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Advice sought re. battery replacement


Froggy

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24 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

Agreed, but could change depending upon what is plugged into your sockets.  For example some old SMPS will have capacitors between phase and earth and between neutral and earth to help soak up hf noise, so there is possibly a 'weak' reference to earth, so you might experience a bit of a shock if you touch things.   As they say on kids TV don't try this at home.

Indeed. My example was intended to explain the principle, not suggest a path for experimentation ;)

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5 minutes ago, WotEver said:

Precisely so. 

 

4 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

Yes the RCD route is considered safer than a floating supply.  As briefly discussed above a floating supply is very safe but might with certain unusual appliance fault conditions be less safe than you would like.  As the people that write the regs have no control as to what you will plug into your system, they tend to specify considering 'worst case'.  As RCD's are now affordable and reliable the regs require them for new builds.  It's all about risk management.  As the nice lady from Victron told you, in the real world she has not heard of anyone being harmed by a floating system.  It is also a balance between cost, reliability and risk.  So a few years back the regs required a 10mA RCD in certain high risk locations on a boat, but I think that has now been dropped and 30mA is ok.  -  10mA will suffer from nuisance trips etc. far more so than 30mA.

Ok, fair enough, but at least i'm a little more reassured about our system being reasonably safe!

1 minute ago, WotEver said:

Yes, because it has shore power coming into it. 

D'oh! Yeah, of course! :wacko:

Well you've both been very helpful but nobody has replied re retro-adding an 'inverter' tag to this thread yet. All the information discussed might be helpful to others in the future.

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4 minutes ago, Froggy said:

Well you've both been very helpful but nobody has replied re retro-adding an 'inverter' tag to this thread yet. All the information discussed might be helpful to others in the future.

We've had many threads of a similar vein in the past and we're likely to have many more. A search will always find it but any future query is likely to be subtly different anyway. 

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Just now, WotEver said:

We've had many threads of a similar vein in the past and we're likely to have many more. A search will always find it but any future query is likely to be subtly different anyway. 

Ok. I'm just sending a quick query off to JD Narrowboats. If they reply and shed any further light on things i'll feed back on this thread.

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25 minutes ago, Froggy said:

Ok. I'm just sending a quick query off to JD Narrowboats. If they reply and shed any further light on things i'll feed back on this thread.

I doubt if they will say much more than - the inverter was fitted in compliance with the regs in force at the time and following normal industry practice.  Given that the Victron unit fitted can not by design have N&E bonded, then the fitting method seems to be reasonable.

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36 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

I doubt if they will say much more than - the inverter was fitted in compliance with the regs in force at the time and following normal industry practice.  Given that the Victron unit fitted can not by design have N&E bonded, then the fitting method seems to be reasonable.

JD Narrowboats, from what I've read elsewhere on the forum, are quite well respected, as is the hull builder, Gary Gorton. It's nice to know that JD are still going, and i note from their website that they now build the hulls too.

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On 21/04/2017 at 17:34, Richard10002 said:

My hull is a Gary Gorton from 2001. Surveyor commented very favourably on it and said it was recognisable by the heart shaped holes at the top of the rudder and at the bottom of the gas locker in the bow.

Yes, that's exactly what our surveyor told us.  :)

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On 21/04/2017 at 14:37, Froggy said:

JD Narrowboats, from what I've read elsewhere on the forum, are quite well respected, as is the hull builder, Gary Gorton. It's nice to know that JD are still going, and i note from their website that they now build the hulls too.

Just to clarify this: the company that fitted our boat was actually JD Boat Services (Gailey), and NOT JD Narrowboats of Shardlow, which appears to be a completely different company. I learned this when i contacted the latter company and they got back to me saying that the hull couldn't possibly be theirs because they hadn't been gong that long! I then contacted JD Boat Services, and so far they haven't got back to me. It's possible that, although they still have a live website, they are no longer in business. JD Narrowboats build hulls and also do fitouts; JD Boat Services only do the latter.

Edited by Froggy
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JD of Shardlow are quite recognisable by the front of the boat, virtually all have a single window and no doors.

They are flying out at present, some as sailaways, some fitted out locally and others being fitted out below Fradley.

Good luck to them. At least they are a decent shape.

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10 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I think you will find they are,

Apart from the fact that they haven't got back to me so far, i did find it rather curious that, as boat fitters, their website shows mainly outside shots of boats they have worked on and very little illustration of their own work. The website also seems dated and photographs can't be shown in expanded view or as a slideshow, so it had me thinking that it might be an archived website. The quality of work on our boat, despite years of neglect by previous owners, was obviously of a reasonably high standard when originally commissioned, and some considerable thought seems to have gone into the design and execution of the layout (notwithstanding the fact that there aren't enough 240v sockets, including none in the aft room which doubles as a guest bedroom, yet one in the tiny corridor between it and the main bedroom that is partitioned by doors at both ends and gives access to the bathroom, suggesting that there was some failure to accurately co-ordinate the wiring circuit with the construction of the bulkheads! In fact there isn't a socket in the main bedroom either, but there's one just on the other side of the door that leads to the galley and saloon at the front of the boat :wacko: ).

Edited by Froggy
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2 minutes ago, Froggy said:

Apart from the fact that they haven't got back to me so far, i did find it rather curious that, as boat fitters, their website shows mainly outside shots of boats they have worked on and very little illustration of their own work. The website also seems dated and photographs can't be shown in expanded view or as a slideshow, so it had me thinking that it might be an archived website. The quality of work on our boat, despite years of neglect by previous owners, was obviously of a reasonably high standard when originally commissioned, and some considerable thought seems to have gone into the design and execution of the layout (notwithstanding the fact that there aren't enough 240v sockets, including none in the aft room which doubles as a guest bedroom, yet one in the tiny corridor between it and the main bedroom that is partitioned by doors at both ends and gives access to the bathroom, suggesting that there was some failure to accurately co-ordinate the wiring circuit with the construction of the bulkheads! In fact there isn't a socket in the main bedroom either, but there's one just on the other side of the door that leads to the galley and saloon at the front of the boat :wacko: ).

How old is the boat? maybe its what the first owner specified. I have two friends who once owned JD boats and were very pleased with them.

 

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1 hour ago, ditchcrawler said:

How old is the boat? maybe its what the first owner specified. I have two friends who once owned JD boats and were very pleased with them.

 

It's a 1997 build. It would be curious if the original owner wanted that electrical layout, where is the logic in having a socket in a small corridor between two rooms and another on the wrong side of the bedroom door? More likely imo that there was either an error of measurement or the owner changed their requirements with regard to bulkheads part-way through the work being done. It's the only criticism i can make about what's left of the original layout, which has been modified over time here and there such as bench seats being ripped out in the saloon to make it more open plan (JD supplied a detailed boat manual, so we can see the original layout from enclosed diagrams and descriptions). I'm certainly not displeased with what we bought except all the hidden costs that are due to neglect rather than design.

Just to make sure that we're not talking at odds, i am talking about JD Boat Services and not JD Narrowboats.

Edited by Froggy
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  • 2 weeks later...

Just a quick update: JD Boat Services (Gailey), the original fitters of our boat, never did answer my query. I'm a bit disappointed with this although maybe they are no longer operating since their website does look rather dated. Anyhow, i think the thread has probably run its course: all my queries regarding battery replacement have been answered, we then wandered into discussion of inverters and electrical safety, and i've learned a lot that will be very useful going forward (i've already resolved to returning to 4 Trojans next time the batteries need replacing if i can persuade my other half that this is the best overall option and we've actually still got the boat at this point). Thanks once again to all those who have contributed to this thread.

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