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Do We Really Need Electric Posts ???


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Is it fair to say all the problems outlined above (except for fully electric boat charging) could be solved with higher capacity battery banks and higher output chargers?
But what boatyard in its right mind would add those things? “Why are your boats more expensive to hire?” “Because we’ve added stuff to avoid the need for more charging posts” ... hmmm, good luck with that sale
You’ve had to motor to the 24 hour mooring so would it be unreasonable to expect the battery capacity to last the 24 hours you can stay there? 16 amps 24 hours (and that’s the extreme isn’t it?) is 384 amp hours of capacity isn’t it? That’s not impossible is it?

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5 minutes ago, Hylander said:

It is good when you are hooked up to be able to watch TV and have lights on without having to worry about batteries.

That should be easily covered by your batteries though. If you are not able to go through an evening watching telly, running heating and lighting up your boat then you've got something amiss with the batteries/charging system. So in my opinion plugging in to simply watch television and light up the boat is not fair use of an electric point. Since there is no right or wrong or 'terms of use' this entire thread is based on opinion.

Maybe a different approach would be to increase the minimum top up from £1.00 per card and have it reset to zero once the lead is disconnected. Someone needing to run a few Kilowatts of power might be happy to pay a fiver, someone who needed to use a few hundred watts over an evening might not.

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9 minutes ago, Hylander said:

It is good when you are hooked up to be able to watch TV and have lights on without having to worry about batteries.

Whoops, now you've done it! Be prepared for a few posts on how you don't need tv on a boat! :default_gbxhmm:

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I can watch TV, have the lights on, charge various devices, have the heater on and the fridge coming on and off as it needs for the whole day and not need to be hooked up, or start the engine, or worry about batteries going flat, but then again I re-engineered my boat that way.


You’ve stolen my idea
How much battery capacity do you have?
Standard leisure batteries?
How long do you need to cruise to fully charge them if you’ve used most of the capacity?
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12V and 24V systems with 7 x 110ah leisure batteries. At a push I can even survive an alternator failure as I have invertors on both 12V and 24V side, so if the 24V alternator failed I could use the invertor on the 12V bank to power the battery charger for the 24V bank, or vice versa. Failure of the 12V alternator is slightly more of a problem as it also drives the water pump, but I have a spare emergency fan belt that can be fitted bypassing the 12V alternator in case of bearing collapse so that I can still drive the water pump. Most problems, just require solutions.

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28 minutes ago, JohnK said:

16 amps 24 hours (and that’s the extreme isn’t it?) is 384 amp hours of capacity isn’t it? That’s not impossible is it?

but you are not supposed to take lead acid batteries below 50% charge,so for that scenario you would need 770Ah capacity with lead Acid batteries. if you went to different battery chemistry you could reduce that, but as Robin showed when looking at the problem with Independence, costs skyrocket.

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To explain my previous post, a boat with a bank of say, 3 domestic batteries will usually have a shore charger of at least 40 amps DC. Over an 8 hour period (overnight) this produces - in theory - around 300 A/H of charge, although this will get less as the batteries "come up". 

The charger itself will only need just over 2 amps at 220 volts, to provide this. So charging the domestic batteries overnight is not a problem but as Grendel has said, plugging in high wattage appliances such as hair driers and kettles, will very soon overload the average shore supply.

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you might consider a Tesla Powerwall, this is 13.5kWh, of course at over 1m square and 20cm thick, you might not find space for it on the boat, but you could run your 3kW electric fire for 24 hours on it. and you might get some change from £10000

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On Ranworth Breeze I personally will use a hook up when ever possible, we do not have an inverter, we do not have a microwave. But I like to keep the 2 x domestic & one engine start battery topped up.

We use an electric kettle & toaster the rest is 12 volt for the fridge, lights, pumps etc.

One of the issues can be that not everyone cruises enough to fully charge their batteries, on the canals they advise a minimum of 5 hours cruising per day.

Regards

Alan

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We use them espcially in the winter, do we need them? No is the answer, but if we do need power to charge the batteries up etc, its cheaper, quieter and cleaner than running the engine. In the summer we like wild mooring and cope just fine, but we run the engine more to charge the batteries.

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I think this topic has started to consider two different things :

1/. Charging a boat's domestic batteries overnight from a standard (domestic) power point.

2/. The operation of electric powered cabin motor cruisers (not just day boats).

Crown Blue Line had over 400 hire boats, so it was natural that we should consider electric propulsion. After not too much research, we decided definitely against it. There was a company on the Canal du Midi which invested a lot of money in two new pure electric aft cockpit 4 berth cruisers of about 30ft and persuaded the canal authorities to install charging points at one or two village moorings on the canal, so as to provide the possibility of charging each night, during a week's cruise. This was attended by a fanfare of the usual "green" publicity but it did not work and the boats were withdrawn after only one season.

Without going into all the figures of kilowatts versus horsepower, hull speed, cruising duration and all that, the problem is also logistical : Imagine Richardsons decided to let out 10 electric powered cruisers, and the BA undertook to provide at least one or two power points at the main locations, such as Acle, Wroxham, Potter, etc. So what happens when all 10 boats leave the yard on Saturday afternoon and decide to spend their first night on the Maltsters quay at Ranworth, where only 2 points have been provided? Who gets to charge up, and who is left flat, in the morning?

And don't forget, with battery banks of that size and weight, there is no question of the duty breakdown van turning up to change the flat batteries - the only way to get that boat going again is come out with a launch and tow it home to its own yard.

Has anyone noticed the Tesla charging points that are now being installed in motorway services around the country? Can anyone imagine the size and complexity of one of those, being installed on the quay at Ranworth? They look more like a National Grid sub-station!

 

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2 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Has anyone noticed the Tesla charging points that are now being installed in motorway services around the country? Can anyone imagine the size and complexity of one of those, being installed on the quay at Ranworth? They look more like a National Grid sub-station!

and take 30kW supplies - we just quoted for a 90kW supply to just 3 electric fast charging bays at a fast food outlet (thats about the equivalent supply for 60 houses).

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3 hours ago, EastCoastIPA said:

I can watch TV, have the lights on, charge various devices, have the heater on and the fridge coming on and off as it needs for the whole day and not need to be hooked up, or start the engine, or worry about batteries going flat, but then again I re-engineered my boat that way.

Ok you get the prize.

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I am having some 'battery woes' currently. On Trixie, she has two 110Ah batteries to domestics and one 125Ah starting battery. One the face of it, that sounds plenty - but in fact she only has 55Ah of usable battery capacity. That is not a great deal when you consider that there is a fridge to power, heating, lighting, water pump and shower drain pump and that is before a TV is plugged in and so within a 24hr period you really ought to run the engine to ensure that you are not eating into more than 50% of the capacity in Lead Acid batteries.

Normally the answer would be to fit some more capacity - but with a small boat you hit the issue of where to put them, and not only that where to put them that will keep the boat 'on an even keel' and not listing. It also is easy to get carried away with number of batteries verses ability to recharge them. When you have a battery monitor installed (I think very one should hire or private) you see just how long it can take - especially that last 15% where you are putting relatively few amps in - more a 'trickle charge' to full. Without a monitor it is like a toilet tank with no gauge, you just guess and hope.

Because Trixie is not going to be a long term keeper there is not much point going 'mad' with batteries be it in number, fitting a second Alternator, or changing the chemistry of the batteries. I am going to keep it simple and hope to add an extra 110Ah (giving me 165Ah domestic capacity) and running the engine for longer to recharge them fully.  Solar Panels are not the be all and end all, but you can see how these can help a lot - especially with fridges, which on the average boat is the single highest continuous drain on the batteries. In hot weather they need to work more often to maintain a set temperature - if you can have solar power of just 2 or 3 Amps that will go a long way to taking away almost all the drain during the day the fridge will take from your domestic battery bank - and when you are not about using the fridge (e,g, it is off) will keep the batteries topped up too.

I really think now for the majority of boaters it is time to at least move up to AGM batteries - they cost more than the usual Lead Acid, may need some re-configuring of your chargers and Alternator regulators, but will last longer (more cycles) and can be discharged to a greater degree before damage is caused than standard Lead Acid batteries. You could get a Leoch branded AGM battery of 110Ah capacity for £140.00. Not bad really and are not the silly pricing of Lithium where you are looking at £1,400 for 150Ah battery (equivalent to 258Ah Lead Acid).

 

 

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For those who remember the IT race of the 90's 00's there were two factions. The more power the processors had, the more resources the games required. The more resources the games required the more power the processors developed.

This is the same as the power posts on the broads. The more there are, and the more power each can supply, the more power hungry the boats will become. Soon it will be air-con and electric central heating, plus a multitude of other things. the solutions are simple.

1. shoot all hirers.

2. shoot all owners.

3. shoot all tourists.

4. call it a National Park and gift it to the RSPB.

Sorted.

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6 hours ago, EastCoastIPA said:

No you don't have people running engines at antisocial times, you have antisocial people running engines at the wrong times!!!

I am not local, live 2 hrs away from my boat and often use it for 10 days at a time. As I mentioned on another thread I changed 10 paper cards for the new plastic ones and still have them. Probably three years ago was the last time I plugged in. I don't run my engine at moorings. I manage my day around when the hot water is available with very little inconvenience.

I have enough battery power on board to run the immersion for 90 mins if needed to generate quiet hot water without cruising, but prefer to generate hot water when under way. I can if needed use the immersion and engine under way to very quickly generate hot water. I don't have a need for hair straighteners but the power is there on board if guests do need them without starting any engine.

A well designed boat and a little consideration is normally all that is needed.

No you don't have people running engines at antisocial times, you have antisocial people running engines at the wrong times!!!

Spot On

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2 hours ago, CambridgeCabby said:

Is a shame that Salhouse doesn’t have leccy posts

Yes, it is they would make a welcome addition to the moorings and though costly to run power to they could spur off for the camping ground and give those in tents something they could use as well.

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7 hours ago, LondonRascal said:

That should be easily covered by your batteries though. If you are not able to go through an evening watching telly, running heating and lighting up your boat then you've got something amiss with the batteries/charging system. So in my opinion plugging in to simply watch television and light up the boat is not fair use of an electric point. Since there is no right or wrong or 'terms of use' this entire thread is based on opinion.

Maybe a different approach would be to increase the minimum top up from £1.00 per card and have it reset to zero once the lead is disconnected. Someone needing to run a few Kilowatts of power might be happy to pay a fiver, someone who needed to use a few hundred watts over an evening might not.

Seriously what's wrong with putting 5 x £1 cards on the meter ? 

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