same national chain) so never admitted that the original may well have been OK after all. In case anyone involved reads this - sorry!