Smarten Up

After having fitted lots of other peoples boats, I finally succumbed and fitted my own Smartgauge.

Chris Gibson a.k.a Gibbo who created the unit has now sold his business to the Merlin Equipment business in Dorset and is retained as their senior R&D man.

This is why the Smartgauge unit now bears the Merlin name.

The main problem with batteries on boats is that most boaters hugely depend on them but don't really understand them.

What Chris has done is to break the mystique down to the essentials that most want to know.

How much power do I have in my battery bank ??

It gives a simple % reading - in the above photo, I have my bank 99% charged or 1% discharged.

I've heard it described as a fuel gauge for batteries.

We have a Mastervolt Amp-Counter for the domestic bank and a Victron one for the starter battery. I don't have a lot of faith in either and tend to monitor the voltage instead.

I have more faith in the Smartgauge which calculates the charge left in an adaptive way using a very accurate voltage reading directly from the battery terminals.

For £150 it does what I need.

It also acts as a display for the Merlin Smartbank system and is able to monitor the voltage of the start battery (already doing that), but an accurate % reading that tracks the batteries as they get older is enough for me.

The unit has changed very little over the years it's been available, but it now seems now that the membrane buttons aren't very positive in their operation - you have to push them quite firmly and don't always seem to get a connection first time. Might be an attempt to get the build costs down or hold them down ??

One of my gripes has always been that it has to be flush/panel mounted and there is no backbox option so it can be bulkhead mounted.

The word on the cut is that there is a Smartgauge 2 in the wings which will do lots more including monitor the charge/discharge current - rumoured to be a bit more expensive though !!

Mark and the Magic Torch

When our boat was built, we had a rechargeable torch mounted on the bulkhead just as you come down the aft steps.

It was similar to the aircraft emergency ones you see by the emergency exits on airliners.

Unfortunately, it has just given up the ghost after 8 years of valiant service.

Looking for a replacement, I was shocked at how expensive they are. The cheapest I could find was about £60 !!! :-0

It's not rocket science, but I've "devised" a small torch which sits in a charger on the bulkhead and runs from the boats 12V battery supply.

You just come into the boat, lift the torch out of its holster and use it to find all the switches, water cocks and so on, as you move throughout the boat.

When you've finished, you just put it back in the charger and it will be charged, ready for the next time.

It's also brilliant for the dark walk back to the boat from the pub - small enough to slip in the pocket (nobody wants a giant lantern on the table in front of them whilst supping a pint).

One charge lasts about 1-1/2 to 2 hours.

I've connected it directly back to the domestic bank battery isolator switch, so its powered (charging) all the time (and protected by a small in-line fuse).

An added bonus is that it also fits in the cigar lighter on the car, so if I'm in the car it goes with me there and when I'm living on the boat, it goes on there with me.

The very neat feature I like is that when the torch is on charge, it has a little red light in the lens, which makes it easy to find when you're stumbling around half awake, at middle of the night o'clock, trying to work out whats thumping on the roof !!! - you can just see the red light in the photo above.

If anybody's interested, I bought two - am using one and have put the other on Ebay.

If it doesn't sell, some relative will get it as a present.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180672061253

Float Switches Don't Float My Boat

I've never been greatly impressed with the float switches that are used in conjunction with bilge pumps to give automatic operation.

Many older models use Mercury tilt switches inside them. These are usually a small tube with electrical contacts at one end of the tube. When the float tilts, the mercury collects at one end of the tube and creates a conductive path to complete the circuit.

Mechanically activated float switches, which are often advertised as Mercury-free, use a steel ball in an enclosed run. When the float switch is tilted by the water level rising, the ball runs to one end and operates a lever, which in turn activates a micro-switch and makes the electrical connection to switch your bilge pump on.

Anything mechanical will eventually give problems.

I am now using a solid state switch for my bilge pump switching and bilge alarm applications.

These operate on electrical capacitance and are VERY reliable. So reliable, they come with a 5-year warranty. An added advantage of these is that they are very small, don't actually float up and suffer from unwanted buoyancy problems (never a good feature on a water levels switch) and they don't get triggered by an oil leak (which would result in pumping oil into the cut).

I've used these for a while now and am very impressed with them.

So much so, that I've started using them on my Intelligent Bilge Alarm design (my Mk3 version).

I also sell my surplus ones (and the bilge alarm) on my family Ebay site.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180669398184&ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT

Ebay Gum

Ebay, Gumtree, it's a different world.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I often produce interesting gadgets of a boaty persuasion.

You may remember my earlier post "Talking Bilge" about the Bilge Alarm shown above.

http://nbwillawaw.blogspot.com/2010/11/talking-bilge.html

My workshop is getting rather crammed with pieces of boaty electrical equipment and finished projects, so in a tidying process, I've decided to pass them to my family who are keen Ebayers and have started an Ebay seller called Phoenix Marine as an outlet for my excesses.

Some of the equipment I have is still new in the original packing (I have a habit of buying more items than I need in case I need spares, etc) and some is what I suppose would be considered shop soiled in that they have been on my bench.

Anyway, one of the rules of Ebay is that it has to be clearly defined what is new and what is not - quite right too.

Although, they don't seem to have an intermediate condition for items that are new but have been gathering dust on my bench (classified by them as "used" I'm afraid).

I also have some very interesting items like clamp on, battery powered, LED navigation lights for when you take a narrowboat on a river and need lights just for a few hours a year (i.e. not worth the expense and trouble of running wires and fitting permanent ones).

Anyway, there might be a few interesting things coming in the pipeline..

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/phoenixmarineelectronics

The Alternative Little Venice

I've seen lots of blogs just recently, showing the same boaty pictures of the 2011 IWA Cavalcade at Little Venice.






To me, Little Venice is more than a line of massed reproduction working boats, flying bunting, with their owners Bolinder-waving to each other.

LV is a sub-culture all of its own, all year round.

It's an upmarket boating community - I guess it has to be with mooring fees being what they are, there.

It's one of the few moorings that I know, where all the boaters seem to have cut-glass accents.

In my eyes, these three pics portray the real spirit of Little Venice..

The Last Blog

Looking at the blogroll which shows the last post made by each blogger (on the lower, left hand side of this page), some haven't blogged for 2 years.

Whilst I'm sure that many just got bored or what seemed like a good idea at the time, lost its shine (the new fad became something of a fag), some have probably sold up.

Since my involvement in the netosphere aspect of canal boating (about 6 years), I've seen quite a few boaters come and go.

This is made quite noticeable by blogs, where newbie boaters spring up with their new blogs, full of enthusiasm, often looking for escapism and a new life on the canals of merry England.

At the other end of the "long cruise", boaters often have to give up due to ill health, financial problems or disillusionment with the way the waterways are evolving.

Inspired by the epitaph of comedian Spike Milligan, whose gravestone says in Gaelic "I told you I wasn't well", when I'm ready to hang up my windlass, I might be tempted to make one last blog:

"taking on water, am sinking slo"

The Biggest Big Top

We went to a Westlife concert recently at the O2 arena on the Greenwich peninsula in London.

It was our first time at O2 and we were quite impressed by the facility.

It's got to be the biggest "big-top" I've ever seen.

Not only is it absolutely massive, but its also a dream to reach and park at and there are lots of restaurants inside to keep you entertained, pre-show.

If anything, the facility was a little underused, as there are still large open spaces inside the tent and I'm sure it has untapped potential for the future.

I'm so glad they didn't demolish it after the Millenium celebrations.

P.S Sorry about the photo quality - I had my pocket camera with me and the light wasn't the best.