knackered

ChattingLil

ChattingLil

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Good news bad news.

Turns out our adverc battery management is not working and despite being on shore power and motoring for several hours we have deep discharged our batteries. It would appear to be a miracle that engine started at all. Engine will start when on shore power but we obviously can't rely on that. Hence at some cost we have had engineer here who will hopefully remedy in time for us to be back at work next week.

On the plus side, it's a good job we found this out now rather than after dark crossing a shipping lane. And also there are worse places to be holed up.
 
There is 5 batteries. 1 x engine and 2 banks of 2 x domestics. We are still not sure what has happened. But for now we know that the engine battery is only charging from shore power. Because we have discharged that (wallas cooker, bow thruster I suppose) then we have prob drawn down domestics too.
 
Seems so but how would we know. Not cheap tho$ and issue of timliness. Unlikely to make queenboro. Will know more on Monday when engineer has quote and availability of part. Going off this boating lark. More and more I see why the majority of boaters don't have to work full time. (confessing a moment of misery)
MoodySabre said:
I would expect good service out there. Worst places indeed.
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The good thing is that it shouldn't take them long to fix it, so a week is plenty time, but yes, best found out now rather than on a crossing. I was going to suggest a spare battery but it sounds like you've got plenty there, maybe have one in reserve so charged from shore power but only used if switched to in backup mode, but that's over complicating the issue I think. Hope it gets sorted in time
 
ChattingLil said:
There is 5 batteries. 1 x engine and 2 banks of 2 x domestics. We are still not sure what has happened. But for now we know that the engine battery is only charging from shore power. Because we have discharged that (wallas cooker, bow thruster I suppose) then we have prob drawn down domestics too.
Click to expand...

The engine battery should be isolated, so that it is only used for starting the engine, and it obviously should be charged both by the engine and by shorepower.

I don't understand why you have 2 domestic banks. The 4 batteries would work more efficiently as a single bank. You might consider rewiring to achieve this.
 
Are the domestics charging from the engine?

(The fridge, Wallas etc shouldn't be drawing down the engine battery at all by the way)

From memory I don't think the Advert is likely to be the problem either, iI'd be looking at the split charge diode pack first
 
PBO had a test of emergency starter packs this month. I always isolate my starter battery when the engine is off so any drain is on the domestic battery but being a belt and braces type I like to have the emergency start pack as the beta does not have a starting handle like my old yanmar.
 
well I can tell you WHAT happened, but I cannot tell you WHY it happened.

What happened was that we awaited a local engineer who came at some cost and said - oh yes, it's the solonoid - let's replace that. Oh wait, it could be the starter motor, I can replace that for you on Monday. Oh hang on, it now looks like the adverc system, that's a bit obsolete and may take me a while to source, but I can probably do it by the end of the week. But on the other hand, it could the alternators and why do you have two alternators. also be this that or the other and, well, let me dick you about a bit more making stabs in the dark and quote you for replacing everything because it;s all old and then you will be sure it's all new and ok. Oh what's that Marlec doing, oh you have a wind gen. Final opinion was something to do with the split diodes into the Marlec.

So, we said, ok, get us a quote on Monday for the adverc so we can at least see if the batteries are getting charged.

By this time we'd been in Middelburg 4 days already and we were running out of time for the rest of the the trip we'd planned before heading back to the UK.
On Sunday, the engine battery appeared to be fully charged and it started on the button every time. But we don't know why. Or why it didn't before. Dan Tribe popped up (hello) and loaned us a set of jump leads and it seemed that the domestics were being charged by shore-power and they were full, so we could always jump start the engine battery from the domestics.
So on Monday, we cancelled the engineer, motored back to Breskens (rescuing a yacht in distress on the way and towing it into Breskens with us). Plugged in shore-power all night and left at dawn on Tuesday. We motor sailed all the way back to Queenborough to afraid to turn off the engine in case it wouldn't start again.
On Wednesday we headed over to Gillingham to get a quote for the damage to hull caused by the pranny that pranged us in Ramsgate.
On Thursday we headed home.

We await the deluge of forumites arriving in Limehouse on Sunday and we will discuss some more with them. Marc has some ideas, but will pick it over with some grey-beards.

thanks for asking! all's well that ends well. We did at least get to Holland this year and it's all experience in the bank.
 
Oi, who're calling a grey beard? Oh, hang on a sec... :)

I've got my test kit with me, we'll see what can be done when we get to Limehouse

(right now we've got problems of our own, our water intake is totally bunged up with horrible green weed and I can't shift it. Gonna have to dismantle the seacock in situ and I haven't got a bloody spanner big enough and the pipe wrench that was in the boat tool kit isn't in the boat tool kit :()
 
Erbas said:
Oi, who're calling a grey beard? Oh, hang on a sec... :)

I've got my test kit with me, we'll see what can be done when we get to Limehouse

(right now we've got problems of our own, our water intake is totally bunged up with horrible green weed and I can't shift it. Gonna have to dismantle the seacock in situ and I haven't got a bloody spanner big enough and the pipe wrench that was in the boat tool kit isn't in the boat tool kit :()
Click to expand...

i cleared mine 3 times last year with the dinghy pump
 
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