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Hi all i am looking for a reasonable priced travel power system for my boat has anyone got any leads i might be able to follow up maybe even a friend of a friend how had one in their loft in 1992 any help would be great many thanks

 

If your talking about buying a new system my investigations revealed you have to order through one or other of the popular marine engine suppliers.

 

Dynawatt offer units working in a similar fashion with competitive pricing but more accessible dealers.

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If your talking about buying a new system my investigations revealed you have to order through one or other of the popular marine engine suppliers.

 

Dynawatt offer units working in a similar fashion with competitive pricing but more accessible dealers.

 

It sounds to me as though the OP is looking for a second hand bargain ;)

 

They come up on ebay occasionally, sometimes go cheaply sometimes not. You need to have a reasonable idea what you're looking for though. There have been a few recently offered as 'inverters' without the matching alternator. Technically they may be inverters, but fairly useless without the special alternator. There's a 110Volt version on ebay at the moment, fitting that description.

 

Tim

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It sounds to me as though the OP is looking for a second hand bargain ;)

 

They come up on ebay occasionally, sometimes go cheaply sometimes not. You need to have a reasonable idea what you're looking for though. There have been a few recently offered as 'inverters' without the matching alternator. Technically they may be inverters, but fairly useless without the special alternator. There's a 110Volt version on ebay at the moment, fitting that description.

 

Tim

 

 

'tis fraught with problems. The alternator is basically not a lot more than a 240v three phase jobby. However it does need to be controlled to stop it going over voltage / over current. A lot more difficult than with a "DC alternator" - tat is an alternator with DC output. In short it means it has to be matched to the TravelPower. having got that far the electronics are "mercurial" - not hugely reliable.

 

I put an earlier generation in my boat when I built her. Fab: while it worked (well, not really tended to eat drive belts). But one day it stopped. A very, very nice man, said "I fix" - BUT No parts available, nix, never. Given up waiting; 5 years now.

 

Forget it Big alternator plus ditto invertor and reasonable battery bank. More reliable..

 

If you want to be ........ get in touch with Cox Automotive and ask for the very nice man - he knows all about TravelPower and my SeaPower.

 

The stuffs cheap 'cos it's a bu**er to fix.

 

 

Been there, done it; take heed (you won't)

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'tis fraught with problems. The alternator is basically not a lot more than a 240v three phase jobby. However it does need to be controlled to stop it going over voltage / over current. A lot more difficult than with a "DC alternator" - tat is an alternator with DC output. In short it means it has to be matched to the TravelPower. having got that far the electronics are "mercurial" - not hugely reliable.

 

I put an earlier generation in my boat when I built her. Fab: while it worked (well, not really tended to eat drive belts). But one day it stopped. A very, very nice man, said "I fix" - BUT No parts available, nix, never. Given up waiting; 5 years now.

 

Forget it Big alternator plus ditto invertor and reasonable battery bank. More reliable..

 

If you want to be ........ get in touch with Cox Automotive and ask for the very nice man - he knows all about TravelPower and my SeaPower.

 

The stuffs cheap 'cos it's a bu**er to fix.

 

 

Been there, done it; take heed (you won't)

 

Trouble is, if you want to have a supply equivalent to, say, a 3.5 kW Travelpower installation without draining the batteries you'll need a 300Amp alternator, assuming 12V system, in addition to a 3.5 kW inverter.

 

The Travelpower alternator output is, I assume, rectified to DC & then inverted to give AC at a steady voltage and frequency.

 

Presume you tried http://meps.com/ for your Seapower bits?

 

Tim

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The Travelpower alternator output is, I assume, rectified to DC & then inverted to give AC at a steady voltage and frequency.

 

 

Exactly that. We had one out of a mobile workshop in the office a while ago. The alternator appears to be a standard Bosch alternator modified so that the field coil and stator connections were brought out to connectors (no regulator or diodes). These then go into the travel power box. By playing with the field you could get 300V+ out of it which you could then rectify and switch using FETS (or IGBTs) to give the 240V out. The old Land Rover military alternators (electro mechanical regulator and electric machine the size of a dustbin) used a similar technique to give a high voltage output.

 

Having seen the alternator it did get me wondering if there was a way forward to modify a standard alternator to give a higher output. It would allow the diodes to be cooled better and reduce the heat generated in the machine... (Long think required)

Edited by Chalky
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Hi all i am looking for a reasonable priced travel power system for my boat has anyone got any leads i might be able to follow up maybe even a friend of a friend how had one in their loft in 1992 any help would be great many thanks

 

Hi, I am in the middle of having a 12v DC hybrid inverter generator system built into my boat and the current equipment, which includes a travelpack, will all soon be removed and available for sale.

 

Someone else on this forum has contacted me about the inverter and may be interested in buying that so I need to check with him first but otherwise I will have for sale a complete system including Electrolux Travelpack and Phoenix – Victron multiPlus inverter (2000/120).

 

Please let me know if you are interested.

 

Cheers,

 

Joshua

Edited by Joshua
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Trouble is, if you want to have a supply equivalent to, say, a 3.5 kW Travelpower installation without draining the batteries you'll need a 300Amp alternator, assuming 12V system, in addition to a 3.5 kW inverter.

 

The Travelpower alternator output is, I assume, rectified to DC & then inverted to give AC at a steady voltage and frequency.

 

Presume you tried http://meps.com/ for your Seapower bits?

 

Tim

 

 

Thanks for the link. Cox Automotive said the failure was a chip that was only made to order and in quantity, so he's waiting, and waiting.

My point was if you are using "loadsa leccy" for washing and possibly a tumble dryer then - after sitable calculations - you could get away with lesser alternator power. I've for 140 amps @24V and 500 Ah batteries, so that should cope.

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Travelpower on CN is fantastic. Almost 6 yrs old and used regularly for immersion, washing machine & lesser loads. Fitted by Beta Marine as a standard option on the JD3 engine. Wouldn't be without it, but I can imagine retro fitting one to an engine might be tricky and possibly less successful.

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That's my understanding; as a piece of equipment fitted from new, the price is commensurate with a build and those who have them love them, very fit-and-forget, will run most household appliances

 

But considered as a way of generating 240V on a boat already commissioned, needing an expensive install procedure, the price is prohibitive and there are more cost effective solutions.

 

Tim is right, they occasionally turn up as bargains on ebay as some don't know what they've got but asking on here is a sure fire recipe that the collective eyes are open and ebay prices will rocket.

 

...or maybe the OP is about to put one for auction?

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One downside I can see with any of the Travelpower types of equipment is that they only give you 240v when the engine they are attached to is running at a reasonable speed, great when travelling, but not so good when you are moored up at night and want to catch up on wotever's on the box....

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One downside I can see with any of the Travelpower types of equipment is that they only give you 240v when the engine they are attached to is running at a reasonable speed, great when travelling, but not so good when you are moored up at night and want to catch up on wotever's on the box....

 

Surely you'd run the telly from the batteries? 'At Night' you shouldn't have your engine running anyway unless travelling!

 

Tim

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If you get the pulley ratio right it works fine on tickover. The only time ours grunts a bit is when sticking the microwave on really - then I have to increase the engine revs to about 1200rpm (Probably about 4-5000rpm on the travelpower)

 

At the risk of tempting fate, ours has given us 7 years of trouble free service.

Edited by mickspangle
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If you get the pulley ratio right it works fine on tickover. The only time ours grunts a bit is when sticking the microwave on really - then I have to increase the engine revs to about 1200rpm (Probably about 4-5000rpm on the travelpower)

 

At the risk of tempting fate, ours has given us 7 years of trouble free service.

 

Many year ago, I ran Stockton Top Marina for OwnerShips when they moved from Calcutt Marine BMC 1.8's to cocooned Beta's with Travelpower and bowthrusters as part of the package on boats built for shared owners. We had many problems with both bowthrusters and the travelpower units (even with decent pulley ratios!).

 

The problem was that the boats were fitted with dishwashers and the travelpowers just could not cope on tickover. It was a case of if you wanted to run a dishwasher then you had to have some revs on which really meant being moored up and rather defeated the purpose.

 

**** Edited to add the Travelpowers were ok on tickover running the microwaves

Edited by Allan(nb Albert)
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