Wharf area now.

The mobile signal has improved since my last visit and I can actually access the internet and do things I do normally.

Last time, it was abysmal https://www.michaeltyler.co.uk/somerton-and-9-hours-in-aynho/

Boat work

The weather has improved slightly, to the point I can think about doing jobs like painting the cabin.

This has been needing some attention for years, literally. Due to the inclement nature of the UK weather, it’s very difficult to put time aside to do it as the weather may change at any time and render your planning useless.

Fortunately, I have no work at the moment and I plan to do nothing, for the moment. That is apart from do those jobs that require that you have nothing to do of which is paint is one.

I’ve done some of the preparation on the side panel. Sanded it down, primed and undercoated it. It needs it to be a) Not windy. b) Not raining c) Not going to rain, for me to be able to put on the topcoat.

Over the coming days, there’s no doubt I will achieve this.

Victron Smartsolar

On installing the Lifepo4 batteries and encountering some teething errors with the Battery Management Systems on the Fogstar‘s, I’ve found out that Lifepo‘s and Peak Wave Modulator solar controllers don’t mix.

Apparently the peak wave that the PWM controller sends out can potentially create a false positive to a Battery Management System. Obviously, with the old lead acids, they had no control system. The PWM would send them spikes of higher voltage charge until they rejected them. This was quite effective in fully charging a set of AGM’s. I found they would charge more fully with two sets of solar controller. And I have tried it with MPPT alone. Leads do charge better.

Sending spikes of charge to a battery management software renders quite different results.

Don’t use a PWM with the Battery Management System

I found this received wisdom to be partially true.

At lower voltages and at lower light levels, using a PWM to charge your BMS type batteries made 0 difference. The batteries would suck in as much as they could from the limited number of daylight hours. End of.

When the light level increased, I found that the PWM would more quickly render a false positive showing a higher battery voltage than was actually the case, and stopping to charge. This was especially true of the cheaper ebay model.

As soon as you got a full day of sun, the cheap ebay PWM would show the batteries as full and shut down. The batteries themselves didn’t seem to mind. I did, the thought of random excess voltages being fired at a technology they’ve not been designed with in mind didn’t sit easy.

I got rid of the old cheap ebay PWM and replaced it with a Victron Smartsolar controller.

This works on a different charger technology called Maximum Power Point Tracking or MPPT. It’s designed around continuous adjustments to the Maximum Power Point. How it does this I don’t really know, and the websites I’ve looked at are all trying to sell me something, which tells me they don’t know either… Suffice to say, the magic of electrickery has brought MPPTs to us, and now they are here, we should use them. ..

Unlike the PWM’s, MPPT’s don’t fire a high(er) voltage spike at the batteries, rather they monitor, which creates less false positives for a battery managed system, which in turn means more charge from the panels and more electricity from my existing assets.

Installing the Victron

I put it where the previous controller was.

Instead of two sets of panels with 2xPWM controllers, I’ve run them both through this Smart solar device in parallel, as below.

Bluetooth display

I can now monitor the output of the panels in real-time or historically.

I’m quite impressed by this controller. Apart from looking nice and having a fancy interface, it has actually increased the efficiency of these panels quite considerably, (by as much as 30% the Victron people say on their sales bmph).

Leaky chimney

Got up this morning, after doing a couple of things, made my way over to the computer, where I noticed a foam roller, put ready to paint, had become a little soggy on the side. When I looked underneath it, I noticed a little puddle.

I turned and looked at the stove which had an even bigger puddle on the top-plate.

On prepping the cabin roof, I’d peeled away some of the sealant from around the chimney. “It won’t make any difference this….”, so I thought as I was peeling it away. I was wrong. Even a little bit of rain and it’s congregating on my internal workings, dribbling over speakers and coming dangerously close to my computer.

For the joys of boating….

Until next time….