Trixie (Rascal's Fleet)

[Vaughan]

A couple of points if I may -

Nanni engines come with the Hurth gearbox as standard, unless you specify something else. Sounds as though this engine was bought direct from their factory in France. The Hurth is quite a good box although it goes into gear with a bit of a bang, so you have to check on the flywheel thrust plate every few years. They are a purely mechanical box which is splash lubricated, so they have no oil pump. They don't heat up their oil, so no need of a cooler.

With electrics, if you find that the BSS doesn't cover it very well, then use the ERCD regs, category D for inland waterways. All new boats have to be built to these regs, so may as well follow them for maintenance. They have a very comprehensive section on the installation of 240 volts.

[Meantime]

10 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

I am not saying this sort of thing is needed on a small 24ft river boat, but I'd like to keep my AC mains wire separate completely from my DC wire. I see no reason why with the correct gauge wire, a  modest load on the AC side would cause it too hot especially when you see in so many commercial applications mains wiring within conduit serving several wall sockets around a room. So forgive my naivety but why would the same be a no no on a boat? And why should cable ever chaff if it is correctly put in and free from moment. 

There are actually very good reasons for keeping AC and DC wiring completely separate. When AC cables are run parallel to each other or other cables, they will induce a voltage into other cables around them. I have worked on lighting rings and even when isolated have found them to have around 50V on them. No real current behind it but it still can still make the finger tingle a little. This was because the mains ring was run parallel to the lighting cables for some distance.

As Grendel said, running in a conduit is not a no no, but the cable must be correctly sized for running in an enclosed space. My very rough rule of thumb regardless of the fact that trailing leads are 1.5mm, would be to use minimum 1.5mm for lights and 2.5mm for sockets. I'm talking domestic house installation there, but would carry the same over to boats. 

[LondonRascal]

On 25/07/2018 at 08:49, EastCoastIPA said:

My very rough rule of thumb regardless of the fact that trailing leads are 1.5mm, would be to use minimum 1.5mm for lights and 2.5mm for sockets. I'm talking domestic house installation there, but would carry the same over to boats. 

Thanks for the above, I think the fact I have order 4mm should give me plenty of added capacity then be it in conduit or not, and way over the current installed cable gauge.

[LondonRascal]

A lot of time has been spent recently going over the last push of works to be undertaken on Trixie - some things have gone to the 'that is not actually needed after all pile' and just as the list of works was getting smaller, I have managed to find a bunch more - some of which is a result of late night Amazon shopping two months ago that I had forgotten about but now a car load of items has made its way onboard the boat reminding me.

This brings the outstanding items being:

• To investigate why the Morse lever can be stiff when engaging forward and astern gears.
• To service  the engine, with new oil and fuel filter, an impeller, new alternator belt together with draining the coolant and replacing with fresh. 
• Under high RPM and load (over 2,100RPM - engine will rev to a maximum of 2,800RPM in gear) the engine temperature will go above 95c. This tells me something is amiss with the raw water cooling circuit. I am therefore have the heat exchanger 'tube stack' removed and de-scaled as well as the raw water cooling circuit flushed with suiteable de-scalar too and with the new Impeller and already in place new Vetus 'clear type' weed strainer will hopefully address this issue. 
• Separate to the above is the fact I will lose 150ml to 200ml of coolant after a full day's engine run - there is no steam from the exhaust so I don't think it is ahead gasket going,  (or I am hoping it is not) but will have the 'engine bod' get to work on looking at this and trying to figure what is going on. 
• Inspect the stern gland and shaft generally and re-fill with grease.
• Clean bilge area and inspect float switch operation and bilge pump - replace if required. 
• Replace the pressure release valve on the domestic hot water side which is weeping with a new valve of the correct pressure rating.
• Replace the virtually new domestic water pump (Jabsco Par Max 2.9 delivering 11 litres per minute with a cut off pressure of 25Psi) with what was originally there (Johnson Aqua Jet WPS 3.5). This will deliver 13 litres per minute at 41Psi which will make showering better and future proof me for installing an electric toilet with fresh water connection for the flush. If anyone may want a virtually unused Jabsco Par Max freshwater pump as described above, please send me a PM and it can be yours for nothing. 
• Inspect the steering system, believed to be cable operated as there is some play in it - I was going to covert to Hydraulic for smooth operation, but am going for simplicity and preventative maintenance now. 
• To fit five new large dome lights with Teak bases. These should just about cover up the existing 'Square D' fluorescent light fittings and reduce my amperage use to a trickle as the new lights will be fitted with LED bulbs. New LED bulkhead light for the heads. 
• Replace wiring in Mast to Anchor Light and Forward Steaming light. Also replace the deck connection, that will be the second one I bought the first left behind in a Cab in Norwich! 
• Fit a new 1,500w Inverter which will draw off three new domestic batteries. The Inverter has a remote control that can be fitted in the cabin. I am considering replacing the aged 12v fridge with a 240v version running off the Inverter. Having read into this the inefficiency one may suffer in this sort of set up verses cost means I could afford almost 5 new batteries for the cost saving of an A++ rated 240v fridge verses a Marine 12v  version. And because they consume less amps on 240v than a 12v fridge does, the bit you lose out in converting the DC to AC at the Inverter is smaller than you might think - about 1.8Amps considering my current fridge consumes over 7amps when running it is hardly efficient. 
• Replace all wiring to wind screen wipers and deck fittings - since I lowered the screens to get under the bridges at Yarmouth my wipers have stopped working, and the 'crispy' feel of the wire insulation suggests something has either been snapped or pulled out a connection somewhere. 
• Fit two weather proof USB charging sockets to the helm. 
• Have a new darker red and harder wearing boot line on the boat. Also replace the bright red stripe with a darker red stripe to better match the canopy colour. 
• New seating - re-shaped foam and upholstery 
• New carpeting (Stalham has a lovely little carpet shop that will do marine carpet templates, and whipping) I am going to go for a bathroom type carpet with a an added rubber underlay to assist with sound deadening for the cockpit and a more luxurious thick pile carpet for the interior. Biggest change once that is done will be a new no shoes allowed inside the boat rule being brought in lol.

 

 

 

[BrundallNavy]

Did you sort out what boiled your original batteries. ?   

[LondonRascal]

44 minutes ago, brundallNavy said:

Did you sort out what boiled your original batteries. ?   

Yes a number of things contributed to this,  and am awaiting a full report.

Suffice to say there was an issue with the battery charger being wrongly wired to begin with - (probably being a DIY install by one of the previous owners)  this would not effect the charging output on the DC side, but was found to have some pretty scary wiring to the mains, with wrong fuses used and when under high loads charging the batteries this lead to some melting of the insulation on the wires at the charger but with the incorrect fuse - it of course continued merrily away unchecked.

My Alternator regulator was also not functioning as it should,  having suffered a partial failure. The Alternator itself was okay (brushes and power generation) so that did not need to be replaced but I now have a new smart regulator from Victron that has taken over matters and will see the battery bank as if one big battery and so bring it all up to voltage, sensing it as it goes and easing off the input voltage and amps as it gets closer to full.

From conversations on the phone, it seems that the since wiring leading from the Alternator to the DC distribution panel voltage meter  in the cabin had been cut,  this left my domestic batteries effectively gaining no direct charge from my Alternator as this disrupted the charging circuit if you will.  -Some current would make it into them via the cranking battery which was directly wired from the Alternator and since my cranking battery was not isolated from my domestics, some 'leaked' back into my domestics. I appear to have been able to discharge all batteries if I wanted to through domestic use, not a good set up.  Since the Alternator only 'saw' the cranking battery and once it was full (which took a short time) very little current was going anywhere else but the power it was getting was unregulated so, separately this meant I was slowly frying my cranking battery.

The above of course would not have 'killed' my domestic batteries though, what was doing that was the fact they were being run very low during usual use - and not getting hardly any re-charge until I plugged in to shore power. At this point the shore powered charger was wired on the DC correctly, but set to the wrong program - the batteries were flooded Lead Acid but the battery charger was was set to a user set program causing it to be pumping in over 15v at 20Amps, not at all good for Lead Acid to be given this kinda of input for hours on end.

But what added to this was the charger would firstly see the first battery (cranking) was at full voltage but because the domestics were pulling through amperages it was acting as if there was a dead cell - the smart battery charger therefore never shut off to a float voltage because it would never get to the 'full' capacity, so on it went pumping in higher voltages.  Slowly I was not only running my domestics down way below 50% S.O.D but my alternator was killing my cranking battery, which in turn was being pummelled by the shore charger which was leaking voltage into my domestics through the wrong path. It was a total mess someone like myself would not have seen but tracking where wires went and so on it became obvious to someone in the know what was wrong and how to put it right.

I had no idea any of that was going on initially,  because the battery monitor was not wired with all the negative returns going through its shunt, so effectively I got rouge voltages and amperages being shown - which is what lead me to wonder something was not right - like  how come after a night would my Alternator only being shown to be putting out about 8Amps back into my batteries? Also, when I was plugged into shore power why did the reading on the battery charger miss match so much to the reading on the battery monitor? And if I used my Bow Thruster why would my domestic batteries record an 85Amp discharge when it was meant to be only coming off my cranking battery.

Anyway, it has taken a lot of time and cost but all is said to be well and working as it should be, the charger configured to the new sealed lead acid batteries, and doing its thing the alternator doing its thing and new wiring having gone in, new fuses where required so nothing like this should happen again. Fingers crossed as I have not been up to the boat myself recently, but I am confident that it is sorted, phew!

 

[grendel]

9 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

Inspect the steering system, believed to be cable operated as there is some play in it - I was going to covert to Hydraulic for smooth operation, but am going for simplicity and preventative maintenance now.

if its cable operated, check the condition of the cable at the pulleys, to adjust the play there should be a turnbuckle somewhere to take up any slack.

[ZimbiIV]

Robin,

If the morse is stiff or difficult to engage, just change the cable, a small cost considering the updates you are doing.

paul

[Vaughan]

Hello Robin,

You have a Hurth gearbox which is purely mechanical and when you move the lever, the gear change is made by a strong spring which throws the clutch plate into either ahead or astern.

First thing to do, with the engine stopped, is to remove the cable from the little lever on the gearbox and work the lever manually. This should be easy to do with one hand but it will go into gear with with a clunk. 

If this is stiff and hard to change then you need to get the gearbox spring adjusted by the boatyard and this might mean taking the gearbox off. In which case, check the flywheel thrust plate while you are at it!

If the gearbox lever is free and the Morse control lever is also free when disconnected, then you simply need to adjust the cable so that it is not under tension, when in the neutral position. This is perhaps best done by your boatyard but it is an easy job.

Morse cables very rarely become stiff of their own accord. They usually break because they have been installed so that they are still under tension when in the neutral position.

[LondonRascal]

Thanks for the help above, but I am pretty sure it is not the cables but the Morse head itself. The reason I say this, is that as you go to move it forward or astern (before any movement is noticed  at the gearbox) you can 'feel' in the throttle arm a sort of harshness as if almsot two surfaces are touching each other and grating agaisnt each other. Once over that initial feeling as the throttle arm continues in its travel and engages gear and it goes in pretty smoothly either way. It is really not a struggle to get it in or out of gear it just would make life easier if it was nice and smooth.

The head in question is a side mounted type and being in an aft cabin type boat is exposed more to the elements and damp etc. The Chrome on the arm is pitted badly too which is a shame so it may just be the internal mechanism has suffered and needs some grease. 

 

[Vaughan]

Still a good idea to disconnect the gearbox end of the cable and then see if makes the Morse control freer. Diagnosis by elimination!

The side mount controls have their workings completely exposed inside the dashboard, so it could be that one of the arms is catching on something else, such as wiring or piping. This can often happen.

Grease is good, too!

[LondonRascal]

Gearing up..

Vaughan, you will be pleased to not that Charlie has had a look at the gear cable and after a bit of a faff about with the securing bolt, got the gear cable off the gear box. The arm on the gear box was found to be very smooth and easy to operate, the Morse controller however still had the initial 'grating' feeling so I suspect this will be helped with some lubrication. I personally find it okay to shift, it is my Mum who has some difficulty at times with the shifting ahead and astern.

Errors and solutions..

I had about two months back now gone on one of my ordering sprees with Amazon. I got a a number of nice Brass lights, an LED bulkhead lamp, an Inverter, 10m of 4mm 3 core cable and a Pure Sign Wave 1,500w Inverter. This duly arrived at my parents place and they kept it until a week ago when visited the boat and left it onboard for me.

Today I went though it all and found most of the items were not what I had ordered. I then went on to my account and found they were indeed what I had ordered but were still wrong - damn it! Nobody to blame but myself. Firstly the lights I thought I had got were brass sat on a Teak base. This would help cover the old Square D fluorescent light fittings that are in situ. The lights I actually got are a smaller diameter with no Teak base. I cannot send them back and change them since it has been over a month since I actually ordered them but I am not going to spend out again - Norfolk Marine sell the correct style I want, but are £47.00 each so it would soon add up.1

However, the above state of affairs is nothing compared to the mistake I made with the Inverter. I've only ended up with 24v version! Well now it is not as if many people would ever have need of such, since 99% of people have 12v electrics on boats - even Independence has 12v so I cannot re-purpose it onboard her. Again, I cannot return the Inverter as it is past the 30 day window. So what to do? I don't really want to just pay out again for another Inverter that is 12v so I have a cheaper option that will work better in the long run and improve efficiency.

I will keep the 24v Inverter, but get two additional leisure batteries and wire them in series to give me 24v. This is half the cost of buying another correct 12v Inverter. It is also not as bad as seems, as I was going to buy one additional battery anyway, this would have meant having a cranking battery and then three 12v batteries to run my domestic power from (and Inverter). I will now have a cranking battery and two batteries that will run my 12v systems and then two additional batteries to run my Inverter only at 24v.

Another benefit turns out that  if I run the Inverter batteries down too low it won't effect things like my fridge, lighting, pumps and so on from running. Furthermore, because my DC input voltage will be doubled to 24v it will mean my amperage draw from the batteries will be halved and so overall the set up is more efficient than a 12v Inverter since I can run the same wattage appliance for twice the time (in theory).

So despite making a bit of a balls up it has come good in the end. Trixie is now due out the water from 3rd September for a number of other things to be done both inside, outside and under the boat - some of the additional updates will be to fit an grated scoop for the raw water inlet under the hull.  This will help force more water in and thus help the Impeller do its job and also prevent a lot of the weed getting in. Though I changed the old water strainer for a clear Vetus one, it has still been getting a lot of weed in it since there is just a simple thru-hull that can suck quite a bit in as it turns out.

 

 

[Siddy]

Contact the seller and see if they do a re-stocking charge you'll only lose a percentage then.

What make pure sine invertor did you go for? I've been looking for a 1kw 12v but half the makes on Amazon & Ebay I've never heard before.

 

[johnb]

Hi robin, you passed us whilst we were moored at Irstead a short while ago. I was hiding under a sunshade so you may not have seen my wave (!) Trixie looking good. 

[annv]

How are you going to charge the 24 volt batteries up? surjest you draw a schematic before you spend more money.John

[VetChugger]

Second 24v alternator?? Bliddy ship will turn turtle if much more hardware is added!

[dnks34]

Cant you just sell the 24v Inverter on the Ebay then take a hopefully small loss in order to buy a 12v one? 

If you install yourself a 24v battery you would really need a 24v Alternator to charge it or it will turn out to be not very useful!

[ZimbiIV]

Why not just step the 24 volt output down to 12 volt, not the most efficient way but you could split the cable before the transformer to give you both voltage options.

paul

oops just realised it requires 24 volt input

[KaptinKev]

20 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

(in theory).

 

I do like you Robin, but youtube and google doesn't make you an expert!

[LondonRascal]

I have had some more time to go over things, and the net result is I have a lot of options I could go down but this was meant to be a cost effective solution to a mistake I made in my order.  There are solutions to charging a  24v battery bank and a 12v battery bank off one 12v Alternator. Basically some fancy tech treats everything as 12v until you call on a power source requiring 24v  when it will then series the batteries to create the 24v output. Once the power output demand is removed, it reverts back to a 12v parallel battery bank. 

However the above solution costs a lots and this was meant to be a cheaper solution to buying a new and correct voltage Inverter.

I have decided the best bet is just do as I was all along and have three batteries for my domestics and one for my engine start battery. Connect to the three domestic batteries and buy a new 12v 1500w Inverter and be done with it. I have therefore ordered the correct Inverter and my problems have ceased. I do now have a nice paper weight being the 24v Inverter.

I am no expert by the way and all this was ordered a good while ago and I made some mistakes on the Amazon App at the time, which is easy thing to do when you are doing this late at night and suddenly get the urge to go shopping for lights and an Inverter lol. But seriously, I just post here what is going on - take my post about the Inverter, I had not thought as I tapped it out about the charging of the batteries but that is where hindsight comes in and pondering, not to mention here on the Forum helping along the way too.

 

 

[LondonRascal]

Today I learnt something...An Alternator is not a battery charger.

I never knew that but it all makes sense when it was explained to me. You see in a car you have a single battery and that battery main use is to start the car. You can of course use power from it when the engine is not running to use the radio for example, or interior lights. 

When you start the car a short but sudden high amperage is taken from the battery (if your car starts with minimal cranking) and the Alternator will then kick in and do two things. Firstly it then takes over as the generator of all power the car may use - lights, fan, onboard electronics and the battery acts as an electrical load-balancer. Over and above the loads put on the Alternator by the cars electrical system, a small charge is sent to re-charge the cars battery and after a modest period of time the battery will once again be full ready for the next time it is called upon.

On Trixie, like many boats out there I have three batteries. Two for my 12v domestics and one to start the engine. The engine start battery is isolated from the domestic batteries so you always would have power to start the engine even if you have run down the domestics. All pretty simple.

Thing is in the hot weather we have had recently my fridge has been running a lot more - every 20 minutes or so, and its not the most efficient drawing about 8Amps. Add in some light use, pumps and TV and the other day I had consumed 72Ah Despite having over 200Ah of capacity my actual usable capacity is 130Ah if I do not want to discharge my batteries by more than 50% (and I am trying not to do that). I then cruised from Barton Broad to Wroxham and then from Wroxham back to Barton Broad, turned around and headed back to near How Hill. This as you can imagine amounted to a lot of hours of engine run time - yet I had not put back all those 72Ah's I'd taken out of the batteries.

I thought I had a lingering issue still so sent of a detailed email to Shaun at NYA explaining the voltages and amperage readings I had taken and how many hours I had run the engine for and so on and felt maybe my Alternator was, after all on the way out. Within a short time he was on the phone going over the fact the Alternator was a bit tired but was still able to put out a good 55Amps, maybe more and the brushes were checked and found to be in good order. It had a brand new regulator put on, and then a smart battery combiner and there should therefore be no reason it would not be performing. The fact when first started up it provided over 20Amps showed this, and as the voltage passed 13v so the amperage dropped right back as it should. Everything was in fact working just as it should do.

The 'issue' was my expectations.  There are thousands of boats just like mine out there, some in in hire fleets and others in private ownership and since most boats have no monitoring of what voltage and amperage's are being generated or consumed, many people never ever get fully charged batteries simply because there is not enough time the engine is run to replenish that which was used when the engine was not being run and the more is taken the worse it gets and you are none the wiser to this going on. Since I can monitor things I find myself ever watchful of this screen.

I have three choices.

1) I run the engine for more hours to generate more electrically from the Alternator to replenish the extra amps that I have used up out the batteries.

2) I connect wherever possible to shore power whereby my battery charger will re-charge the battery bank in about 3 hours.

3) I buy and have fitted a Smart Alternator Charge Booster, or a 'Battery to Battery Charger'.

A Smart Alternator Charge Booster removes all the regulation from the Alternator and 'fools' the Alternator to effectively give all it has got - the Smart Alternator Charge Booster takes over and is the middle man between the batteries and the Alternator itself and acts just as a mains powered battery charger - often re-charging in different stages, a lot of amps, less amps and then a trickle charge to float voltage.

The only issue with such a system is the Alternator is worked constantly at almost full capacity and will generate more heat, the more heat is generates and that is around an Alternator the less efficient it becomes and eventually the additional load/heat will shorten the working life of an Alternator. On the plus side your battery bank get charged properly, and quickly and you run your engine less putting less wear on ti and burning less fuel. It seems as if it is something as broad as it is long and am currently looking at some Sterling products. 

Since most boats have no such device fitted, and also few have a way to see at a glance how many amps have been removed from the battery bank, how many are going back in and so on it is akin to having a water tank without a gauge - you just are hoping.

[BroadAmbition]

An Alternator is not a battery charger.

That's suproised me I reallly did think you knew that, you must have heard me /Howard referrring to the alternator as 'Floating the system' and providing elec power for the entire shooting match when its running - Everyday a schoolday then

akin to having a water tank without a gauge - you just are hoping.

Which is why some boat skippers on craft with no gauges often refer to the water, waste and diesel tanks (Since dipsticks went out of fashion)  as 'Wonder Tanks' as one is often wondering what the levels are at

Griff

[Timbo]

34 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

Since dipsticks went out of fashion

Charlie, I know you have driven through Gainsborough and are well aware we have not! 

[annv]

Hi Robin If you get a Sterling advanced digital alternator regulator it will fool the alternator into charging its max subject to batt temp and alternator temp it has a sensor wire to both the batt and alternator and adjusts the charge so to not overheat the batt and alternator. Alternatively you could have a Alternator to battery charger which can take the power from two alternators and adjust the power to all the batteries giving priority to the starter batteries first, this what i have, theres no change or addition to alternator wiring there for there is no warranty issues. Just fit and forget except you still have to run the engines for the time required to fill the batteries full,but it is the absolute minimum hrs running if you wish to run static and there's no shore power avalible .John

[BroomSedan]

Hi Robin, Sorry to hear you are having so many teething problems with Trixie - there are always things to sort out with a new boat.

As you have found there is a reason the hire boats have signs saying you must run the engine for 5 or 6 hours a day. An advanced digital alternator regulator will charge your batteries quicker but you must keep an eye on the battery acid level as they tend to go through water quickly as will leaving a battery charger on all the time. Sterling recommend ordinary lead acid batteries so that you can top them up. An ordinary alternator will put out a high charge until it senses your batteries are approaching fully charged then it will step down to a float/small charge. Having had a charge booster, I will stick to using a standard alternator without one.

When choosing an economical fridge, it is the wattage you need to look at. A device running on 12v will use 20 times the amps compared to running it on 240v but use the same power and therefore take the same amount out of your batteries (not taking into account inverter losses etc). (Power = Current x Voltage). So you cannot compare the number of amps used at 12v to those used at 240v.

On our boats we always keep everything simple and try to use as little power as possible. We never run the fridge on 12v. Everything else runs off 12v even though we have an inverter and with our 2 x 110v Numax domestic batteries we have enough power to run the TV and lights etc for 6 hours a day for 10 days or more. You can take leisure batteries down to 20% and most makes will guarantee them for 500 cycles. This number of cycles is many years of use and the age of the batteries will catch up with them before the cycles do. At 50% you could expect 2000 to 3000 cycles use minimum from a battery.

Good luck with everything. Looking forward to your next update and new Captain's Blogs.