bigal.nz

Was just about to but some of this stuff. Guess I won't bother.

What IT said is pretty spot on. If you change chemistry make sure your sources can be programmed accordingly. Also make sure the battery manufacturer publishes all the technical specifications so you can program charger controllers properly.

That looks like a pretty neat ride!!! Bet the language was colorful for the guy on the trapeze wire.

Yess!!! I did it, first swim today at Motuhie. It was cold until I started diving to clean the barnacles off the prop then I forgot about it PS: Saw a very large Tuatara at Motuhie. Amazing site to behold. That island really is coming along nicely.

IT - nice. Do many people take part? Bon Accord?

So the weather is looking OK. Who is heading out this weekend? Was thinking of Oneroa to watch the game, but I imagine the bay is going to be very very busy. Water is still a little chilly! AG

I ended up ordering one of the face sheilds that the fisho's seem to wear a lot. I googled it and now get targeted with advertising from safishing.com in everything. Hopefully it will stop since I brought one Might have to get me one of those hats too IT.

I have worked along side the Westpac crew a few years back. They do a great job. Jumping out of even a twin engine helicopter into that sea takes big balls. You need faith in the winch, faith in the machine, faith in the pilot. The Orion crew is also pretty stellar. There response time is under 2 hours - which when you think about the crew having to be paged etc (especially in Auckland traffic etc) is also pretty impressive. The way they get the life raft so close in those conditions takes some skill.

Hi All, With summer (hopefully) just around the corner I was wondering what sort of protection from the elements people use? I find that no matter how much sun screen I put on my face, and I wear a hat, I still have a slight redness slightly burnt sensation. I wonder if it isn't windburn, and maybe once of those face shield thingys might help? What do you use? Al

I cant claim to use our drill as aggressively as you but so far happy with the Milwaukee M12, but wish I had got the M18. Brought it last time in the USA at $99USD from home depot. The charger was easy to convert to 240V and got two batteries and impact driver as well. The batteries charge very quickly.

Here is a very helpful reply from Ann-Marie at Yandina (who designed and made the combiners for West Marine). It may be helpful for others in future so reposting here: 1. What is the point of the external ON/OFF switch between the two poles of the VSR? The on/off override switch on Yandina and West Marine brand Combiners can be used to force the Combiner ON which connects the batteries together for emergency starting if the starting battery is low. It will act like jumper cable and after a few minutes allow the engine to be started. The on/off override switch can also be used to force t

Hi, I noticed today that my West Marine Battery Combiner (model 308280) was switching on and off about every 60 seconds. The switching on and off was happening on 13.3v (combine) and strangely seemed to be disconnecting at 14.1v. Thats odd. I confirmed this with my Victron Smart Solar monitor and the battery voltage graph. The engine was not running and the only charging source at this point was solar. I cant explain why this might be happen, even more explainable was that, at the time I had the ON/OFF switch in the photo set to OFF - so it shouldn't have been doing any com

I see that Victron are working on making the Smart Solar Controllers (SC) talk to the Battery Monitor Shunt, so that the SC will know whats going into the batteries (output minus any loads). This is a great step forward, but how will it not be tricked by the output of any other charging sources?

PPS: Its also got built in a DDNS service and VPN among other things, very handy if you want to monitor remote systems on your boat. Its a bit nerdy to try to set one up, but if you buy from Go Wireless NZ the support is great.

We have got a Mikrotik router on the boat which IIRC takes 24v and has a sim card slot. They are about $180. As you say it's no better service than hotspot but it means that all the other boat devices actually have a permanent AP to connect to. I like 2 degrees for data as they have carry over and you can share your handset data with a second sim (is in the Mikrotik) There are some flash 4G marine antennas arrive but I have not tried them.

Yes good point. That's why I have decided I will only ever buy batteries from manufacturers who publish full specs. I had reason to question my setup as I dropped a cell.

Nobody else jumping in - maybe they all leave it on factory defaults. Anyway I have programmed my Balmar per Rod Collins instructions and have the exact Batt specs from East Penn. Learnt a lot in the process and spent a few $$ on upgrades to other parts of the charging system - today the Batteries were being kept in float by solar at 13.5 which is what East Penn recommend for float. Looking to add a Pi running Venus OS now so I can monitor the lot from home. Not an issue OFC if your boat is sitting off your balcony!!!

Auckland Council GIS website might help you here - you can select several recent years of imagery and you will be able to see your mooring movement over that time. The resolution is higher the Google too. (Latest image 2017)

So after a lot of reading articles like this : https://marinehowto.com/programming-a-battery-monitor/ (which is great by the way) who does any of the following: 1. Who here has taken the time to measure actual Capacity? 2. Who thinks that there bank is being kept full by solar? 3. Who has the actual Peukert factory for there monitor? 4. If on a mooring do you regularly ensure full SoC is reached by using a workshop charger? 5. What percentage of Ah do you use for tail current to determine charged - finish float cycle? (I know this is sometimes a published spec - but Rod Collins deviat

Just got a BMV712 up and running today. +1 the logging. I love it.

We have just been through it. Got gas fitter to replace all the hose with the plastic coated cope piping so boat meets ASNZ5601.2. Also had gas detectors fitted along with the new solenoid controller. Added drain for the gas locker. Price was not too bad as we did a lot of the prep work our selves and had the gas fitter do the fiddly bits and issue cert.

Yes - that sounds about right we have a Balmar 90 Amp alternator. Plenty of dust. I intend to derate it.

Is AGM or GEL better for Yachts?

Damn you auto correct. Dust I meant.

For the benefit of anyone in this situation in future, I think the failure was down to a number of thigs: 1. First and foremost the Alternator regular for the house we set to FDL (Flooded Deep Cell) - changed to GEL. 2. The isolation which we turned off actually isolated the battery from he charging bus bar / solar 3. Being next to engine compartment (heat) doesnt help 4. Solar controllers (Genasu Gv10 also dont have a mode for GEL Hope it helps out someone in future.