NickTrevethan
Well-Known Member
The electric heads that has been sitting on the back deck was finally fitted on Saturday.
The old RM69 had a problem with the bowl seal, leaking contents out onto the bathroom sole and generally making life unpleasant unless we washed off the floor after every use – which we did!
The new unit is a dometic orbit 360 freshwater electric and its brilliant. I fitted an XM electric on an old boat and it was noisy and slow. This one is a totally different beast. Press a button to add fresh water – goodbye rotten egg stench and silly blue pipe add ons that do nothing for odour.
Press the flush button and thwump, bowl is empty in a second.
The installation was fairly straightforward. Getting the old one out was tough and left holes in the sole which of course would not match the new one. Plumbing the fresh water was pretty straightforward. We took a Tee off the cold supply to the hand basin and ran semi hard plastic pipe to a flexible tap connector with a speedfit one end and npt on the other.
That screwed into the connector on the loo.
We have connected the existing 1.5 inch discharge to an elbow, and then ran a loop of pipe up 18 inches or so and onto the output port. The reason is that it helps a little water in the bowl.
The ¾ inch seawater inlet is now redundant, but the plant is to fit a y valve and stepdown so we can discharge straight over if needs be. The head comes with 1.5 inch and ¾ inch outlet port adaptors so it should handle things. That said, I think solids will generally go through the big bore pipe.
The hardest job is the electrics and to be honest we have cheated as an interim measure.
At some point we are going to fit a bowthruster, and before that I am planning a battery bank forward. We could also wire in the head to that.
But our best option, and one I am thinking about for a project this winter, is to redo the whole supply to the 12 volt panel midships, fit a nice 25 amp breaker and re-organise things.
In the meantime I bought 240 volt to a 20 amp 12volt LED driver on amazon for 18 pounds and we are using that. It works while we are on shore power, and we have another manual head for when we are not.
The installation is a little ugly, but next we plan to box in the new pipes etc which will better protect the electrical contacts from shower splashes.
All in all, very happy and swmbo is pleased too – especially as she did most of the installation
The old RM69 had a problem with the bowl seal, leaking contents out onto the bathroom sole and generally making life unpleasant unless we washed off the floor after every use – which we did!
The new unit is a dometic orbit 360 freshwater electric and its brilliant. I fitted an XM electric on an old boat and it was noisy and slow. This one is a totally different beast. Press a button to add fresh water – goodbye rotten egg stench and silly blue pipe add ons that do nothing for odour.
Press the flush button and thwump, bowl is empty in a second.
The installation was fairly straightforward. Getting the old one out was tough and left holes in the sole which of course would not match the new one. Plumbing the fresh water was pretty straightforward. We took a Tee off the cold supply to the hand basin and ran semi hard plastic pipe to a flexible tap connector with a speedfit one end and npt on the other.
That screwed into the connector on the loo.
We have connected the existing 1.5 inch discharge to an elbow, and then ran a loop of pipe up 18 inches or so and onto the output port. The reason is that it helps a little water in the bowl.
The ¾ inch seawater inlet is now redundant, but the plant is to fit a y valve and stepdown so we can discharge straight over if needs be. The head comes with 1.5 inch and ¾ inch outlet port adaptors so it should handle things. That said, I think solids will generally go through the big bore pipe.
The hardest job is the electrics and to be honest we have cheated as an interim measure.
At some point we are going to fit a bowthruster, and before that I am planning a battery bank forward. We could also wire in the head to that.
But our best option, and one I am thinking about for a project this winter, is to redo the whole supply to the 12 volt panel midships, fit a nice 25 amp breaker and re-organise things.
In the meantime I bought 240 volt to a 20 amp 12volt LED driver on amazon for 18 pounds and we are using that. It works while we are on shore power, and we have another manual head for when we are not.
The installation is a little ugly, but next we plan to box in the new pipes etc which will better protect the electrical contacts from shower splashes.
All in all, very happy and swmbo is pleased too – especially as she did most of the installation
