Not got a boat, yet

[LadyG]

4 hours ago, Neil2 said:

It's strange isn't it that people say they want to take to the canals to escape the rat race, or for the slower pace of life, and then start ranting about the lack of ruthless efficiency..     

When did I say something like that?

Is answering a business phone now considered ruthless efficiency?

Edited May 15, 2017 by ladygardener

[LadyG]

8 hours ago, WotEver said:

Bear in mind (many don't) that the electricity used daily doesn't actually come from the batteries, it comes from your generation, be that engine/alternator, generator, solar, wind, or shore/charger.  

The more you use on Monday the more you have to generate on Tuesday. Not generating as much as you use is very common and leads to rapid killing of the batteries. 

Yes, they store what you generate

Use less and you have to generate less.  

Yes, I need to keep puting energy in , in fact I think that they should be used and topped up, rather than left to die a long and lingering death. But if I only use a little bit every day, I don't have to top up every day.

Edited May 15, 2017 by ladygardener

[rusty69]

5 hours ago, ladygardener said:

But if I only use a little bit every day, I don't have to top up every day.

You dont have too, bur it may prolong your battery life if you do. 

[mross]

With hindsight, a better survey might have been one with more questions!  But the response is quite impressive.  Anyone who spends a month or less off the boat would be a liveaboard in my eyes.

wrong topic

Edited May 15, 2017 by mross

[Alan de Enfield]

No longer needed.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Alan de Enfield
No longer relevant

[WotEver]

6 hours ago, ladygardener said:

But if I only use a little bit every day, I don't have to top up every day.

You do if you want your batteries to last. Not charging daily is yet another way to shorten your battery life. 

[Sea Dog]

22 hours ago, ladygardener said:

PS why can't I have an electric overblanket, honestly they are fantastic, and can also be used as a throw during the day, they are very robust, and can be washed. 

You can - provided you heed Alan's notes above and can maintain the charge of a reasonably large domestic battery bank. I'd guess (since it works for me) the electrical needs of an underblanket to warm the bed shortly before you get in are easier to meet and, once you're in, you no longer need it to stay toasty. Of course, on a shore supply, you can have your overblanket on Al night - or an underblanket rated for all night use as we have, but never find the need to keep it on even if shore supply is available. 

Anyway, it's up to you how you use your energy budget and as long as you have the battery capacity to still be above 60% when you start recharging (you can go lower, but at the expense of battery life) and the means to get them back to 100% without breaking rules or hacking off neighbours, you can have almost anything the rest of your electrical system will support.

As a broad brush calculation, find out how many watts your blanket uses, divide it by 10 (12 volts rounded down to allow for inverter losses involved in producing the 240 volts the blanket needs) to find how many amps you'll be drawing from your batteries, then multiply it by the number of hours it'll be on. That'll tell you how many amp-hours it'll use which will then, added to the results you get for a similar calculation for everything else you intend to use (ie. a power audit), tell you your daily energy use. If your battery bank is big enough to supply that many amp-hours, your Inverter has the capacity to handle the 240v stuff (high power equipment might need the engine to be running), and your charging system has plenty of capacity to replace more than that, you're golden. 

[Athy]

6 hours ago, ladygardener said:

 

You may not have missed much. Bearing your earlier comments regarding your requirements in mind, both boats are going to be too short for you, and Runcible, with its small portholes, would probably be too dark as well.

[mrsmelly]

1 minute ago, WotEver said:

You do if you want your batteries to last. Not charging daily is yet another way to shorten your battery life. 

As has been proved by mtb.

[MtB]

On 15/05/2017 at 02:15, ladygardener said:

Yes, I need to keep puting energy in , in fact I think that they should be used and topped up, rather than left to die a long and lingering death. But if I only use a little bit every day, I don't have to top up every day.

 

Oh yes you do, as my experience ably demonstrates.

I bought a nice set of good quality batteries big enough to last a week between charges (as I sip energy) and wrecked them in six months by using them this way. There are a couple of long and detailed technical threads here about it. Read them and you'll see how the story unfolded. 

[MtB]

On 15/05/2017 at 08:44, Sea Dog said:

Anyway, it's up to you how you use your energy budget and as long as you have the battery capacity to still be above 60% when you start recharging (you can go lower, but at the expense of battery life)

 

My experience suggests this is old thinking and not actually the case, Mr Sea Dog. For long battery life it iturns out to be necessary to recharge them immediately they have been discharged at all, regardless of the depth of discharge.

The board's battery gurus seem to generally accept the rapid sulphation and loss of performance of my own new Trojanoids was caused by me not recharging them daily. I specified a set big enough to last a week between charges whilst not dropping below 50% (admittedly not the 60% you recommend, but 40%, 50%, 60% seems up for debate), and sulphation began immediately. I looked after them well in every way otherwise, but the need to recharge promptly after any discharge managed to pass me by. 

[rusty69]

11 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

My experience suggests this is old thinking and not actually the case, Mr Sea Dog. For long battery life it iturns out to be necessary to recharge them immediately they have been discharged at all, regardless of the depth of discharge.

Thats probably true in your case, with your battery type, which admittedly is probably the most common type on boats, but not the  only type. 

[Neil2]

What is a Trojanoid?

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

What is a Trojanoid?

A Trojan 'look-alike' / copy / alternative / fake

[Athy]

Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

A Trojan 'look-alike' / copy / alternative / fake

I haven't seen a decent one yet.

(Note boat name on my avatar).

[rusty69]

3 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

What is a Trojanoid?

Its a blend of Trojan and paranoid for people who are overly  obsessive with batteries 

[IanM]

7 hours ago, ladygardener said:

When did I say something like that?

Is answering a business phone now considered ruthless efficiency?

You may actually find that the best regarded people/companies on the canals are the ones most difficult to get hold of due to a whole heap of reasons.

[ditchcrawler]

On 2017-5-13 at 21:42, mrsmelly said:

Yeah would be good to see how many ACTUALY liveaboard and how many think they qualify because they cruise in the summer then hibernate in bricks and mortar for winter. Set a poll up Mike its beyond me.

Where would I fit in. I live in a house some of the time and on a boat some of the time, I cruse every month of the year if its not frozen and have spent Christmas and New Year afloat for the past 10 years at least. 

[MtB]

On 15/05/2017 at 09:47, rusty69 said:

Its a blend of Trojan and paranoid for people who are overly  obsessive with batteries 

 

I'm paranoid. I know I am because my psychiatrist told me I was.

Well ok he didn't actually say so, but I could see that's what he was thinking....

 

[ditchcrawler]

22 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

I bought an electric blanket for the boat but used it twice in 12 months so it got removed, observing the rule that anything on the boat that doesn't get used with a reasonable frequency for what it is in a 12 month period is not earning its boatspace and gets the boot. 

That's a tough one. We have an electric blanket, its only used the first night on board when we go to the boat in the winter time so maybe only 4 times a year. Some things are seasonal. The slow cooker only get used in the summer months but goes back ashore to be used at home in the winter. I have never used the anchor and that's been on-board for 14 years

When I worked for Birdseye Foods we had a new stores manager, the first thing he looked at was stock level and frequency of use. In April one of the mechanical department went to the stores to draw 24 pea harvester cutting knives and there were two. The reason was the new chap had looked at usage and seen that they hadn't been any drawn for 12 months so reduced the stock level to 2. We only overhauled the pea harvesters once a year and used them for a month.

[Tony Brooks]

I am somewhat bemused by this talk of electric blankets. We us hot water bottle to warm the bed with the added advantage that while we heat the kettle we also heat the galley.

[system 4-50]

22 hours ago, system 4-50 said:

I bought an electric blanket for the boat but used it twice in 12 months so it got removed, observing the rule that anything on the boat that doesn't get used with a reasonable frequency for what it is in a 12 month period is not earning its boatspace and gets the boot. 

admitted the reasonable frequency for an anchor could be zero. Also the review period could be different according to the item. But the core message remains, no matter how fond you are of an item, if it is not earning its keep it must go. 

[MtB]

On 15/05/2017 at 10:23, Tony Brooks said:

I am somewhat bemused by this talk of electric blankets. We us hot water bottle to warm the bed with the added advantage that while we heat the kettle we also heat the galley.

 

Me too. I keep my whole boat toasty warm in the first place just like a house, so no need in the first place for electric blankets or hot water bottles.

[Tony Brooks]

Ah but you are allowed to comment because you are a full time livaboard. I on the other hand only visit the boat and hot water bottles make all the difference the first night on board and also when you get soaked to your skin and wind chilled in summer..

[LadyG]

18 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

That's a tough one. We have an electric blanket, its only used the first night on board when we go to the boat in the winter time so maybe only 4 times a year. Some things are seasonal. The slow cooker only get used in the summer months but goes back ashore to be used at home in the winter. I have never used the anchor and that's been on-board for 14 years

When I worked for Birdseye Foods we had a new stores manager, the first thing he looked at was stock level and frequency of use. In April one of the mechanical department went to the stores to draw 24 pea harvester cutting knives and there were two. The reason was the new chap had looked at usage and seen that they hadn't been any drawn for 12 months so reduced the stock level to 2. We only overhauled the pea harvesters once a year and used them for a month.

I only ever bought one overblanket, it was wonderful, and nothing like the traditional underblanket. At the first shiver, it would be on my shopping list.

I would tend to avoid heating a kettle using gas,  as I think the SF stove is dry heat, and I'd want to keep moisture levels down. 

Edited May 15, 2017 by ladygardener