How Busy Can It Get?

[grendel]

step 1 check that the shore power hasnt tripped out or run out of credit. or that the plug for the charger has been turned off or unplugged.

its obvious your batteries are now low, so the second step is get some charge into them, this may entail running the engine.

step 3 offer libations / chocolate cake for anyone who will come round and assist in diagnosing the problem.

[MauriceMynah]

Right, facts in no particular order.

my battery charger  is a vitron energy blue smart charger which cost me pennies short of £200. It was installed at the time I had shore power fitted.

There is a mains switch dedicated to it which has a red light to indicate power to it and that it is switched on. 

The mains power has not tripped, run out or been unplugged. No, the problem is on board. 

Whilst the charger could be at fault, I think it unlikely though some sort of fuse/circuit breaker is possible.

I hope I'm not sounding ungrateful for all the suggestions as I'm very grateful for all of them, just some I can rule out.

 

[Meantime]

OK so next step is to disconnect shore power and attempt to start the engine. If it starts and it starts to charge the batteries, then it achieves two things. 1. You'll have lights and ice later on tonight, 2. if you can charge your batteries via the alternator, but not via the onboard charger, then it is the charger that needs further investigation.

[Smoggy]

That charger is the same as I have, if you remove the cover where the outputs are I'm pretty certain there are fuses for each output under there.

[Vaughan]

2 hours ago, MauriceMynah said:

I hope I'm not sounding ungrateful for all the suggestions as I'm very grateful for all of them, just some I can rule out.

John, looking back over the last 6 hours since you asked for our advice, I can't see one post that you can rule out.

I am concerned that you are going to be spending a night out on the boat, in winter,  with no electrics and therefore no heating.

Have you started the engine?

[MargeandParge]

Have you plugged anything into a shore power 240 volt socket to see if that works via shore power.?

Regards Marge and Parge 

[MauriceMynah]

I have spoken to the fellow who installed the shore power setup. He went straight to the boat, looked at the charger and started the engine. Apparently the charger is displaying no end of warning lights which he will look into tomorrow,  once I've found the documentation. His suspicions lie with the charger rather than the batteries. 

Meanwhile the heating is working directly off the shore power as now is the TV in my cabin. So here I lie, toasty under my duvet, watching Antiques Roadtrip.

I hope to be up very early tomorrow,  to further investigate the problem, well, by 09:00 at least. And no rum in the coffee while I'm holding wires. 

[unclemike]

2 hours ago, MauriceMynah said:

And no rum in the coffee while I'm holding wires. 

surely that should read no coffee in the rum

[MargeandParge]

Please let us know as I think a few of us have Victron chargers.

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[MauriceMynah]

It is well known in all practical circles that in DIY terms Maurice Mynah  is bloody useless. What worries them is that it doesn't stop me having a go sometimes.

This morning I extricated myself from my pit at 07:00. I shall give you all a moment or two to recover from that !

I sat in my saloon, looking at the inspection cover behind which was the battery charger.  Plucking up all my courage, I opened it and saw the offending unit.

My first impression was how pretty it was with all those flashing red lights. There was a fairly thick cable (black) that was slightly obscuring my view. Gently I pushed it to one side.

There was a very quiet "click" followed by a gentle mains hum and all but two of the flashing red lights went out. The remaining two stopped flashing and went solid.

The only way I could think of testing what was happening was...

1. Turn on ignition  and read volt meter. It was a gnats whisker OVER 12v. Yesterday evening the engine had run for a couple of hours so that seemed OK.

2. Turn off battery charger and repeat the process.  Volt meter showed just a tad UNDER 12v.

3. Turn battery charger back on and recheck. Just over 12v again.

It seems to me that the charger is back in operation. 

I now need my friend to investigate that black cable checking for loose connections etc.

Sorry for the long winded post but it gives me something to refer to when I relate the story to my mate.

Any comments / observations from you will be most welcome.  Thank you. 

 

[Smoggy]

That is the best problem you can possibly find as it's cheap to fix leaving all available beer tokens for their right and proper usage.

Good work MM, you have passed stage 1 of the electricians guild exam with flying colours, now you just have to learn to make the sucking noise through you teeth to justify the invoice so you can be a real electrician.

[Meantime]

My initial thoughts are it shouldn't be expensive, or take to much to resolve. Sounds like a loose connection which are never good if left alone too long as you have the potential for something to arch and create heat, so it needs to be found as it is a potential fire risk.

You mention thick black cable, do you know if it is the mains lead to the charger? or a negative battery cable? If its a loose connection on the mains cable, you need to tread a lot more carefully as you are playing with 240V, however if it is a battery cable then it will be safer to trace and work out where the loose connection is. 

My modus operandi would be to turn off shore power, pull all battery isolators and then armed with various screwdrivers and a socket set check and tighten any connections I can find. If one has come loose, then so might others. Once you have finished twiddling tweaking and screwing, I would put battery isolators back in and reconnect shore power and see if things appear to be charging again. Then carefully move and tap around offending black cable to see if I have cured the problem.

However the big caveat to the above is be sure whether the black cable is 12V or 240V before investigating too much with it all powered up.

[MauriceMynah]

Thanks MT, I had a good sniff about for burning and all seems OK.  I also had a feel about ( with the back of my hand first ) and nothing felt hot, not even really warm. I've contacted my friend and asked him to do a checkout as he is hugely more experienced than I am.

[Vaughan]

1 hour ago, Meantime said:

However the big caveat to the above is be sure whether the black cable is 12V or 240V before investigating too much with it all powered up.

In basic principle if it is a "thick" cable it will be 12 volt DC since a main advantage of 220v is that it runs on much thinner cables. "Mains" wiring is normally brown for live, blue for neutral and green or green/yellow for earth.

IF it has been installed according to regs, the 220v will also be in a protective conduit, or "gain".

I know I am sitting here 1000 miles away but I am concerned that your mate who installed the shore power came out last night "on a breakdown call" but could not simply establish whether the the battery charger was actually charging the batteries, without "coming back tomorrow".

I wonder whether you may need a second opinion, on this??

[Meantime]

9 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

In basic principle if it is a "thick" cable it will be 12 volt DC since a main advantage of 220v is that it runs on much thinner cables. "Mains" wiring is normally brown for live, blue for neutral and green or green/yellow for earth.

IF it has been installed according to regs, the 220v will also be in a protective conduit, or "gain".

I was more thinking that the Black cable "could" be Black sheathed three core mains flex, or it could be a single core 12V negative. Hard to tell without a picture or knowing what it's directly connected to.

The two Sterling chargers on my boat have a mains flex coming out of the charger with 13 amp plugs on them that then just plug into a normal 240V mains socket. So in my case the Black mains cables are not in trunking. I agree though that 240V wiring up to sockets should be trunked.

 

[Bikertov]

14 hours ago, unclemike said:

surely that should read no coffee in the rum

Second thoughts, hold the coffee. After all, too much caffeine is not good for you ...

[annv]

Hi If you are unsure wait until your friend has a look as you could do harm, electric's do need care and some knowledge to be safe. John

[MauriceMynah]

@Vaughan This could become a tad tricky. I have to be careful not so much   "what I say" more "how I say it". My friend is an experienced boat builder, who is "slotting  me in" as, how and when he can. He has other commitments which he sometimes puts on the back burner to help me out. 

His visit to my boat yesterday evening was purely to ensure my boat was heatable, with a planned visit today for a more thorough investigation today. My doing things today has, for him, just taken the heat off. He has already been in touch and proper investigations will be done.

[MargeandParge]

Victron have a good name so as already mentioned the libation fund should not be fully depleted. 

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge 

[MauriceMynah]

Thank you all, good people.  The libation fund does indeed live on to see another day. 

I do have a little query to ponder on.  There is a boat near me who's engine seems to be running from 08:00 to about 20:00 on a daily basis. I don't like to ask him why he does it but it must be costing him a bomb in diesel., and not doing the engine a shed load of good.

How much fuel does an engine drink on tickover ?  Variable I know, but I am curious to know a rough figure. 

[Smoggy]

17 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

How much fuel does an engine drink on tickover ? 

Probably not a great deal per hour but still no good for it or the surrounding air quality.

[Meantime]

8 minutes ago, MauriceMynah said:

How much fuel does an engine drink on tickover ?  Variable I know, but I am curious to know a rough figure.

It's not a straight forward one to work out because of the governor on the engine. The governor's job is to maintain the chosen engine speed by increasing or decreasing the amount of fuel based on load. So although the engine may sound like it is just on tickover that may not be a direct correlation to the amount of fuel being used.

For instance if I have my engine running on tickover which is about 850 revs and then I put my invertor on and turn on the immersion element, the load on the 24V alternator will increase heavily. The engine will want to stall, but the governor will inject a lot more diesel to keep the revs constant, i.e. at tickover. 

As much as people assume that charging batteries is free when under way, it still puts additional load on an engine, which in turn burns more fuel. A bit like going with or without the tide. To keep a constant speed over ground, one is going to cost you more fuel than the other.

So to answer your question, it really depends on why they are running the engine.

My boat does an average of about 2.4 miles to the litre over the season. So at an average speed of 4mph it probably uses about 1.7 litres of diesel per hour when underway. So I would assume it would use something less than that on just tickover, but as I say it all depends on load on the engine.

[Vaughan]

1 hour ago, Meantime said:

It's not a straight forward one to work out because of the governor on the engine. The governor's job is to maintain the chosen engine speed by increasing or decreasing the amount of fuel based on load. So although the engine may sound like it is just on tickover that may not be a direct correlation to the amount of fuel being used.

For instance if I have my engine running on tickover which is about 850 revs and then I put my invertor on and turn on the immersion element, the load on the 24V alternator will increase heavily. The engine will want to stall, but the governor will inject a lot more diesel to keep the revs constant, i.e. at tickover. 

As much as people assume that charging batteries is free when under way, it still puts additional load on an engine, which in turn burns more fuel. A bit like going with or without the tide. To keep a constant speed over ground, one is going to cost you more fuel than the other.

So to answer your question, it really depends on why they are running the engine.

My boat does an average of about 2.4 miles to the litre over the season. So at an average speed of 4mph it probably uses about 1.7 litres of diesel per hour when underway. So I would assume it would use something less than that on just tickover, but as I say it all depends on load on the engine.

I agree with all of that.

A 90 amp alternator on full charge will take around 5HP off the engine. And it is only a 40HP engine in the first place!  Normally, the alternator will be charging at around 35 amps during a 4 hour charge and will drop to under 10 amps in the last hour.  Intelligent regulators can "bump up" this charge rate to charge the batteries quicker but is this a good idea?  Answers on a postcard please . . . 

I once had to run 3 Nanni engines in hire boats, for 10 days and 9 nights continuous, to keep the rest of the fleet off the quay when the Rhone burst its banks and flooded out the town where we were based.  The engines ran slow ahead at 900 revs against the mooring lines.  When we topped up with diesel afterwards and checked the hour meters, it amounted to 0.75 litres per hour.

Edited to add :

Before Griff asks, the boats were on hydraulic drive!

[Regulo]

8 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

Intelligent regulators can "bump up" this charge rate to charge the batteries quicker but is this a good idea?  Answers on a postcard please . . .

Postcard from Pitsea. 

Glad you're not here, having a lovely time. I'd say, if you keep a good eye on your batteries, intelligent regulators can make a world of difference to your cruising experience. Especially if you use the battery capacity heavily when stationary e.g. TV, heating, fridge etc. You don't have to run your engines for 6 hours to put back the juice. But they can shorten battery life, especially "sealed" types. 

[MargeandParge]

Vaughan mentioned gear boxes I know some should not be on tick over for long periods of time in neutral as the primary shaft turns without lubrication .

Kindest Regards Marge and Parge