Jon H

Please don’t judge me if this is a naive question but can old diesel be dumped into the tanks at Westhaven that are for disposing of old engine oil?

I suspected so but wanted to check. In the bin it will go then. Cheers guys

Yesterday I rediscovered a fuel can in one of my lockers that has about 10 litres of diesel from a previous owner - it is likely to be at least a couple of years old. It has been stored in a dark locker in a proper fuel container. Would it be ok to use? If not, where should I dispose of it? Thanks

I’m looking at moving my boat to Brooklands Boat Club on the Wairoa River. I have a Carpenter 29 which has a 1.7 draft. Is anyone familiar with access on the different tides? The pile mooring is a few hundred metres downstream of the club. Any info and other local knowledge would be much appreciated cheers Jon

As far as I know the terminals are standard. I’m not sure what the model number means but it is 85 A/H. It was used as a single house battery on a 12v system. here is a link that I think is the same battery although the branding is different - it has all the specs on here https://batterywarehouse.net.nz/shop/us24dc/

This was on a boat that I recently bought. The previous owner said it was 2 years old. I’ve upgraded to a larger battery so this is not needed. Make an offer. Pickup from Westhaven or Titirangi Cheers - Jon

Great, thanks

It is difficult to run new wires to my house battery. However, the battery switch is easily accessible. It is approx 1m from the battery to the switch and the wire is heavy duty. Instead of running wire from the solar controller to the battery can I connect the solar controller to the live side of the battery switch - in effect treating it like a battery terminal? Thanks

Warning heeded. I have returned the Renogy and bought a CTEK D250SE. Cheers

Thanks everyone for sharing their thoughts. I have just ordered a Renogy DCC30S from Burnsco https://www.burnsco.co.nz/catalog/product/view/id/29011/s/dc-battery-charger-reg-renogy-30a/category/2/ It’s an MPPT and DC-DC charger so it should cover my needs of charging both batteries from solar and the alternator. It can charge different profiles of house battery and trickle charge the lead acid starter. Similar to the CTEK but a bit cheaper. And I can remove the exisiting relay that did the parallel charging before (on closer inspection the connectors on the relay had got hot enough to mel

My original plan was to install a dual regulator. It isn’t described as a dc-dc charger but it seems similar in function. You program the house battery type so it can charge it correctly and it also trickle charges the starter battery which must be a lead acid profile. Votronic have had one of these for years and the EPever one I was considering is newer: https://aasolar.co.nz/product/duoracer-series-mppt-dual-battery-solar-charge-controller-10-30a-by-epever/ It is about half the price of a dc-dc charger. Any thoughts on the pros and cons?

In order to future proof for the possibility of dissimilar batteries, does a dc-dc charger (instead of the VSR) also work both ways? My original plan of a dual solar regulator was because they allow the house bank to be specified for the correct charge profile and then trickle charge a lead acid started battery through the 2nd connection. If I were to upgrade the house bank at some stage then the dual regulator allows that to be specified correctly. But if I go the VSR path then both batteries have to be charged with the same profile.

Thank you both for your replies

Hi. I have just bought a Carpenter 29 and I plan to install solar. It currently charges the starter and house batteries (both single lead acid) from the alternator using what appears to be a simple relay that connects them in parallel when the engine is running. I would like to charge both batteries from solar and plan to use a dual MPPT regulator such as the EPever Duoracer https://aasolar.co.nz/product/duoracer-series-mppt-dual-battery-solar-charge-controller-10-30a-by-epever/ Will it cause a problem for the solar when the relay connects the batteries in parallel whilst the engine is ru

Thanks Wheels, that’s good to know. I like the idea of reshaping the key - simple, but I wouldn’t have thought of it.