too_tall
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Posts posted by too_tall
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Checking to make sure there are no parasitic loads on the house bank is always a good move if your finding they are not lasting as long as they should. Sometimes a few owner installed devices may have bypassed the shunt for the battery monitor. If one of those has a constant draw ( either due to failure or simply thats how it operates but you cant easily measure it ) then you will get erroneous readings on your battery monitor.
Another thing I have found to be a useful method of maintaining your batteries is to do a big charge early morning, get those batteries up to the absorption state ( 80-100% which is the slow charge phase ) with your alternator/genset and then let the solar do the absorption stage ( which is around 14.2 volts for Lifelines ) upwards to whatever the max voltage the battery is specified for ) as its time consuming but only requires a low current ( although this could easily be 20 amps with a bank the size of yours, plus any loads you have on top ). This will naturally lead to the float stage where the panels and or any other generation source will operate the loads without any drain on the battery - leaving it fully charged.
Another thing to consider is what voltages are you actually getting to? What voltage are you seeing on the bank when you consider it to be "flat", "charged" etc? Are they sensible voltages? Flat is not 10 volts - its 12.2 to be maintaining the State of charge above 50% ( which is what you should never go below. Lifeline consider 11.6 volt to be dead flat. You need to test with no current flow - no charging at all and no draw off at all, rested for at least 30 minutes. You can do this yourself easily.
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Interesting take with a knowledge of the big ships thanks Rigger. It certainly can explain quite few things. Leaves me asking one thing though - how did the naval ship not detect the merchant ship? I would have thought that there would be automated systems that would detect "threats" - which is exactly what the merchant ship was, albeit unintentionally.
Our AIS and radar will alert us of collision or near collision course threats - and surely we don't get to enjoy the same level of tech as the US navy do?!? Surely???
Anyone with knowledge of systems on naval vessels?
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With regard to the relative thrust of same sized internal combustion vrs electric motors, the electric at say, 20hp will have a more consistant ability do deliver 20hp. A 20hp internal combustion motor requires correct propping ( as that 20hp only occurs at a narrow band of the rev range, wereas the electric will be over a wider range ) and to operate at 20hp its operating at full load - and probably will get heating issues if its really at its power output limit. The electric motor at 20hp is operating at its rated power output, and will do so until it runs out of joules to chew on. So whilst you may get away with a 20hp electric outboard, you may well not be able to get away with a 20hp electric.
As has been mentioned several times, the electric options simply have such inferior range, or, they require such a huge amount of battery capacity AND charging that the technology is just not mature enough as of yet.
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He does believe it is the future without a doubt but the futures not here yet.
As with many things, this is very much the best truth regarding electric propulsion ( cars and boats )
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Is the overall concept of electric drive not really something that should be looked at on a new build as opposed to a retrofit? Imagine some form of azimuthing, fully retractable drive system, potentially a pair ( one in bow, one stern to give full control when docking ). Being retractable you get no drag when not requiring thrust. The entire design of the vessel would not have to be compromised by siting, and access, to an engine, fuel tank etc. No stern gland to leak. Sailing optimized rudder and keel etc. The benefits are large. The cost, well, I don't know. I still think that the only way to get long range is some form of liquid fuel at present, as even a very high tech, high capacity battery simply won't motor for hours on end at a reasonable speed, and still have plenty of reserve capacity.
With a retrofit, your trying to make an apple into an orange. Is that the best thing to do?
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I am not going to weigh in on the electric vrs diesel debate here - different people have different wishes and therefore different systems will suit. All I want to add is that in some situations, a well maintained, carefully managed diesel motor can very comfortably run past 20,000 hours, whereas in the exact same installation with poor maintenance, short run times, harder use etc, that same motor could be a very tired motor after 4000 hours. Remember that an average yacht motor does not do that many hours per year, and as a result, maintenance can be casual at best. We have a policy of annual or 250h oil changes - which ever comes first. Rarely does the hour meter dictate that oil should be changed unless there has been a long passage in light winds combined with a skipper who is over doing very little!.
For us, even though we don't tend to do massive hours annually, I would not be changing from a diesel system in the near future, as it would not suit our usage of the yacht, where motor sailing in lighter winds is used to maintain a good VMG. I would seriously consider a diesel/electric system, however, with a diesel genset and an electric drive,( allowing continuous high power propulsion ) but with only average battery capacity - enough to motor 10 or 15 minutes which we often do in or out of a marina, onto or off the mooring, assisting in the retrieval of an anchor, or, when in tighter places when there is insufficient power being generated by the sails to ensure we have comfortable control or the ease of avoiding other craft. This, however, is how we use the yacht. Others may well have quite a different need, and therefore the system would be quite different.
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We may do, we have the screen one, rechargeable. I will check on the plans for it.
They do have a 160 character limit for messages, which is frustrating, and you really want to pair them to a cell phone or tablet to use them for messages as typing on the unit itself is a PITA.
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Hamilton chemicals will carry everything listed in this thread. Unfortunately couriering some of those chemicals is not so easy as they require certain safety measures to be met. The guys at hamchem are pretty good to deal with and the prices are astonishingly low compared to what you get from most other places. The guys at Hamchem will also advise on what safety gear and precautions you realistically need to take when handling the stuff. Remember that some of this stuff is fairly dangerous on its own, and having an accident with it and mixing, say, a bleach with an acid can be very much fatal.
Wheels, is the red coolant not MPG based - as in monopropylene glycol - or what is often food grade coolant? A very sweat but non toxic form of glycol vrs the polyprolyene glycol which is typically used as coolant, is highly toxic and kills dogs, marine life etc.
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That's just plain daylight robbery.
It's about time we had something to take on the costs of these things. An AP is simply not that expensive to make by the manufacturers. They charge what they do because they can, not due to cost of making. There is not a great deal inside the units and most of the "brains" is inside a Chip. There would be lucky to be maybe $80 worth of parts inside. As IT said, the compasses and Rate Gyro are all solid state now. The old compasses were a bit more expensive due to a lot more manual labor involved, but now the Solid state devices are few bucks if even that.
Fully agree, although they are comparatively low volume products which means everyone wants a larger clip of the ticket.
Also, there are R&D, support, warranty, distribution, marketing, administration and many other costs you have to figure in too.
I once spent quite a while discussing true cost vrs per item cost manufacturing cost with the owner of a company who design, build and sell globally, hifi products. His take was that for every dollar spent at a manufacturing level to produce a product, that their company, as a low volume manufacturer of higher end goods, would have spent $3.50 on R&D, admin, marketing etc. Then they need to make a profit. So that $1 manufacturing cost turns into $4.50 plus a nett margin, so say, $6. Then distribution costs, and distribution margins, which are apparently around 250% ( This particular company have distributors as opposed to owning their own distribution network ). So that $6 turns into $15. Then retail gross margins are around 200%. Your $1 manufacturing cost is now $30. And no one is making a huge profit along the way, either.
The profit margin of the company I am making an assumption at here ( that was not elaborated on by the owner ) - and to be honest, I suspect that 33% is not high enough being the numbers are fairly small at that end of the chain.
But wheels, that $80 can easily turn into a much larger number very easily without it lining pockets. I am absolutely not saying that its right, but with everyone wanting to clip the ticket, things get pretty expensive pretty rapidly.
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too tall - yep the rudder sensor was my big innovation I'm quite proud of. It resides in the tillerpilot itself and is just a 10 turn poteniometer driven by the ram via 3d printer belts and pullys. That gives me 0-5v depending of the relative position of the ram (and therefore the position of the rudder). Then it's just a case of measuring the signal back at hard port, hard stbd and neutral, entering these into the code and voila - rudder position.
Awesomely simple and cost effective innovation. 3D printing opens so many opportunities for innovation at a DIY level.
Edit. Or did I misread that as to be you used parts from a 3D printer, not made on a 3d printer?
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Have you used a rudder position sensor to make this work for you? Or have you managed to get a position signal from the linear actuator? ( I guess with a LA you can have it do a full sweep of the range and it can then make a guess at rudder angle based on prior movements of the actuator? ).
It all sounds like a fun project, although the software and tuning could be the part which would make me pull my hair out. I have quite a number of Arduinos running various things on the farms such as monitoring water systems, fencing, etc, We have moved more toward using a Raspberry Pi for most things but often an ardunio is in the mix also.
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Awesome work.
Do you find that the tuning is the difficult part? Making it respond in an orderly fashion would be where I would have thought the problems could arise. damping the motion of the vessel so the actuator is not constantly operating.....
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One thing to point out - with a watermaker, stored water is still essential. Keep your tanks topped up as opposed to only carrying what you need till you next plan on running the engine.
100L of water might sound like a lot, till your method of topping it up fails. Specially if you are weeks away from getting fresh water or being able to implement repairs.
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Do you have access to an IR thermometer? Might be a good way to see if the temps are jumping around or not.
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Agreed erice, long way to motor in seas like that - it is the southern ocean. A yacht without any rig has a very quick motion - supposed to be very uncomfortable. Interesting they are carrying a dingy, upright, in davits, in the sothern ocean. And it is still there, but the rig is not...
Most cruising yachts can't motor more than a few hundred miles...especially when its not flat seas.
Yes, I think that they may well have had other issues going on too - who knows what other damage was done?
But a quick calculation of travel time, should the conditions be reasonable enough to be able to motor in a direction that is going to lead to a 1300Km trip. 700nm. Maybe a travel speed of 3.5kn? Or with no mast and stability, would that be unreasonably high? Of course, a lot less windage now... But thats 200 hours motoring. 8.3 days. at, lets guess around 2.5 - 3 lph? 500 - 700 liters fuel. On a 13m yacht which has already travelled from South Africa. Very, very unlikely to have sufficient fuel to make it 1/2 the distance. I do wonder if my assumption of 3.5kn is a little on the generous side? I have never been in that ocean down there. But I have heard many stories from those who have!.
At least they are not just a statistic.
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Go for the thickest wall section you can afford. The weight penalty is small. The strength benefit is significant.
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Even better than freezing down simple water to create ice, make salted ice. For every 58g of salt added to a liter of water, your going to drop its freezing point around 1.8 degrees centigrade. Use your domestic freezer to freeze this down in a few old coke bottles or similar ( I put in 100g as its easy to mix ). Being that little bit colder, things stay more frozen for longer.
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I would not be wanting to potentially compromise the structure of your hull. The bulkhead is most likely considered vital ( although I am no engineer ).
I would consult with an engineer or at least a well regarded boat builder before considering anything dramatic.
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It looks only half irresponsible. Moderately calm and obviously someone else on the vessel to rescue the monkey when his grip proves ineffectual. And its not night time... Surely the comment should be "whatever could possibly go wrong?"
No doubt NZL1 is looking in taking notes on all the threads that will require the all knowledgeable one's comment.
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We have been discussing the option of moving to a Marina for a few months in winter, the cost would be close to that of buying and installing a diesel heater.
Plus GH are not accepting liveaboards. (Who does these days?)
My reason for asking was because if you had tried using an electric heater and found it sufficient, then a 2.4Kw unit would suffice, if not, a 4Kw unit might be more the requirement.
I have on occasion seen the state of the power demand on marinas when people are tinkering on their vessels in the winter - 300 amps per phase is nothing when people turn on heaters. And that is not in a large marina. Scary stuff!.
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BP, have you ever had your yacht on a marina and used domestic heaters to keep warm whilst on board in the winter? A large domestic fan heater maxes out at 2.4KW. As a guide, on a 45' we find that an electric fan heater on high for about 10 minutes brings the cabin well up to temperature, then we turn it onto low which at worst maintains the temperature even with 3 or 4 degree outside temperature.
Translate a moderately roomy 45' cabin into what you have, and I strongly suspect that whilst you would get a moderate amount of warmth out of a 2KW unit you will be unable to warm the entire volume to a comfortable temperature when you really need it, or, it may take quite some time to achieve the warmth.
Remember that when warming any room ( be it on land or sea ) you firstly warm the air, and then warm the furniture, walls, etc. Only once all the contents of the room are at room temperature are you able to reduce the heating input to what is truly "maintenance" input. That is why when you turn a heater on for 20 minutes and the air temperature feels good, if you turn it off, even in a fairly well insulated house, it cools off fairly rapidly again.
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My 3 year old can act more maturely than some around here!.
Shane is free to do as he pleases. Hopefully he has listened to those who have told him not to try going into Kaikoura. Specially with more recent events effectively turning that area into an uncharted area.
He has to learn somewhere. As Wheels said, its not the unforgiving coast that some can be ( and hopefully Shane realizes that the coasts anywhere, at any time, can be totally unforgiving and treacherous ).
He pottered around the Hauraki Gulf and the Coromandel Peninsula by the looks of his prior posts, probably time to venture a little further outside the comfort zone.
I will agree that his way of communicating can be very difficult to follow - erratic, leaving many questions unanswered and his spelling, punctuation and grammar lead one to the conclusion that education was not one of his strengths. I will also agree that he appears to sometimes leave a little bit of the story out - but I believe that many of us are prone to doing that from time to time.
Give him encouragement and if you feel strongly enough, maybe invest a little of your time directly teaching him as opposed to tearing strips off others online. Not overly productive and not something you would do should you not be hiding behind an anonymous handle.
I remember Wheels learning things on here. Not many ever gave him stick. Most were quite supportive of him. How is Shane that much different?
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Shane, don't assume that a marina with berths that have no vessel in them means spare berths. If those berths are owned by someone, or, leased to someone, they can't just put another vessel into those berths as if the rightful owner or lessee returns to find it full, they will be more than a little unhappy. There are also other protocols which must be followed - I know that most marinas I have been into require significant public liability insurance cover for vessels, in case you run into one or a number of other vessels, or, if your vessel sinks or in some other manner causes a significant pollution problem, for example.
I also know that marinas reserve the right to deny any vessel access if they feel that it may be at risk of sinking/losing control/coming adrift etc. And remember that all those who keep their vessels in the marina will fully support this stance as they don't want to have their vessel damaged or "locked in" by a sunken wreck in one of the fairways!.
If you don't understand what the problem is, ask the marina management as NZL1 suggested. Otherwise, maybe contemplate why unusual things appear to happen to you and consider how you could minimize these things happening. Your posts often leave more questions than are answered.
Garmin infringes Navico copyright
in MarineTalk
Posted
Is that number large enough to seriously hurt Garmin? They are a very large company.