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I was sent here from the space megathread (this seems to be a recurring theme, I wonder why  )Been sailing on and off for the last 15 years, mostly typical weekend/week sails along the east coast of Norway / west coast of Sweden, generally going on trips with my old man on his 1980s Mamba 29' and a 1999 Bavaria '34 he bought in 2018. As fate would have it, my old man passed from cancer in October (gently caress 2020, folks), and I'm now taking care of the Bavaria until we can figure out what to do with it - more about that below. My cousin and i sailed the boat to the winter berth close to where I live a couple of weeks ago, a beautiful 24 mile daysail with around 15-20 knots of wind, which came in handy since the Volvo Penta MD2020 has cooling issues (because of course it does). A beautiful day on the water in late november:  The Horten-Moss ferries can be seen in the background. This area can be "fun" if you pass it at the wrong time. With some wind - this was just about the peak we saw, topped out at 7.8 knots SOG around the same time just flying a small genoa:  One happy idiot:  Safely tied up:  I've been pondering buying my own boat for a while (a 30'-32' from around the same vintage as the 34'), but of course with covid, prices have increased a lot, so now I might just buy out my sister's stake in this boat instead. There's a lot of maintenance that needs to be done - some that has been deferred for too long, and some that's just hitting now because it's 20+ years old, like replacing a lot of the running rigging and the mainsail is probably only good for another couple of seasons, depending on use. My old man ordered a new 130% genoa before he passed, so that's all sorted out, and I figure I can deal with the cooling issues. I'm an EE so all the electrical poo poo is manageable (though I would love to keel-haul a certain previous owner  )I want to go long-distance cruising in the next few years, and at that point I will probably have to get a bigger boat. The 34' can't really fit enough bunkers and water tanks + water maker to go long distances, but that might just be me being a bit broken from serving a few years in the Navy...
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Dec 8, 2020 17:00
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Humbug posted:Condolences on your dad Wibla. Thanks! He was working on the roof just 3 weeks before he died, so at least he didn't spend months in the hospital before dying, that's a small relief in this lovely situation. Deferred maintenance is 100% a bitch yeah, and I'm not super optimistic about finding a great mechanic these days, but the MD2020 is not terribly hard to work on, and a friend of mine is a chief engineer on a supply boat, so I can hopefully ask him for some help. So far on my list: impeller, exhaust riser (eksosbend/blandebend), heat exchanger, sail drive - the impeller was changed last fall, but the raw water flow was still lacking, improved a bit after cleaning out the cooling passages in the saildrive earlier this year, but still far from where it should be. We changed the closed loop coolant earlier this year (way overdue). My old man was more used to the Yanmar 2GM that was raw-water cooled and didn't even have a proper strainer on the sea water inlet, so yeah... I stayed below 1800 rpm for the time we had to use the engine, very happy that I chose the right day for our passage.As for long distance sailing, I'm thinking the ARC and maybe the world ARC. I used to sail on frigates (KNM Trondheim from 2004 to 2005 and KNM Fridtjof Nansen* from 2006 to 2009), where I was Sjøbjørn crew, so I've done a bit of SAR work** - which is part of why I really would like a bigger boat for a trip like that. 42' and up will handle rough seas way better than a 34', plus a larger boat is more comfortable to live aboard for a longer duration. *Decent frigates, but the crew on one of the later boats clearly didn't bother reading this book, as they should have...:  **We had a memorable incident in Skagerak during a NATO exercise where we picked up a dane from a 25' sailboat and ended up towing his boat to port while he got medical attention onboard KNM Trondheim. He bought the boat in Gøteborg, set a course for Skagen - but woefully underprepared and then suffered an epilepsy attack underway, knocking his head and losing consciousness for a while. We were initially alerted by the lead vessel of our formation that there was a "small boat that was drifting in our path", and our lookouts saw the guy flashing SOS with a flashlight at our ship... We were towards the rear of the formation, and I'm still puzzled that no one noticed the guy flashing his flashlight before we did, but that's par for the course I guess...
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Dec 8, 2020 18:00
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Hadlock posted:Re: engine cooling, just as a sanity check, check your raw seawater filter, it should be near the seacock for cooling water ingress. If there's a plastic bag or shrimp colony in there, that will impact water flow. As mentioned before, impellers should be changed annually. Yeah, that's on my list as well - just forgot to mention it. I've had some fun with that before... I figure I'll get an idea of how clogged the saildrive is (if it is clogged at all) when I winterize the engine, as I'll be running the raw water hose into a bucket with 50/50 antifreeze and fresh water
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Dec 8, 2020 19:46
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Humbug posted:Sounds like you are more on top of things than most boatowners I know. You will get on top off it no problem. While finding a mechanic is hard, getting someone qualified to work on leisure electronics seems basically impossible so you have a head start there As long as I didn't gently caress the head gasket on the last trip, the cooling issues should be manageable, and I have a hookup for a welding shop that can overhaul the heat exchanger if need be. Will probably have to buy a new exhaust riser though, I seriously doubt it has ever been changed, and they are definitely not made to last 21 years  Working on boat electronics is a pain in the dick - 50% because previous owners are incompetent assholes and 50% because it's very hard to get new cables pulled to where you want them. One of the bigger jobs on my list is to overhaul both of the anchor winches. The front winch motor is 100% toast, but the rear winch can be repaired easily (mechanical issue) - but of course the electronics is 21 years old so I have to check that too... Sigh. Humbug posted:The dudes north of Bjørnøya where experienced, but IIRC one had cracked ribs from being flung around. I think it was about 40 knots wind which is fairly typical for the Barents sea. I can't remember the sea state. That sailboat just wasn't made for that stuff. Always keep respect for the sea my dudes.
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Dec 8, 2020 20:41
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The snow has melted, but the marina hasn't turned on the water yet, so I can't clean the absolutely filthy decks. Ack. Also found some new leaks, so that's fun. At least the leaks are from above and not below, heh.
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Feb 24, 2021 16:03
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Jack B Nimble posted:I wonder if they'll have to unload the cargo first, yikes. It would surprise me if they don't have to both unload some cargo and excavate the bulb from the side of the canal.
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Mar 24, 2021 14:24
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Femtosecond posted:Went to the boat last weekend with the goal of cleaning it and setting back up the batteries. Did a bit of my tasks, but it started raining hard enough that I bailed on setting up the cranking bat as that was in the locker and I'd have to *gasp* get rained on. Beg? Here's some free advice: ask them straight up if they want to help you learn how to sail, also mention that you can bring a cooler with beer in it 
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Apr 1, 2021 12:13
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Okay, be like that! 
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Apr 1, 2021 12:49
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Had some friends over today, we got some boat work done, and of course some jackass put his boat in my assigned summer berth earlier today so we couldn't move it today  ... I guess I'll try again after the weather front moves on, heh.Also had a proper "goddamn it I'm dumb" moment when I was prepping the cooling system for the first start after the winter - I had opened the raw water intake seacock and THEN opened the raw water strainer to prime it. That's obviously not going to work right... Some good laughs were had at my expense Pretty sure I need a new mixing elbow, but at least there's enough cooling that I can run the engine for shorter periods (to move it to the new berth) for now.
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Apr 11, 2021 21:36
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Big Taint posted:If the mixing elbow is relatively new (less than a few years) but just crusted closed I’ve had luck soaking it in a bucket with vinegar. There is the risk that the water jacket is compromised though if it’s had enough time to corrode through. I'm pretty sure it's from when the boat was new, 1999...
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Apr 12, 2021 09:21
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 Horrible to be onboard today, that's for sure
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Apr 15, 2021 20:07
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monsterzero posted:it turns me on a little when my wife corrects the server's Forrest Gump trivia. You married up.
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Apr 16, 2021 20:14
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Boats are great!... And by that I mean great holes in the water you pour money into
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Apr 28, 2021 14:47
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I remember the photos you took when you bought the boat. It's a rat's nest, and those batteries are hardly new, right? They might just be weak from old age and abuse. You need to make a schematic of the electrical system on your boat. This is a poo poo job, but sorta necessary. Alternatively, rip it all out and replace it with new, marine-grade stuff. Still need to make a schematic, though Generally a battery switch like that is there to give you flexibility to run your electrics from whatever battery you want, and also to connect the house battery to the starter if your starter battery is weak. 12.6V resting voltage isn't bad, but not great either, as long as they don't dip hard under load. A fully charged lead acid will sit around 12.7-12.8V.
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May 26, 2021 22:35
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I've ordered a relatively sensitive (but still cheap) UNI-T U210E clamp meter, makes it a lot easier to figure out where the power is going. The suggestion about getting the batteries tested is solid. But do charge them first. As a general precaution, I prefer to fully charge the batteries and then physically disconnect them (both positive and negative terminals, and the battery has to be pretty clean, too) if I'm not going to use the boat for a while.
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May 27, 2021 01:39
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wargames posted:We had a goon not too long do an electric conversion of a honda right? Well I am planning on doing an electric conversion of my sailboat and wanted to see if there was any knowledge to be gained from that old thread. 48 volts, lifepo4 batteries, check out "Sailing Uma" (e;fb ), especially the later videos. diysolarforum has some info on what aliexpress sellers are good for batteries, and who to absolutely avoid. Do your research before buying batteries, DO NOT buy the "first and best" cells you find, and build your own pack unless you love pissing away money. You can build a reasonable battery bank with 272/280 Ah lifepo4 cells, a 16s pack of those give you 14 kWh raw capacity, 12 kWh usable if you want them to last, peak power output is 1C, so about 13-14kW over a fair amount of the SOC range. You'll need a contactor-based BMS, and a good charger setup for lithium. Keep your old 12V/24V system for navigation and lights, use a DC-DC charger from the 48V system. There are some caveats for solar with a 48V battery bank, in that most MPPT controllers are buck, not boost, so you need a Voc at least 5V above your battery voltage, that means multiple panels in series, that can get annoying.
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Jun 10, 2021 23:13
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I'm phone posting right now, but be careful about daly for propulsion use, at least run twin banks. How big is the boat? I'll be happy to spar on solutions etc, but it being 1am here, it's a bit late to dig into right now I'm an EE with maritime and industrial experience, fwiw.
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Jun 10, 2021 23:59
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wargames posted:Its going to be 2 different 300amp banks. with 3/0 gauge wire running to 2x Victron Energy Lynx 1000amp Distributors. One of these will just be for battery the other one that is hooked up will be for the motor controllers and invertor/charger. I am thinking of doing one of the mpp 48v invertor/charger/mppt or growatt. Two banks is good, that gives you some redundancy if one BMS trips out, as well as 600A sustained and probably 1200A short-term current capability depending on the cells you pick. I would avoid a FET-based BMS, I'll see if I can find a decent contactor-based one, but they do cost a bit. Victron makes solid gear, I always recommend them first, I'm a bit more leery about using an all in one for a boat, though. With 40+Voc solar panels, you will want an MPPT that can do 120V, so you have some headroom. TheFluff posted:I've also been considering moving to LFP, but just for my house bank, and in my case I think 12V 100 Ah will be sort of overkill. If you intend on keeping the boat for a long time, going LFP might not be a bad idea, I would consider going for a larger battery, too, it doesn't cost all that much more if you're already going to build it yourself. But with that sort of power budget, a decent deep cycle 100-150 Ah lead acid battery would probably do the trick, too.
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Jun 12, 2021 15:06
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wargames posted:Victron is good but 3x what mpp and growatt charge but for their invertor/charger. How are you mounting those panels? Be mindful of the voltage ranges for the MPPT, the 6048 starts at 120V, that's 3 of those panels in full sun in series before it even starts charging, as soon as you get any shading it'll drop off to 0. Buy one of the all-in-ones for grid charging and inverter duties, but hook the panels up to a Victron 100/20-48, it's actually pretty reasonably priced. wargames posted:Also why is this thread not call Aquatic insanity? Now that's a good question
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Jun 12, 2021 21:19
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I hadn't heard those 100/20 models had a lot of RMA's, but it wouldn't surprise me - they're in that iffy area where you can hit overvoltage real easy if you're not very careful with panel selection. I'd go for the growatt, then, it seems to fit the bill. And you don't have to run all Victron. If you had to get that IP67 MPP solar all in one, you could combine it with a Victron MPPT to get the voltage range you want for the solar panels. Can you turn off the inverter on the growatt? so only the solar charger is active? If not, I would get a separate MPPT regardless.
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Jun 12, 2021 22:14
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wargames posted:Think so you can turn off the inverter or do something in the setting, I do see the stand by power for the invertors talked about is 28w. I may also go beyond 2 panels because going all electric has nice power demands. I just read the manual, and you can, so that's good! 800W of solar will probably not be enough, that's fair. At the same time you don't really have a lot of convenient places to put large 60/72-cell solar panels on a monohull, so you might have to resort to a separate boost MPPT charge controller. This might be suitable.
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Jun 12, 2021 22:40
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Get it media blasted and then repainted, it'll be fine for another 20 years.
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Jun 13, 2021 12:12
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ryanrs posted:Well, you're both wrong. Two 35 mm^2 cables DO have the same amount of copper as one 70 mm^2 cable. Chinese cable is usually marked in cross section mm^2, not AWG, and definitely not diameter. Most cable outside of the US is marked in mm² 35+35=70, so that's easy enough. If you double up, make sure they are the same length, to best balance the current.
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Jul 6, 2021 12:03
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wargames posted:the electric motor i am going with can pull down 1200amp at 48v. So 4/0 for batteries cables and runs to the motor controllers. That's over 50 kW  Have you done any kind of math on how much power you can reasonably draw with your boat + motor combination?
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Jul 6, 2021 17:57
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How big was the stock motor in your boat, and what's the hull speed?
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Jul 6, 2021 20:40
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Keep at it! Everything that gets done is a thing you don't need to worry about later, and you'll get into shape again soon enough
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Jul 10, 2021 11:06
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SomeDrunkenMick posted:https://imgur.com/a/3gLWQdw How much are they paying you to remove that from their property?
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Jul 13, 2021 00:13
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Neslepaks posted:Holiday sitrep, 11 nights aboard, somewhere south of Tvedestrand. My PV panels don't seem to provide anything this year, cutting our ability to stay in anchorages down to about 1 day, which isn't ideal. Read the regulator manual and hosed around with it for a while to no big avail, probably need to dig in there with a multimeter and stuff. Not sure what the problem is. You headed further south, or further north? I live in Vestfold and I'm happy to help What regulator is it? Measure the voltage on the PV input terminals on it to see if you have a wiring fault between the panels and the regulator.
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Jul 16, 2021 13:38
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Kesper North posted:I can vouch that this goon is not a serial killer. Neslepaks posted:Jolly deece of you Wibla, but I'm still not quite sure there's anything really wrong or if it just drowned in consumptuion. I'm going to turn off all consumers at midday today once my batts are fully charged and see. Neslepaks posted:Yeah headed north but verrrrry slowly, lingering in a nice area in the superb weater If you tie up there on the outside of the wave breaker, use long spring lines, lots of "heavy wake" traffic there, even at night. Wibla fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Jul 17, 2021 |
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Jul 17, 2021 12:30
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Fridges are power hogs, that's for sure, but if the panels are actually adding any significant power, you should see >13 volts. How big are those panels, and are they positioned well?
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Jul 17, 2021 19:14
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Here's a couple of photos from Lyngør, for context, taken in 2019:  And yes, every house must have a dock.
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Jul 23, 2021 15:35
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Safety Dance posted:I went sailing last night and got the most seasick I've ever been. Threw up overboard, and threw up again once I got back on land. I blame the sketchy (but delicious!) sandwich I had for lunch. Oof, that's a good way to get your day (or night ) on the water ruined.Elmnt80 posted:Anyways, one of our wind powered perverts should be along shortly, but some pics or an ad would be cool. Spending $5 on diesel sailing from Tønsberg to Strømstad (and back again) isn't perverted!  (posting some pics and/or an ad would be great, yeah)
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Jul 23, 2021 17:24
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In today's episode of "Wibla struggles with long covid and boat ownership" - I got some tidying done today, saved the coffee pot (well, not sure if it's actually SAVED yet, it was nasty from where my old man left it in the sink (and apparently there was some standing water there... eww) and I forgot to take it with me before the winter, but I've done a first pass of cleaning it, at least...), checked that no water had gotten in during the heavy rains (nope!), and checked that the fridge works (it does!). Should have taken some pics, but got busy doing stuff and forgot
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Jul 26, 2021 20:23
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I priced out a new diesel for my bavaria and its like $12k with labor, and that's for a 30hp Volvo Penta with saildrive... A refurbed MD2030 or D1-30 is an easy $4k for just the motor on a pallet.
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Aug 26, 2021 10:02
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Karma Comedian posted:Thanks for this, too, but the components are what they are; I've had these controllers and panels for a while now so the system is going in with each individual panel having an mppt. The 75/15 is very underpowered for one those panels at 12V, would barely be enough at 24V, so you made the right call there. You should check out some of the newer videos by Will Prowse, there are newer, very reasonably priced lifepo4 batteries on the market now. The Victron charge controllers are great for lifepo4, you can customize all the relevant settings. Do you have the newer SmartSolar controllers, or the older BlueSolar? They should be networked so they stay in sync. You'll also need a battery monitor, I recommend the smartshunt or the bmv-712.
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Aug 28, 2021 13:22
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Karma Comedian posted:Thanks I'll give them a look. Cerbo is nice, I can't really defend the extra outlay for my use case, but would want one otherwise. Already have a BMV-712 though How big was your old bank? And what's your budget like? You have a fairly significant amount of (peak) charging power available with 1200W of solar, but don't worry about sizing the batteries to your solar (beyond making sure that whatever lifepo4 battery/batteries you choose have BMS that can handle the current you're planning on imposing on them. A couple of very important factors with lithium: 1. if you connect multiple batteries in parallell, you MUST use a busbar and identical length cables from the busbar to the individual batteries, or you will more than likely end up with imbalanced charging/discharge that will cycle one of the batteries significantly more than the other. This is easily avoided if you do it right. 2. You can add more batteries later if you need more, it's not like lead acid where you can only do that the first year (or so).
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Aug 28, 2021 22:25
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Hadlock posted:On a lead acid battery, charging efficiency is above 80%, close to 90%... Up until you hit 80-85% capacity. Then charging efficiency drops of a cliff, down to about 20%. If you're recharging from shore power, or engine alternator, who cares right. But on solar, your 200w panel under ideal conditions at noon is only charging your battery bank at 40w. My chart plotter + vhf radio/ais + fm stereo and interior lights pull about 86 watts, hopefully your mppt is smart enough to shunt the solar directly to the panel powering your devices Coulombic efficiency dropping off a cliff + the high-ish internal resistance of lead acid (lower charge acceptance) at high state of charge means that it takes ages to hit float on lead acid using solar, and this is even worse when you're sailing and have electronics/autopilot etc running. Lithium handles this a lot better. TheFluff posted:There are a lot of ways you can gently caress up a lithium bank if you don't know what you're doing, though. The charge acceptance is so high that it's pretty easy to build a bank that's too big for your alternator so you may end up burning the alternator out because it's not meant to run at 100% load continuously for any meaningful period of time (and your engine compartment ventilation probably sucks too). You can also get a voltage spike that burns out the alternator's charge regulator if the BMS suddenly disconnects the battery bank for some reason while the alternator is running. Then there's the balancing issues, you really can't just connect 12V lithium batteries in parallel like you can with lead acid. Oh, and if you have heavy inductive loads like a windlass or bow thrusters you have to be careful about voltage spikes on BMS disconnect there too. It goes on, there's a lot of things you kinda have to know about with lithium. Lead acid sucks but it's very tolerant towards abuse and there's many decades of 12/24V products out there that kinda expect a lead acid battery being available to dump their garbage on. Spike loads can kill FET-based BMS, and they fail into an unsafe condition. You can parallell lithium batteries without any big issues, as long as they have (reasonably) similar state of charge. Best practices (for safety): - Use fuses rated for the short-circuit current capacity of lithium, we're talking kiloamps here - Keep the lead acid starter battery! - Strongly consider using DC-DC charger(s) - Have separate lead acid batteries for bow thruster and the anchor winch(es), or DIY a lifepo4 battery pack with contactor-based BMS - (IF DIY) Make sure you balance your pack properly before putting it in the boat. That means per-cell top balancing to 3.65V before assembling the pack. Best practices (for charging): - Keep your charge voltage below 14.2V - Don't float above 13.6V
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Aug 29, 2021 11:20
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Applebees Appetizer posted:Geez, lithium sounds like a pain in the dick on a boat Yeah, but IMO it's worth it
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Aug 29, 2021 16:14
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wargames posted:if you have a single panel per mppt, that panel is not going to push 15 amp nor 75 volts. Please tell me how 400W of power is less than 15A at 12V.
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Aug 29, 2021 18:25
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 23:57 |
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wargames posted:is his bank 12v? I have been living in 48v space for a while. Yeah 12V as far as I can tell. The number before the / is the maximum solar voltage, the number after the / is maximum current output from the MPPT. It makes sense if you think about it a bit - the key numbers you want to know for an MPPT is the maximum input voltage it supports, and the maximum output current it supports. The fiddly bits (FETs and such) are generally limited by current more so than the heatsinking capacity, which is why the more expensive, larger MPPTs tend to support 12-48V system voltage, and even the smaller ones tend to support 12V and 24V at a minimum. This is why I tend to recommend that people build 24V systems if they have the option to do so if they are building lifepo in the 2-5 kWh range, have an array larger than 1 kW and want a reasonably sized inverter. Wibla fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Aug 29, 2021 |
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Aug 29, 2021 22:26
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