Electrical Supplies

[Mariner69]

I have just ordered a tiller pilot (Simrad) for my very minimalist sailing boat, that I keep on a mud berth. I have no electrical power and rely on oil lamps and torch batteries for the electrical needs.

Can someone kindly advise what they would recommend for the minimum fitment (cost and effort) to arrange a setup for the tiller pilot. I have in mind buying a cheap car or motorcycle battery and taking it home for charging on day runs and taking a standard car charger unit with me for when I go into a marina.

My venture in to the high tech end of boating has come about since; I set my sails, nicely balanced for hands off sailing with no hands on the tiller. I then move my weight to the cabin to make tea or use the bucket and find her deciding to go in circles or weaves of her own, without a bye or leave, since my weight is relatively large compared to the vessel's ballast. And NO, dieting is not an option...

 

[tobble]

depends a bit on how much you'll have it on, and how bothered you would be if you ran out of juice.

the 'minimum' option would be to heave-to when making tea etc, and dig out the reciept for the pilot...

I think simrad suggest some rough power useages in the hand book that will guide your choice of battery size. if this is the only use, you'd probably be better off going for a deep cycle battery rather than a car/MC one, which is designed for high currents (which you don't have) but don't take kindly to being run right down, which you may be doing. If you take the average current consumption, and multiply by the no of hours you would expect to use the pilot in a trip, then multiply by two, that'll give you an idea of the capacity of battery you need.

if this seems like a lot, either a) think of a way of using is a lot less (see abouve re heaving to!) or you'll need some system of rechargin the batts on the fly.

I'm guessing if the boat's displacement is so little you don't have an inboard - if you do the best bet is prob charging either straight of the alternator, or even better fork out £70 or so for a smart alternator controller - look up stirling, adverc etc on these fora or google for more info.

failing that, you're looking at solar panels or a wind turbine or both, which will cost more than the pilot did...

might be worth asking Nathanlee of this parish as he has this sort of set up.

 

[miko]

If you only plan to use the battery for the tiller pilot than the setup would comprise of a battery, a circuit of appropriately sized cable between the TP socket and the battery with a switch/fuse in between. I would think a leisure type battery would be better than a standard car battery. Size of the battery would be determined by the maximum load drawn by the TP x the length of time you would expect to use it. A 60AH Battery should be plenty for a weekend. The thing is that once you have the battery there, you may be tempted to do more with it.

 

[status]

Can someone kindly advise what they would recommend for the minimum fitment (cost and effort) to arrange a setup for the tiller pilot. I have in mind buying a cheap car or motorcycle battery and taking it home for charging on day runs and taking a standard car charger unit with me for when I go into a marina.

Sounds a practical, cheap and basic set-up. Couple of quick questions, how easy is it to lug a battery between car and boat i.e. across the mud or in a dingy? I would imagine you are going to need a little more than a motorcycle battery depending on your sailing duration.

How often do you go sailing? would a cheap solar pannel without a regulator work, charging the battery over 4 or 5 days during the week for a weekends sail?

My venture in to the high tech end of boating has come about since; I set my sails, nicely balanced for hands off sailing with no hands on the tiller. I then move my weight to the cabin to make tea or use the bucket and find her deciding to go in circles or weaves of her own, without a bye or leave, since my weight is relatively large compared to the vessel's ballast. And NO, dieting is not an option...

I found the same and bought a tiller pilot! Makes life so much easier.

 

[Eygthene]

I had a small Simrad (TP 10?) on our old quarter tonner. It would cut out after a few hours (5-10 hours?) and go into standby, with a quiet single bleep.

(1) Mainly this was because the battery voltage (55 Ah car battery) was getting too low, due its current demand,
(2) partly it was because I had not used a good thick cable from the battery to the Simrad - this causes a significant voltage drop.
(3) partly it may have been because the settings of gain and yaw on the Simrad had not been optimised - resulting in too many small adjustments to the course, each one using up energy.
(4) possibly the sails had not been exactly balanced before engaging the Simrad. This also increases the current draw.

All of these things are critical if you are going to require a long duration of operation before the next possibility of recharging. I agree with posters above, that a leisure battery would stand up better to the duty required. I think my 55Ah capacity would not be too big for the duty and equipped with a handle is about as big as you would want to carry back and forth.

When motoring (and hence getting full volts) the Simrad was able to continue as long as necessary.

 

[gasdave]

I would recommend a leisure battery (rather than a car/bike battery), an appropriately sized cable with a suitable fuse and switch for your circuitry. If you're carrying it back and forth you maybe need to consider something protective to transport it in as accidents do happen and even these smaller batteries are quite heavy.
A small unregulated solar panel (~10W) with a couple of clips to the poles ought to keep it sufficiently charged between sails if you are only out at weekends.

However I would echo Miko's point about mission creep and the accumulation of other gadgets once you start!

 

[VicS]

I agree with the solar panel suggestion.

I have a bit more electrical gear but the old original Autohelm is probably the biggest user (nav lights would be if I sailed much at night I guess but I don't).

I started off by using a battery identical to the one in SWMBO's car. It seemed like a good idea, but it wasn't, it was rather heavy! .

Then for a time I used the smallest car battery I could find.

Then I moved to small leisure battery, then a larger one as the small one was NLA.

Golf trolley batteries may be worth investigating as they are true deep cycle batteries ... they may be expensive though.


I get a bit of electrical power for recharging from the outboard but nowhere near enough so I used to have to lug the battery home periodically. Lowering a heavy battery on a piece of rope into a lightly built plywood dinghy was always a worry! Climbing between boat and dinghy with it tucked under one arm an even bigger worry

Since fitting the solar panel, and it is only 5 watts, I have not had to bring the battery home for charging.

Suggest therefore a leisure battery or a small deep cycle battery if you can find one at an acceptable price.

Fit a solar panel, 10 watts if you can find the space (But fit a regulator if using anything smaller than a 110AH battery) 7 watts or even 5 watts if no room for 10watts.

 

[Mariner69]

Thanks for the help

Thanks for all the suggestions, they have given me food for thought.

I bought the outboard with a big honda seawave dinghy to train SWMBO for a year before buying the boat, so I told the guy in the shop not to give me the motor with the alternator "As it would be just one more thing to go wrong" and since it was only for a short period it wouldn't matter. It also cost the same!!!

I then found I couldn't carry the boat around as easily as I thought (35 kg in a valaise) so joined a yacht club. Then found it was full of second hand boat salesmen who sold my wife the boat as a 'nice present'.

Selling SWMBO's present is now a difficult subject hence the latest effort to use it despite crippling my back with the tiny space. Four berths. Where the hell does Snow White sleep?

I hope to make it to Calais for the May rally.

 

[seadog30]

Two Batteries !

In my old 20' kingfisher with no means of charging we tried two 17AH motorcycle batteries connected in parallel (small light and easy to carry) and a 5Watt cheap solar panel. After a weekends sailing we would take one of the batteries home and charge it, the solar pannel had the power to charge one battery to 100% but not two.

Provided that the wires used are as thick as possible to minimise the volts drop to the tiller pilot then you should get a good 10 or 12 hour use on an optimised tiller pilot and balanced sail set up.

Good sailing

 

[VicS]

two 17AH motorcycle ......... and a 5Watt cheap solar panel. ......., the solar pannel had the power to charge one battery to 100% but not two..

My panel was not cheap. Original was about 100 notes IIRC its recent replacement was over 60 (Specra semiflexible from Seateach) Seems to keep my 60Ah leisure battery topped up Ok but I am not out every weekend, far from it. If I used the boat more I would probably need a larger panel.