I like ice in my G&T and in ouzo. The batteries disapprove., but blame the solar panel for not providing enough charge, especially on (admittedly rare) cloudy days. The solar panel points out that it’s doing its very best, but is operating solo, is only 100W anyway, and is nearly 15 years old, which is vintage in solar panel years. So everyone has a point, but I don’t have ice.
Also, the battery alarm beeps every time the fridge motor runs at night, when it’s not getting charged. The previous owners drank mostly beer or wine and weren’t bothered about making ice. The fridge seems up for it if turned up from 2 to 4, but that just increases the frequency and number of battery alarm beeps.
We need more power.
Wind turbines are not terribly effective here, where there’s often not enough wind or too much. The sun is more reliable as a rule, so more solar panels seems the way to go. The technology has improved a lot in the last decade and prices have come down.
How much solar power should we aim for? “At least 200W” says one person, “Minimum 400W” says another. “I’ve got 750W, but we still run the engine in the morning to use the coffee machine” says a third. “As much as you can fit” is a common piece of advice. “I’m going to do a power budget” says John.
John starts monitoring our current usage, recording how often the fridge motor kicks in at different times of day and night, and for how long. The fridge is our biggest power consumer day to day. He monitors, estimates and records the impact on the batteries of running every bit of equipment on board. We consider possible future requirements, for example an electric winch, and John researches and makes allowance for these. He researches the actual output we can expect from solar panels during each month we anticipate cruising. There will be less output early and late in the season when daylight hours are fewer, but lower temperatures also mean the fridge won’t have to work so hard. This is turning into quite a project.
It’s in the course of monitoring the current system that John begins to suspect that all is not as it should be. . .
The most important use for a battery on board is to start the engine. If your car won’t start, it’s irritating, inconvenient, but rarely life threatening and the car probably won’t be written off as a result. On a boat, if your anchor drags and you’re heading to the rocks, the engine won’t start and there’s no wind, these are real risks. Or if you’re on a collision course with a large vessel. Or if . . . the list goes on. There are often other options, but it’s safer and reassuring if the engine starts when asked, and that means having enough battery power set aside for the job. Like most boats these days, we have a dedicated engine battery. Everything else (fridge, lights, water pump for taps and shower, shower drain, bilge pump, vhf radio, the windlass to raise and lower the anchor, navigation instruments, charging phones, tablets etc.) runs off ‘Domestic’ batteries – 3 of them on LouLouDitsi.
Our batteries are charged by running the engine, by being plugged into shore power on a quay or pontoon (with associated costs) or by the solar panel. The batteries seem to be charging well from shore power, but the domestic batteries don’t seem to be charging as well as they should when we’re running the engine. It’s not obvious why. So we have an appointment for Thursday 21st June in Lefkas with Tim, a full time liveaboard and an electrical engineer. We met Tim on an earlier visit to Lefkas when we moored alongside them. He also volunteers to help John take off the outlet pipe in the forward heads, which still isn’t right, despite the HCl treatment and the firecrackers. The pipe looks fine, with no build up. It looks like we probably need a new pump unit.
Tim and John spend more than 2 days in the engine room trying to get to the bottom of the battery charging issue. I sit in the cockpit, turning the engine on and off as requested and doling out big glasses of water every time they emerge dripping with sweat. I’m also on deck duty as boats come and go next to us on the quay, making sure they don’t drop their anchor over ours, fending off when needed and taking their mooring lines.
On the first morning, it becomes clear that 2 of the domestic batteries aren’t performing as they should and we replace them (the credit card is having a very exciting time out here!) The 3rd one was new in April and looks fine. A couple of other fixes are made and then progress stalls.
From below I hear disconcerting comments like “That’s weird,” or “I wasn’t expecting that” or “That makes no sense.” John’s getting a really useful crash course in the way things are set up, but it’s keeping Tim awake at night! Finally, Tim spots that when the split diode battery isolator unit was installed some years ago, a connection that should have been changed, wasn’t. Changing the connection hasn’t completely solved the problem, but the batteries are now getting nearly the charge expected when the engine’s running. Tim’s cross with himself for not checking this earlier. We’re just pleased at the improvement and that John’s now more familiar with the engine and battery set-up than he was. Thank you, Tim!
We had planned to leave Lefkas after this, but the forecast didn’t look great and we decided, along with our lovely new Dutch neighbours, Frans and Marjo from Allegro, to stay on the town quay during the the winds and rain associated with a low pressure that’s developed over the Ionian. In fact, we end up staying 2 weeks in all, but that’s for the next post.