Modernising A Broom Crown.

[JawsOrca]

Yes we are back for 2016.. 

A new project, a larger boat.. A norfolk classic.

 

In this thread you will follow the real life story of the modernisation of a Norfolk classic coastal cruiser...

...From a unloved abandoned ornament into a modern (ish) and well loved cruising (ish) boat!

A project which will span years and many thousands of pounds!

 

Get ready for the adventure... Click the "follow" link (top right corner) to get the first updates!

Another haggard repair. 

 MMXVI

 

[BroadScot]

If its anything like ORCA Alan, it will be a rollercoaster ride! Looking forward to a lot of reading. 

Iain

 

[deebee29]

Glad to be in at the start of this one instead of having to read through pages and pages (of very interesting) back story to get up to date.

good luck both of you, looking forward to the adventure

 

[JawsOrca]

Thanks chaps, thankfully on this one, most of its here (and she's been throughly surveyed so no surprised should turn up - Although she is ashore at the moment whilst certain things are done) from what we can see at the moment it's just little random bits to make it a little more comfortable.. So (fingers crossed) it won't be much but I'll try to do something to keep things entertaining.

I'm hoping to team up "Rascal productions" and when we go out for a sea trial we will get the team there to join us and film it lol

I'll do a catch up to start the story as soon as I get a few moments. 

[Hockham Admiral]

Perhaps we'll see your efforts up here in a couple of years, Alan?    

[JawsOrca]

There's no plans at the moment to bring this one up to norfolk. That's Orca's domain, but never say never

[Hockham Admiral]

Oh, I only meant for a quick visit... perhaps to an Oulton or Beccles Meet, Alan?

[JawsOrca]

Yeah could do John. It probably wouldn't be this year though. I'm not aiming on getting a BSC done but I think we can get into oulton without a BSC on a short toll. It maybe easier to bring Orca instead but we will see.. A slow trip up the east coast maybe nice

[LondonRascal]

2 hours ago, JawsOrca said:

I'm hoping to team up "Rascal productions" and when we go out for a sea trial we will get the team there to join us and film it lol

I better get practicing  then and buy some more memory cards! 

[BroadScot]

15 minutes ago, LondonRascal said:

I better get practicing  then and buy some more memory cards! 

Hear hear !

Iain

[LondonRascal]

Food for thought...

I thought I would just give some ‘advice’ (ok opinions) on a few things for you to consider as you will be able to have a blank sheet to a degree with what you fit and how.

I know you are interested in the idea of using a Freezer – and you will note how much ‘marine’ variants cost. 

This is only my view, but I seriously consider 12v power use on a boat as no longer required.  I would much prefer to see all DC power use being run at 24v because this reduces your amperage needs, and in many cases reduces the gauge of wire needed.  I know sometimes what you have (in your case the bow and stern thrusters) will be 12v and so that would not be much helped by the rest of the boat being on a 24v system.  But when you look at everything from electric toilets, bilge pumps, lighting, engine gauges etc they all come in 24v versions these days and often at no more cost than their 12v cousins.

Disclaimer: My Maths is not that great so anyone wishing to correct all this please do so...

Now back to Freezers (or Fridges) if you bought a domestic 240v model you would need to run it off an Inverter, and that should be and a Pure Sign Wave one too.  I’ll say for the sake of this example you’ve stuck with 12v so what you need to do is find out the wattage the unit consumes (I’ve seen a compact one on Amazon that uses 0.45Amps @ 240v). Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B013R42QD4 

This means your running wattage would be 108w but the compressor motor also needs a jolt of about three times its running wattage to start up, usually provided by a hefty Capacitor, this surge is needed for only a fraction of a second but the inverter needs the beans to provide this so just to start the freezer you would want to factor in say 400w which would reduce once running.  A nicer 2,000w pure sign wave inverter therefore would be handy. Even nicer if it incorporated a 70Amp battery charger – so here is the beast – and it is coming in at 22KG. Link:  http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00PYK573G  (You will see these branded as Sterling combi Inverters for £995.00, no kidding!)

Now, you need to know how much DC battery capacity you’ll need to have to run the Freezer.  I would personally have dedicated batteries for this task so in the worse case you lose some food not a bunch of other more vital equipment if the batteries are drained.

So, let’s convert the Freezers AC running Watts to DC Amps. The starting wattage doesn’t last long enough for me to worry about, but we know our AC wattage is 108w because it uses .45Amps at 240v. Divide this by 12 (our DC volts) and multiple the answer by 1.1.  So 108/12x1.1= 9.9 - you would therefore need as good as makes no difference 10Amps DC to run the Freezer.  I understand that you should multiply by 1.1 to take into account the loss an Inverter (or inefficacy) it causes thus actually would require slightly more DC Amps than a ‘pure calculation’ of Watts/Volts = Amps

Now the above is only valid if the Freezer ran for an hour continuously, and in such time drew 10 Amps – so with this in mind  this would equate to 10Ah (Amp Hours). Now this if it were to run for 24 hours that would use rather a lot of amps - to break it down to a nice round figure I will say that the Freezer might run for 20 hours continuously (highly unlikely) which would equate to 456Ah!

Freezers do not run consciously for 20 hours though (if your does you have an issues lol) – some say when calculating power with regard to Fridges and Freezers to work at a 50% run time per 24 hour period. I’ll go along with this for now but I am not so sure this is true. So, our 456Ah would reduce down to a more ‘manageable’ 228Ah being taken from the battery bank.

This is still not making me happy; because the above is like saying that a Freezer will run (on and off) but effectively, none the less still be running for 10 hours in every 24 hours.  I just don’t believe a compact A+  rated appliance would run for 10 hours every 24 hours.

So let’s dig deeper into the specifications of the Freezer and see if this helps matters. I find its Kilowatt Hour use per 24 hours is 0.4 (Kwh/24H): 0.4) or in ‘easy speak’ that is 400 Watts.  This is reference to a 240v supply, but it gives a good idea that in a 24 hour period it would consume 400w if plugged in at home.

With this information we can now find out just how many Amps the Freezer is actually likely to sap out of your batteries in a 24 hour period and if my math is right, that means 36Amps. (400/12x1.1=36)

On the face of matters that appears you could just use a single 110ah Battery and with careful thermostat control run the Freezer off this. Personally, I would opt for two to split the load over them and take into account the 88 – 90% efficiency an Inverter can provide and that you cannot comfortable discharge more than 50% out of a lead acid battery. Your usable capacity with just a single battery is 55Ah (110ah with two).

As most boaters these days wanting  higher wattage  Inverters  (and often chargers too) these are now a given to be on board the modern boat. Why then does the modern boater still need to pay hundreds of pounds for a 12v version of a Fridge or Freezer when you can use cheaper, easily replaceable domestic varieties.

So, it goes to show however, if you had a 24v system, with an Inverter that took 24v in and gave 240v out your amperage need would not be 36Amps each day for the Freezer to run but come down to something like 18Amps which is why I like more volts at DC and keeping the Amps down.

[JawsOrca]

Hi Robin, 

I admit I've scanned this. But looks sound advice.

Sadly for us we don't have a lot of space.. The crown is very very well designed, so much so that inside it's one boat where the internals are on top of each other, so there is no free space for large appliances, if that makes sense! So there really is very little free space to put normal appliances. This is one massive headache and one reason we looked at other boats which would convert to a cruising liveaboard a bit better.  (but sod it there's lots more positives..!).

We do have a little freezer which came with the boat (and I mean little 30 x 30 x 30 cm one!). but this is currently under the electric cooker (which is going too..A LPG one is going in). So I've decided that I don't use the freezer enough so I've sacrificed that to use that space for a nice big (gas) oven  (as I like my cooking) and I never really used a freezer on the last boat anyway. I'm hoping to hide this little freezer in the engine room. Although (somewhat) annoyingly the gap in there is taken up by a genset (which I want to keep) It may just fit. we will see.. Also like you say this boat is (actually) all 24v system (Nav gear is 12v and there's the odd 240v plug) but it doe's have a funky inverter/power charger/gen set integrator thing/thing (which has a mind of it's own) which should do all the magic you mention. (Must admit I've already had a few headaches over finding bloody led light bulbs for 24v.. grr (£10 a bulb!! ) ) 

Also I don't want to leave systems on to just keep the freezer going and I don't want to have to worry about food spoiling when we cruise about/get stuck away without shorepower for long periods (although as you say the inverter then works (which it does at the moment) but evenso.. I'm not a fan of 240v on boats as you know.  But still sound advice for other readers though.  Freezers on boats seems a bit silly to me  

[LondonRascal]

I agree with Freezers on boats being a bit silly, other than for making ice cubes for the crushed ice cocktails

I'm sorry that I cannot think within the box, so I am constantly exploring new avenues and possibilities.

Your LED bulbs seem way way too much money though, when we converted all of BA's G4 light fitments to LED it cost me £17.00 for 15 of the things and all are happily working still.

 

[JawsOrca]

Lol.. it's cold enough for ice cubes as it is 

What is on this boat robin is just what you describe though and it clearly works although we just don't have the space to keep it.. I'd rather have a big oven that's all  

If you can find me MR15 (24v) LED for under a tenner please help!! I'm thinking of changing the fittings (Not sure how easy that is though.. Can we just change the bit the cable goes into?

 

[LondonRascal]

I like spot lights - flush or directional, with an MR16 fitting. That is what BA has:

MR16 fitment: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00Z5PHCII 

Or get 6x of these ready made: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007ZRLQHM 

MR16 Ceramic holders: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00M0H3Y9A 

G4 Cob LED 12v (as used on BA - these are nice as silicon sealed): http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00XKXD2RM  I have contacted the supplier as they may well work at 24v too (so have have contacted seller)

You seem to have something close to this being an MR15. It surly would be easy to change the fitment from an MR15 to an MR16 and use the same COB (Chip On Board)  LED bulbs we have.

As for 24v version of an MR15 Below are two I have found:

G5.3 LED 24v : http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J28U7DQ

£5.98

G5.3 LED 24v : http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00J28TUHA  

£6.98

 

There are SO many more choices as to wattage, type and voltage when looking at G4 (MR16) LED's though so I'd consider the fitment change as mentioned above.

 

 

[FairTmiddlin]

China is the place to go

http://goo.gl/g5ficX

5 for £11.60 post free

[LondonRascal]

Well done - this is pretty cool - a scavenge for LEDs

[FairTmiddlin]

Having run the whole house on LED's from China, for over two years now had one bad one, out of must be 20 in the house

[JawsOrca]

Thanks, sadly I need tomorrow really as it's eating the power  

[ZimbiIV]

Alan.

Congrats on the new money sink.

If you have a spare locker this could be insulated out and made into a freezer I can't find the link at the moment but looked into doing this on Zimbi, total cost was going to be about £700, decided on a small boat the locker was needed.

paul

[Liberty]

For 24v LEDs, I use Searolf.  The products are excellent, and the back-up service without fault.  Honourably changed a navigation light bulb two years out of warrantee, without being asked to.

I put warm white 24v LED strips in all the galley cupboard, from https://www.brightlightz.co.uk  I found them very helpful and able to answer queries.  Tip - order once and then use the 10% discount code which comes in the bag!