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Newbie...Trojan t105


Leon 12

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Ya musnt worry most if not all peeps mean no harm but are as subtle as a flying hammer when it comes to responding. You have been getting good advice and some of the posters realy know their stuff re batteries and in some cases are realy anal about them but its good advice. It will depend on your take on batteries, to me they are precisely to be used as diesel and when they are knackered you bin them and fifteen minutes later have the new ones fitted. I will give you as aliveabord of long standing the BASIC battery facts and these are that wether you spend a million pounds or ten pounds on a battery they will last longer if you never take them to a low state of charge idealy above 12.3 is good and if you charge them every time they drop to such levels and do them at least daily if you are a liveaboard then they will survive well. I never try to go two days so if they have only dropped to say 12.4 by the morning I still will charge them that day, you should also fully charge them but then that alone is another can of worms and so is smartgauge etc etc etc biggrin.png keep on posting and give them some crap back laugh.png

 

Fifteen minutes to fit a set of batteries, next time mine need changing im gonna get you to do it for me. If you charge £50 per hour then that 15 minuets will earn you 4 pints of beer (or possibly only three in Oxford-shire).

 

Just getting emotionally prepared to lift a Trojan takes me almost an hour.biggrin.pngbiggrin.png

 

...............Dave

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Agreed, the Smartgauge is clever because of the algorithms it uses to calculate SoC on dischsrge. Must have taken Gibbo years of research to make those reasonably accurate, and someone had to pay for his time.

 

My main complaint with the Smartgauge is that it looks cheap for its price. It needs a makeover so thst the display and buttons match the asking price.

 

I generally like the look of the Smartguage, especially those lovely red 7 segment LEDS, though I accept the buttons are a bit naff. A lot of boat electronics looks far too space age for my liking, it would be at home on the star ship Enterprise but does not look appropriate in a narrowboat engine room.

 

As soon as the guarantee wears out on the new inverter its going to get a coat of matt black.

 

.................Dave

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Fifteen minutes to fit a set of batteries, next time mine need changing im gonna get you to do it for me. If you charge £50 per hour then that 15 minuets will earn you 4 pints of beer (or possibly only three in Oxford-shire).

 

Just getting emotionally prepared to lift a Trojan takes me almost an hour.biggrin.pngbiggrin.png

 

...............Dave

Fifteen minutes seems quite a while to swap over batteries.

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Fifteen minutes seems quite a while to swap over batteries.

 

 

Well my last swap took about a day. A three hour round trip to Surbiton from Kintbury to buy them, An hour to move each of the four batteries 500yds from the van to the boat, another two hours to make the new interconnects, and the the trip to the scrappy to get rid of the old batts took a further 90 minutes.

 

I too would like to employ Mrsmelly to change mine next time around but I'm happy to pay him £500 an hour for his time...

Given his quotation of 15 minutes for the job :)

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Well my last swap took about a day. A three hour round trip to Surbiton from Kintbury to buy them, An hour to move each of the four batteries 500yds from the van to the boat, another two hours to make the new interconnects, and the the trip to the scrappy to get rid of the old batts took a further 90 minutes.

 

I too would like to employ Mrsmelly to change mine next time around but I'm happy to pay him £500 an hour for his time...

Given his quotation of 15 minutes for the job smile.png

He will probably add the minimum 2 hour call out charge like what boiler fixers do. cheers.gif

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He will probably add the minimum 2 hour call out charge like what boiler fixers do. cheers.gif

 

 

Yes while he is doing it in his 15 minutes which will be best part of a day in Real Time, I should be able to fix about four boilers which should just about pay the £125 I'll expect to be billed tongue.png

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And wait for the requisite hour or so for the voltage to stabilize? I'd rather glance at a meter; that's far more sensible to my mind.

 

 

Yes. Then forget to turn it on again probably!

 

All seem a lot of pishing about to save a one-off cost of £120.

(Less of course, the price of whatever other voltmeter Dave has installed.)

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Yes. Then forget to turn it on again probably!

 

All seem a lot of pishing about to save a one-off cost of £120.

(Less of course, the price of whatever other voltmeter Dave has installed.)

 

Plus of course it might not be just the fridge. There's the TV, the DVD player, the phone charger, the laptop...

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Isn't that why you have that 'big red key-switch' ?

 

So if a boater wants to know the accurate SoC of their batteries you would advocate that the best way to do this is to shut down the central heating, lift the boards on a cruiser stern boat, switch off the isolator, sit in the cold and dark for an hour, read a voltmeter with a torch and then switch it all back on again?

 

Common sense tells me that a superior method would be to take a glance at a digital readout.

 

But you carry on doing it your way, it's your boat.

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But you carry on doing it your way, it's your boat.

 

I don't do it that way - I have 1300Ah of disposable batteries, rarely drop below 80% SoC, have solar, and when out 'cruising' have the engine running for 6 hours + most days (twin 70A alternators)

 

Have not run the battery charger in the last 12 months.

 

I have previously worked on the principal that when the lights regularly go dim, its time to renew the batteries.

 

Three boats ago, I noticed that the electrics were only working when the engine was running - on investigating I noted the date on the two batteries was 9 years previously

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So if a boater wants to know the accurate SoC of their batteries you would advocate that the best way to do this is to shut down the central heating, lift the boards on a cruiser stern boat, switch off the isolator, sit in the cold and dark for an hour, read a voltmeter with a torch and then switch it all back on again?

 

Common sense tells me that a superior method would be to take a glance at a digital readout.

 

But you carry on doing it your way, it's your boat.

No get down there with a hydrometer and measure the SG of the cells

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Why else would Elecsol (possibly the world's largest battery manufacturer) select Smartgauge as its ONLY recommended battery monitor?

 

 

I believe that Elecsol are (or were) one man in a shed just outside Liverpool. The web site showing a huge manufacturing and research centre was just part of a huge confidence trick. Do a search on the www, its quite entertaining.

 

........................Dave

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I believe that Elecsol are (or were) one man in a shed just outside Liverpool. The web site showing a huge manufacturing and research centre was just part of a huge confidence trick. Do a search on the www, its quite entertaining.

 

........................Dave

They made some interesting claims about the performance of their batteries and also warranty claims

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What did you all do before smartgauge mmmmmmmm , voltmeter, hydrometer. I think you were all sucked in by clever marketing. its a volt meter, just a very expensive one. ... Sorry if that grates a bit folks. Invented for his wife..... lightbulb moment.. Oh people will buy this. I do understand the inventer is a very intelligent man. but its flawed in too many ways.

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