too_tall

IT - great minds obviously think alike erice - I am not knocking Fluke - they are about as good as they come. But you pay a huge premium and no meters like salty conditions, nor getting left out where they get crushed etc. The Uni T meters are not as solid - although not too bad either. Just a fraction of the cost.

IT - I am in NZ at the moment. And if the yacht is damaged, its well insured. Its the residents of the Islands who have lost houses, crops etc I feel for. At worst, we loose a luxury item. For them, its their home and their food supply.

I found the UniT meters from DX.com work just fine - and measure down around .01a fairly accurately ( tested with decent equipment ). They live up to their accuracy of +- 2%. Thats pretty fine for finding almost any issue. They are about $100 landed. Thats pretty cheap in my books. I used to use $1K+ fluke meters, but these are as good and if you get them salty, not exactly a major upset. Getting a Fluke salty, however, is quite upsetting. My sole remaining Fluke meter resides firmly on my workbench beside my scope now and never goes out. I probably have about 10 UniT meters floating ar

I hear that the Tongan's had a miserable time of it - about 15 dwellings demolished and about 20 times that damaged. No fatalities at least. They can't afford this kind of thing poor people. Watching it closely - yacht is in a hole in the ground at Vuda point..

This is why I struggle to understand why so few yachties have DC clamp meters on their vessels. If you have one, it becomes a very simple task to figure out where current is flowing. Without one, it can be hard to find a hidden current sink which may only be nibbling a .25 amp or so, but can be causing all sorts of issues with both battery discharge and if things are not set up quite as well as they should be, electrolysis. Considering the relative low price of a DC clamp meter, it should be considered a vital test tool.

Wheels, the 10Kw figure was an average figure that apparently covers most EV cars. I am trying to find the website which had lots of tests on various EV's and included the average power consumption requirement for mixed driving. Little super minis such as the Mitsi i-MiEv may do better ( although going by Mitsubishis own literature their 16KwH battery will do 100Km in the combined test which points directly at 10Kw to maintain the average speed of 65-70kmh. The average of course included all speeds from 0 through to, I assume, 100kmh. Maybe the 10kw figure for average power requirements i

Assuming 1/2 throttle. That would be saying a 60kw car of equal weight and aerodynamics would be driven at 100% load... I believe that around 10Kw is sufficient to maintain velocity for most cars. Factor in an additional 2Kw for aircon etc, and your at 12Kw. Or, at $.28/KwH around $3.40 hour. But thats not allowing for acceleration. How effective is the braking power regeneration? I have no idea, but that helps the acceleration side become less costly, but if you operated at 50% throttle for 10% of the operation you could say that your adding another 6Kwh to the mix - or your running up to

I would be pretty unlikely to be happy if I saw wheel nuts being tightened to the max a rattle gun with 150psi up its date will do. I actually go to a commercial shop, and they only ever use torque wrenches. In fact, they have a little computer whereby they tap in the rego and it tells them what torque to use. I guess that not a lot do that unfortunately. That being said, no wheel nut has ever bettered me. Not even truck ones. But they get done with a 1" socket set and a big maul....

I hope the owner of this boat is a good sailor and looks after his vital components better than he understands his engine. He sounds likely to have sailing into his berth/onto his mooring as a common feature of his future sailing exploits. That squealing should have been very obvious, corrected very quickly, and really, never have happened. Belt squeal is quite a distinct sound. IT.. spares? What are those? I think we carried 6 spare belts for the alternators to Tonga last year!. @ $90 each, thats a considerable investment. Needed 2 of them though ( poor installation of A series b

Busses are not too badly priced in general....

Wheels, at least Whiti is a nice enough place to be stuck.

We registered all of ours ( 4, we have a couple of small PLB's for hunting also ). Sure, its not vital to get them registered. But, it can make a rescue mission easier if they know the type of person/vessel etc they are seeking. Also being able to get the background information on the person who has set it off could make a big difference to a rescue operation. Is the person experienced in whatever they are doing? Is the person possibly going to need special gear/attention due to a medical condition which could be the reason the epirb was set off in the first place? Also, should the r

Definitely the Weber if you actually enjoy the thought of a well grilled steak or even a roast ( a smallish one, in the baby Q ). The Webers are one of the best BBQ's available - I used to own a larger Q series and have now moved to a Broil King, but the Weber really did the job very well. I would strongly suggest going to a proper Weber dealer as they may well have accessories which will allow you to mount it well. Keeps cooking smells out of the cabin, no grease inside, not all that many negatives.

FC's can be great ( que Wheels ) But they do not hold value well. Which means second hand they can be a truly great buy. Erice does have a valid point - those shackles don't appear to be the best there. They look, to my untrained eye, like simple galv unrated shackles, which would mean they will pull apart with not a hell of a load on them. Probably adequate for a small mizzen, but does this indicate the general state of the yacht? Not my area of strength, but looking through the photos I picked on that before noticing Erice had done so already. Get someone experienced to look ov

Indeed, although from the JD buyout time they were always painted in the yellow and green color scheme and called John Deere - Lanz as opposed to straight Lanz. I have one of the green and yellow ones sitting in a shed, but thats a 2 cylinder version ( as were all new models once JD took over I believe ). Also have an older D60 series, but thats going to be a long term project......

To be honest, one of the worst companies we have ever had the displeasure of dealing with was based in Northland. But, they were the only one of quite a number around Opua who let us down at all, the rest were very good to deal with, and stuck to their pricing. ( A couple came back to me to discuss that the work involved was more significant than they originally quoted, but thats fine - they talked to me about it so got paid for the extra.). The poor performers are everywhere, as are the exceptionally good ones. It pays to know some local yachties if working outside your home port, because

I remember a guy once telling me that asking for work to be done without a quote was like asking to be f'd up the arse. Its kinda true.

In the earlier days of tractors, there were up to 10 liter, single cylinder diesel tractors such as the Lanz Bulldogs and Field Marshals. Blow great smoke rings!.

Look at what the base engines are. Kubota engines are superb engines, and as long as the marinization is done well the brand comes somewhat second. Kubota parts are available via CB norwood's except for marine specific parts. I would choose more based on the dealer - if you know the dealer will stand behind the product, that is worth more than a few thousand. Of course, being able to drop a motor straight in is not a bad idea either...

A huge problem is with the marine industries inability to COMMUNICATE when things are not going to plan. We have had our fair share of terrible service ( always from engineering/electrical retailers/specialists for some reason ). We have had some great service from people, and they have always made a point of communicating when things are not going as they had originally quoted. It happens in any industry. But I simply refuse to pay more than 5% above a quoted price without consultation prior to the additional work being carried out. I also make it clear that this is the case. If I am quo

Often a manufacturer of engines will offer their own branded oil - Sure, its made by one of the big companies and is simply a re-branded product they already sell. But it is generally a very decent quality oil and has offered the manufacturer very low warranty claims. I use John Deere's Powerguard oil - and have tractors which have run it for 19,000 hours with only maintenance on the engine as opposed to repairs. Those same motors get the oil changed annually only. We also run that in the yacht ( Perkins 4-154 ). Buying oil in 200L drums makes it cheap, but you do need some significant sump ca

Caustic removes the fatty residue from the milk, chlorine removes proteins, and the acidic solution ( more often a combination of several acids, and not often HCl in my experience ) is there as a mineral deposit remover and also to drop the pH to bugger all to make it a very inhospitable place for bugs to live. Added to the acid mixture are surfactants etc. Not sure how well this mixture would clean the inside of a water tank, but I suspect that the chlorine and caustic solution would do pretty well if left to soak a wee while. We use 10g caustic soda and 10mls Sodium Hypochlorite per

We would never even remotely class ourselves as anything other than cruisers, but constantly using our AP, according to the averaging current transformer we averaged 5.8 amps between Tauranga and Fiji this year. If that 105w fuel cell is feeding a modest sized battery it would very comfortably manage to average 6 amps. a 72w would be right at its limit. In fact, a 105w would do everything fairly comfortably other than refrigeration. Only need a start battery and maybe a smallish Lithium "house" battery.

Power generation is there anyway - towed gen weighs several KG, alternator weight several KG, solar panels weigh next to nothing, batteries would be there still AP or not - going from wind vane to AP we did not have to upgrade anything at all in the generation or storage systems. The towed gen is very useful in that if the AP is working harder it tends to be working harder...

A full Simrad system weighs about 20kg incl ram and pump. Cant see how your tiller pilot weighs -130kg. And tiller pilots do not deal with difficult conditions very well in my experience.