Solar, And Temperature

These cool, partly cloudy spring days provided me an opportunity to see the temperature dependence of solar panel energy generation right up close and personally.

In one particular instance, it had been cloudy for at least an hour.  There was a gentle breeze blowing and the temperature was in the high 40s.  Because of the breeze and the shade, my solar panels were cool.

Then the clouds parted and the sun came out, pretty much all at once.

551.6 watts

I know it's a little hard to read, but the blue system monitor at the lower right is showing 551.6 watts.

A few minutes later, the solar panels were still in full sun - that is, no change in energy falling on the panels.  Yet, here is the output:

Later, 532.4 watts

Yup, output has dropped to 532.4 watts as the panels heated up...  that's a drop of 3%.  That is a pretty significant drop.  You folks in the tropics should be able to get a pretty substantial increase in solar output if you can figure out some way too cool your panels...

(FWIW, the biggest reading I saw came later in the day when the sun was higher, and again just after a cloud has passed:  571 watts.  I love seeing that current meter needle buried!)

Solar, And Temperature

Carbon Foam Batteries

Recently a friend of mine asked me to opine on carbon foam batteries.  This is what I told him:

First, how a conventional lead acid battery works. There are two chemical reactions going on in the battery as it discharges... at the positive plates, PbO2 > PbSO4, and at the negative plate, Pb > PbSO4. (that's a very simplified version). But here's the rub... PbO2 and PbSO4 are both non-metallic powdery solids. How to keep them in contact with the plates (which, BTW are also made of Pb)? The solution which has evolved over the century or so that lead acid batteries have existed is to form the Pb plate into a kind of grid of fine Pb 'wires' supported by a Pb framework, one which will hopefully provide pockets where the solids can be kept in contact with the plate metal.

The carbon foam battery is a departure from this. In this battery, the 'plate' is actually a sheet of carbon foam. Carbon, because it is a (pretty good) conductor - perhaps even better than the Pb of conventional plates - and because (unlike the Pb plates) it is completely inert in sulphuric acid. But the primary benefit is that each of those millions of little tiny pockets in the foam serves to trap and contain the PbO2 and/or PbSO4 powders, keeping them in intimate contact with the plate.

How is this an advantage?

• First, imagine a standard car battery - it is subjected to vibration all the time the car is moving. Vibration loosens the powders, allowing them to fall out of the Pb grid, to the bottom of the battery, where they are lost forever from participating in the charge/discharge chemistry, thereby reducing the battery's capacity. In fact, if enough falls to the bottom of the battery, it will create a shorted cell. Consequently, batteries are taller than they strictly need to be in order to give a little room at the bottom for lost reactants. Because the powder reactants in a carbon foam battery are more intimately contained and therefore less likely to be shaken loose, I would think therefore that its plates could be taller while still fitting inside the standard battery form factors, creating a slightly greater amp-hour capacity in the same form factor.
•  Charge and discharge rates are determined by surface area of the plates. Not the gross size of the plates, but the micro surface area. Carbon foam has orders of magnitude more surface area per unit volume than even the best lead screen design of a conventional plate. Therefore, the discharge rates achievable by carbon foam batteries should be much higher (perhaps only temperature limited? I don't know).
•  Battery capacity (amp-hours) is determined by the quantity of reactants available. The more reactants, the more capacity. I don't know how the reactant storage capacity of carbon foam compares to the capacity of the lead screen plates.  
• Never forget that the sulphuric acid is also one of the reactants (not shown above). The acid needs to get to and circulate around the plates for the energy producing reactions to happen.  The carbon foam battery needs to make provision for sulphuric acid circulation in depth in the plates. I don't know how they address this issue. If acid flow channels have to be made in the foam, this will reduce the potential storage capacity of the plate.

So, carbon foam batteries should *potentially* have higher capacity and greater discharge rates, but whether this can be realized in practice will be dependent on the specific mechanical design of the carbon foam plates. This is an interesting technology to watch as it develops...  

Maybe someone out there with knowledge in the industry could comment?

Carbon Foam Batteries 

Haulout 2019

On September 20 we did out 3-year haulout, this time at Marine Service Center in Anacortes.  Well, actually it's only been 2.5 years since our last haulout, instead of three.  We pulled this fall rather than next spring because Washington State, in its rush to be more "ecologically responsible" than even California, has banned copper-containing bottom paints, effective 1-Jan-2020.  Of course, this ban applies only to recreational vessels - commercial vessels may continue using copper bottom paint.  They must have a much better lobby.

But when I talked to the folks at the yard, it turns out that the ban has been delayed until 1-Jan-2021.  Why?  Because the State's research revealed that there is no viable alternative to copper-based bottom paints.  You might wonder why they passed the law and *then* did the research...

Always scary to see your baby like this

So we hauled out.  We did it at Marine Service Center because the last haulout at Pacific Marine was an unmitigated disaster.  They use a gigantic trailer with inflatable bunks to haul - apparently it is cheaper than a Travelift to operate.  But with our boat, the bunks landed exactly on our transducers, loosening one of them.  Then we were painted by temporary help, hired that day, who did not do a good job, and finally it was nearly a month before they discovered we had been launched without paying.

In complete contrast, the haulout at Marine Service Center could not have gone better.  The people were friendly, professional, careful, and completely competent.  I highly recommend Marine Service Center.

We typically haul on a Friday.  Since the yard cannot do anything on the boat until it is dry after pressure washing, this gives us the weekend to do what we need to do before the prep and painting begins.

Does this guy look tired?

In this instance, I used the weekend to lube the underwater side of our thru hulls, to rod out our galley sink drain (there were barnacles in there, causing it to run slow), and to buff out the upper part of the hull (a huge job).

Rain, rain, go away...

Paying attention to the weather forecast, I saved the prop for Sunday since rain was forecast.  The prop is located where the rain wouldn't get on it while working on it.

Oooo... clean!

Sand/grind the barnacles off (there were surprisingly few...), change the zinc, and apply several coats of Barnacle Ban, a cold galvanizing paint which repels barnacles.

Always looks so good when the paint is fresh!

One of my primary concerns was whether or not I had cured the weird (Electrolytic? Galvanic?) attack we had seen on the bottom paint near various pieces of underwater metal - even some which are not connected to anything!  I am happy to report that the fix has eliminated the problem!

Haulout 2019

Genset Summer

After doing all that work on the generator this spring, when we got back after a couple of weeks at anchor, I found this...

Yep - the seawater pump on the generator had failed.

Apparently the first to go was the seal - that's what keeps the seawater inside the pump and away from the bearings that support the shaft:

That's not supposed to be three different pieces...

In fact the seal was so far gone that it came out in three pieces.

And then, because Kohler didn't see fit to use sealed bearings, the seawater running past the failed seal got into the bearings.  High carbon steel does not do well with exposure to salt water...

Bearings no more...

But thankfully, I have the tools and a rebuild kit was just an eBay away for a nominal sum, so one more time into the bilges, and the pump was as good as new.  Actually better than new, because the rebuild kit came with stainless bolts to replace the brass (?!) phillips screws that had originally held the cover plate on.  I also replaced the single brass (again...) screw that held the pump cam in place with a stainless one.  That brass screw came out in three pieces...  I can just barely imagine what would have happened if the cam had come loose in there when the pump was running...

Better than new!

Previous post in this series

Genset Summer

Closure

I have to give all 3 of you patient readers closure on the generator issues...

It's done.  Finished.

I filled the fresh water side with water/antifreeze mix, opened the seawater valve and started it.

There were two problems.  The first was apparent even before the engine fired - diesel mist was escaping from the exhaust elbow flange.  I had been gentle with the 8 mm dia bolts that hold it on, fearing that I could strip or break them.   Apparently I had been too gentle.  A little judicious torque applied to the bolts solved that problem.

Next, after a few minutes of running, the engine started to slow down in what all of us with diesel engines recognize as the dreaded 'air bubble' somewhere in the system.  I bled it again (and got out some more air) but that didn't solve the problem.  Apparently there was now a bubble between the injection pump and the injectors.  Finally I started it up and applied a load (the water heater) which caused lots of diesel to be injected into the cylinders.  That did it - the air was swept out, leaving behind a smooth running engine.

So, this may be the longest oil change on record...  I started the oil change on 3/23, and here we are at the first day of May.

Gratuitous picture showing the finished product, again

Previous post in this series

Next post in this series

Closure

Almost...

It's hard to remember after so much work on the generator, that the original intent was only to change the oil.

Done, nearly

Nevertheless, here we are.  I got everything reassembled, with only a couple of difficult spots.

The first relief was that reinstalling the fuel line to the pump went a lot easier than when the filter end was firmly attached (I made up the filter connection, and then installed the filter...).  Everything else went pretty much by the book.

Old vs. New

But the new exhaust elbow caused a little difficulty because the water connection was rotated counterclockwise a little (see the little block bolted to the head at the far left in the 'old' view - where the wires go).  As a consequence, it interfered with the cylinder head over-temperature sensor.  But that was remedied by installing the sensor to another threaded hole in the head only an inch below the original.

The biggest problem was the wiring to the head over-temp sensor and the exhaust elbow over-temp sensor.  At the head sensor, there were two wires in the terminal (the sensors are in parallel - either can shut the engine down).  When I was sliding the connector on, one of the wires pulled out of the terminal.  It turns out that these are unusual terminals (read: Sebo's doesn't stock them), so I had to spend nearly an hour laboriously un-crimping the terminal and then re-crimping it with both wires firmly attached.

Done!

But I ran out of time.  I have bled the fuel system, but I still need to bleed the seawater side and refill the fresh water side of the engine.  Then I need to run it and look for:

• Oil leaks
• Exhaust leaks
• Fresh water leaks
• Salt water leaks

Hopefully there won't be any of these, and I can finally pull the curtains closed on this year's annual genset oil change.


Previous post in this series

Next post in this series

Almost...

Recursive Maintenance Continues

Maintenance recursiveness continues.

Being unable to budge the stubs left from grinding off the bolt heads, the only remedy was to remove the exhaust manifold/cooler to provide access for more drastic treatment of the bolt remainders than I could bring to bear with it in situ.

But...  before removing the exhaust manifold/cooler I had to drain both the antifreeze treated fresh water and the seawater from it.  This posed a problem because the genset and the heat pump share a thru hull, strainer and feed line.  Because it is still too cool here to do without the heat pump, I needed to install a shutoff valve in the genset seawater feed.

Genset seawater feed shutoff valve

This had it's own set of problems, first of which was a trip up into town to get some fittings.  Of course.  Despite the fact that I have a huge number of fittings aboard, none of them were suitable.  Then shut down the heat pump, close the seacock, cut the hose and clean up the mess from the drainage.  Finally, install the valve.

Draining the manifold/cooler

Now it was possible to drain the manifold.  Because Yanmar provided both drain petcocks and even drain hoses on the 2GMF, this was a clean job. 

And finally, removal of the now empty manifold was quite straightforward.

It turned out that the bolt stub removal was also easy...  because I took the manifold to Gustav at EngineTec here in Anacortes (highly recommended by Jason, and now I can add my enthusiastic recommendation as well).  An hour after I had dropped it off, Gustav called me telling me it was ready for pickup.  I barely had time to finish a post removal celebratory beer!

All I lack for reassembly is the gasket that goes between the manifold and the engine - currently on order.

---

I lay the blame for this incident at the feet of Kohler, the genset manufacturer.  Kohler adapted the Yanmar 2GMF to power the generator.  When they did so, one of the changes they had to make (in addition to relocating the oil filter) was to reorient the exhaust elbow.  The Yanmar elbow points straight down - that would have interfered with the generator body.

Kohler tilted the elbow to the right

So Kohler cut the elbow pipe off the flange and rewelded it at an angle to clear the generator body.  So far, so good.

The problem was that they made a dog's breakfast of it.  When the pipe was rewelded to the flange, the flange warped, making a seal against the manifold completely impossible.  Rather than redoing the weld, perhaps on a fresh, heavier flange, Kohler sealed the 1/8" gap using JB Weld or something similar applied to the manifold, and then to make sure, they installed two gaskets.  This all became obvious when I was able to inspect the manifold, and when I removed the gaskets and exposed the JB Weld (or whatever) on the manifold flange.  This crappy jury rig held for a while... perhaps 400 engine hours.  And then the leakage started.

Yanmar: 1
Kohler:   0


Previous post in this series

Next post in this series

Recursive Maintenance Continues

Genset Stage Three

Heads ground off the bolts

As I mentioned previously, I intended to grind the heads off of the bolts.  I could not budge the two on the right with a wrench without risking twisting them off, and the two on the left had corroded to the point where their heads were just nubs.  The plan was to grind off the heads, remove the elbow, and then use ViceGrip pliers to grip the stubs and turn them out, if possible.  The only tool that I could get to bear on the bolts was a Dremel tool with a little 3/4" grinding head...  it took about an hour for each bolt.

It's off!

Amazingly, even with the bolt heads removed, I had to drive a screwdriver between the elbow and the exhaust manifold to free the elbow. Corrosion products completely filled up the space between the bolts and the holes in the elbow flange, bonding it tightly. This does not bode well for being able to remove the bolts...

The inner tube is loose

...And this tells part of the story. The inner pipe was loose and had been ejected part way down the hose that attaches to the exhaust elbow...

Warped flange

And this is the rest of the story: the near edge (the bottom) of the flange is significantly warped. Combined with the loose inner pipe (above), this meant that hot seawater would be leaking out of the bottom of the flange. That seawater was supposed to cascade down around the inner pipe and join the exhaust gases near the far end of the elbow. Instead it was right there at the warped flange.

New fuel pump installed

With the primary and time-limiting task out of the way and the old elbow shipped off to Ben at ExhaustElbow.com, I had more room to work and more time, so I installed the new fuel pump.

Shiny new exhaust elbow

Late breaking news: Ben has completed the new elbow and will be shipping it soon! Gotta get those bolt stubs out!

Previous post in this series

Next post in this series

Genset Stage Three

Genset Saga Continues

Well, there has been a little progress.

Kohler oil filter stand-in

I have removed the remote oil filter mount, the (rusted out) oil lines and the heavy iron casting that Kohler installed to replace the oil filter and provide attachment points for the oil lines.  Holy cow!  That was not trivial work.  The banjo fittings at the oil line ends used 25 mm bolts, and it was pretty much everything I could muster in the confined space to break them loose.

As another example of Salnick’s Law of Recursive Maintenance, it was not possible to actually separate the oil lines from the engine because they were behind the water feed line to the sea water pump.  Since I had then to drain and disconnect the pump, this provided a perfect opportunity to replace the pump impeller.  The old impeller looked like it was new.

And while the pump was out I got the oil lines out, tho even with the water fed line out of the way it was still a complex geometry problem to unthread the lines in the cramped operation space.

Oil filter in Yanmar factory location (oil lines still in place)

In order to ensure that I had no leaks, I installed a new filter, reconnected the sea water line and fired up the genset.  There were no leaks, oil or water!

Next on the agenda:

• Replace the corroded mess of a fuel lift pump
• Remove the exhaust elbow and send it to the fabricator who will make me a new one out of 316SS.  This will not be easy.  Two of the bolts that hold the elbow on are corroded to the point that the heads are just nubs.  And of course these are the ones that are nearly impossible to get at.  To add, I can’t budge the other two... without risk of snapping them off. 
  
  My next plan is to use a Dremel tool to tediously grind off the heads of the bolts, remove the elbow and then use vice grips to attempt to remove the remaining “studs”.  Two of the bolts go into thru-holes in a flange on the block, so the worst case scenario there would be that they get drilled out and replaced with bolts and nuts.  The other two, the hardest to get at (naturally), go into blind holes...

And so the saga continues...

Previous post in this series

Next post in this series

Genset Saga Continues

The Boaty Way of Things

As a normal part of pre-season maintenance, I change the oil in the generator.

No big deal, right?  Should take less than an hour.

Before I remove the oil via a suction tube shoved down the dipstick hole, I heat it up - this makes the process go much faster.  I heat it up by running the generator, naturally.  So I started the generator.

After a while, it shut itself down.  Not the slowly chugging of a fuel starvation issue, but sudden - like I had hit the kill switch.

I pulled up the floorboard and was rewarded with an oil-spattered view...  the generator had spat out all its oil and shut itself down on lack of oil pressure.  What a mess!  Thankfully there is a drip pan under the engine big enough to contain the entire oil charge...  and that's where it was.  The part not on the batteries, walls, floorboards, etc.

I had had this happen once before due to the failure of the oil filter gasket, so I presumed that was what had happened here.  Consequently, I purchased (dearly) a factory authorized oil filter, presuming that the aftermarket filter that I had installed last year was the culprit.  And installed it. and filled the generator with fresh oil (whew!  that was the original objective).

When I started it, I was greeted with a spray of clean oil, right in the face.

OK...  not the oil filter.

A close examination revealed that the leak was likely at the oil pipe...  "Oil pipe," you ask?  Yes.  Kohler, the manufacturer of the genset, used a Yanmar 2gmf diesel engine as a power source.  But the Yanmar design has the oil filter screwed into the block in a horizontal position.  This means that when it is removed, it dumps a cup of oil all over the place, and more particularly, it would dump it outside the drip pan under the engine.  Kohler's answer?  Relocate the oil filter to the other side of the engine where there is a tight spot where it could be mounted vertically, and over the drip pan.

The fuel pump is in that corrosion... somewhere...

But sadly, this location is exactly under the location where the exhaust elbow will drip, if it is failing (uh oh...).  Yeah.  And so add the fuel lift pump.

So far, it seems that I need to replace the feed pipe to the oil filter, the lift pump, and the exhaust elbow.  Here are the costs:

Item	Cost
Lift Pump	$86
Oil Pipe	$209
Exhaust Elbow	$767

Now I want to put this into perspective...  A fuel pump for a big block Chevrolet engine costs less than $20.  And $209 for a 12" piece of 1/4" steel tubing??  But HOLY COW!  The exhaust elbow is breathtakingly expensive for an 8" long fabricated mild steel item.  I would have to bet that if I just bought the parts to build this generator from scratch it would cost as much as the entire boat!

In the boaty way of things, the perforated oil pipe cannot be removed without disconnecting and draining the sea water feed to the generator.  And a BIG wrench.  So, since I will have the feed disconnected from the sea water pump, I might just as well change the impeller there too, right?  Add another $40 and a big hassle.  And this presumes that I can get it apart without stripping any screws...

So, the current status is this:

• I have a new fuel pump on order.  
• I have a water pump impeller on order.  
• I will order the oil feed pipe once I have everything apart and haven't (hopefully) broken anything else in the process.  I don't see any alternative to this yet.

And as for the exhaust elbow?  I have a query out there with an individual who will build me one out of 316 stainless for far less than the factory mild steel one...

Salnick's Law of Recursive Maintenance

Whatever you want to do, you have to do something else first...

Next post in this series

The Boaty Way of Things

Runaway Starter

Starter motors are not designed for continuous service - they are not provided with any cooling capabilities.  This is because the design expectation is that they will see only intermittent service.  They are high-current, high-power devices however, especially the ones that are expected to crank diesel high-compression engines.  Now hold that thought...

A recent discussion on The Retirement Project bears review here.  It seems that when TJ went to start his engine, the engine start push button stuck, leaving the starter motor running continuously after the diesel had started.  Because of the lack of cooling, a runaway starter motor is a serious problem - aside from destroying the starter, a fire could result.

I recall an incident where a young woman pulled into a gas station where I was refueling my car, and proceeded to fuel hers.  Her starter motor was running, after she shut down her engine (presumably it had been running since she started her car...).  Running, but running poorly - the heat buildup had caused the armature to swell and it was dragging on the field poles, creating more demand for electricity and even more heat.  I opened her hood and found the battery lead to be red hot, smoking, with all the insulation burned off.  Remember, this was at a gas station, where this car (and mine!) were actively taking on fuel.  I shut off the fuel feeds to both cars and then used a tire iron to break the red-hot wire (easy - copper is soft when it is red hot).  The cause?  Welded contacts in the starter solenoid.

One time when driving (I was 17 at the time) my father's 1959 Oldsmobile, the same thing happened to me.  Again, the tool of choice was a tire iron, and I used it to try to pry the battery connection off of the battery.  And failed.  Instead, the post and part of the battery plates came out of the top of the battery, complete with plenty of sparks and acid.  In retrospect, it is lucky I didn't get to experience a hydrogen explosion.  Again:  the cause was welded starter solenoid contacts.

I guess it is not surprising that this happens - these contacts carry prodigious current - 75 - 100 amps in a car engine and more for a diesel, and are connected to a very inductive load.  When they are asked to open, the magnetic field in the starter collapses, boosting the voltage at the contacts, keeping the current flowing for an instant even tho the contacts are open: an arc occurs.  Most of the time, the contacts continue to open, extinguishing the arc.  But if the contacts are already damaged from arcing, the arc gets a head start because the contacts are already hot...

In TJ's case above, the cause was not welded contacts in the starter solenoid, but rather a stuck starter button.  But in my experience, this is much rarer than welded contacts in the starter solenoid.  Regardless of the cause however, the remedy to a runaway starter is the same:  Disconnect the battery.

Easier said than done.

All cars, and almost all boats have a hard-wired connection between the battery and the starter.  In boats, the usual case is that that "Off-1-Both-2" battery switch is only carrying the house loads - the starter is hard-wired.

I believe that this is a pretty serious safety hazard.

Blue Seas M-Series Mini Selector Battery Switch

Those big battery switches can easily carry the starter current load.  Even the smallest ones have tremendous current carrying capabilities. Here's a mini Blue Seas one:

• Cranking Rating: 10 sec. 1,500 Amps
• Intermittent Rating: 5 min. 500 Amps
• Continuous Rating: 300 Amps

For comparison, cranking Eolian's starter (Perkins 4-236 diesel) draws 200 amps - I know this because everything on Eolian goes thru the shunt for our Link2000 monitor. And everything also goes thru the battery switch on the power panel. Including the starter.  I can't take credit for this - Downeast (Eolian's manufacturer) built her this way.

If the starter on your boat does not go thru a battery switch (or THE battery switch), I'd sure try to find a way to make it so...

Runaway Starter

Inventiveness

Boats have a lot of systems - way more than your average suburban house. For example, Eolian has four electrical systems...

• 110V shore power
• 110V inverter power
• 110V generator power
• 12V power

But this isn't a post about electrical systems... well not exactly.  Where I was going is that living on a boat has a higher-than-average need for inventiveness, for MacGyver-ing if you will.  Because of all those systems.  And because of the cost of marine mechanics, electricians, etc.

As a consequence, MacGyver-ing is a highly appreciated skill in the marine world, whether or not it is recognized aloud.  The ability to fix something in impromptu fashion using the materials at hand is a trait that has saved many mariners.

With that in mind, let me introduce you to my 5 year old granddaughter, Eliza.

Eliza noticed that one of the Christmas decorations in her home, an electric candle, was "broken".  So, she studied on it, and picking it up discovered that when held in her hand, the light came on!  (It turns out there is a photocell concealed in the body of the candle that turns it off in daylight.)

So, she fixed it, in a way that is imminently logical, using materials at hand... a toilet paper tube:

Broken...                            And Fixed

Tho you can't see it in the picture, she even decorated the toilet paper tube in keeping with the season.  She drew no attention to her feat, which was discovered by her mother later.  She was just doing her part to keep the household running.

This girl clearly has a boat of her own in her future!

Inventiveness

Where is everybody?

AIS really is a wonderful thing.  With it, equipped ships periodically broadcast over VHF a digital burst of information including such things as their name, their heading, their speed, and a lot of other things.  All large ships are required to have AIS transceivers aboard, and many smaller ships and pleasure craft have them as well.

AIS does not replace RADAR; instead, it augments it, telling you not only what a ship has done, but what it is doing right now.  And it allows you to "see" ships that are not visible to RADAR due to terrain or even distance, as long as they are in VHF range.

And beyond this, NOAA has begun deploying both AIS-equipped aids to navigation, as well as "virtual" aids to navigation.  The latter are shore-based transmitters that broadcast a location and type as an aid to navigation in the proper place.  If you go there, you'll find nothing at all, but it will show on your AIS display.

So you know that Eolian had to have an AIS receiver.  I managed to get one in a trade for an old cell phone:

It's a tiny little thing

Temporary hookup; the "antenna" is just a length of coax

Even with virtually no antenna, this little gizmo was picking up nearby boats:

Eolian is the boat at the bottom of the display surrounded by the red circle - the guard zone I have set.  If a boat enters the guard zone, or will enter it in the next three minutes, the chartplotter issues an alarm.

So now I need to climb the mizzen mast and attach the coax to the abandoned VHF antenna up there - I knew it would prove useful some day...

Where is everybody?

No More Neon

Yup, AC polarity is correct

In 1978, when Eolian was built, LED's were an expensive novelty.  Therefore the lamps on her control panel that indicate the presence of shore power, generator power, and correct AC polarity were the tried and true neon lamps. 

A neon lamp is a stupid simple device -  a glass envelope filled with low-pressure neon and containing two closely-spaced metal pins.  It will light up when presented with 110V, drawing a vanishingly small current (400 uA).  But they don't last forever.  Eventually they grow dim and begin to flicker.  And then finally they go out. 

I had replaced the shore power neon lamp in the power panel in our first year of stewardship of Eolian.   It's the one that is lit the most, and therefore was the first to fail.  And, coincidentally, it's the only one that is somewhat easy to get at on the inside of the panel.

After 15 years, it had failed again. 

But now LEDs are common and cheap.  I found these, designed for direct connection to 110V, on the Internet for a couple of bucks apiece.  Installing them was not easy.  The back side of the power panel is quite crowded, and it was apparent that the original lamps came with the panel and had been installed before any of the wiring.

I did the deed at anchor, with the generator and inverter off, so there was no 110V present to worry about.  I got them in, but I had to take an Excedrin afterwards to deal with the cramps in my shoulder.

Hopefully they will last longer than the neon ones. 

I'll let you know in 15 years.

No More Neon

Tis The Season

Every winter there are boat fires - fires which rapidly lead to marina fires except in the most fortunate circumstances.  And these fires are almost universally electrically caused.

Why do they happen so frequently in the winter?  Because (up here in the north, anyway), it is in the winter when the boat's electrical system is most taxed, keeping the boat warm.

It is the combination of high resistance connections and heavy current load which is the problem.  Ohm's Law, one of the most basic electrical principles says in one of its forms:

P=I²R

Where P is the power or heat generated in watts, R is the resistance in ohms and I is the current in amps passing thru that resistance.  What this means is that the heat generated at a bad connection is powerfully related to the current being passed thru that bad connection.

Here's a visualization.  Have you ever changed out a 100 watt light bulb that just burned out?  It was way, way too hot to touch, right?  Incandescent lights deliver about 97% of their output as heat and only 3% as light (thus the push behind CFLs and LEDs).  So now you have some idea of what 100 watts worth of heat is like - its a lot.  Now let's consider a 30 amp shore power connector that has gotten salt water on it and is a little corroded.  If that corrosion causes only 0.1 ohm of resistance in the connection, the amount of heat generated in the tiny volume where the two pieces of metal in the connector touch will be:  30 x 30 x 0.1 =  90 watts.

As bad as that is, it is not the end of the situation.  In the female side of the connection, the connection is made by a springy contact pair which wedges apart when the male end is inserted.  The heat takes the temper out of these spring contacts, making the poor connection even worse.  In fact, this can snowball, leading almost inevitably to this:

Uh oh...

Prevention is pretty simple.  First, just put your hand on the shore power connector while all those space heaters down below are running.  It should not be warm.  If you have any doubt about your ability to judge this, disconnect the connector and look at both the male and female ends.  If there is discoloration, you have a problem.  Both the cord and the connector on the boat should be replaced.  Why both?  Because regardless of whether the bad connection was where the wires are made up to the female connectors in the shore power cord, the connection between the female connectors in the cord and the male connector on the boat power inlet, or where the wires make up to the male pins on the boat power inlet, the whole shebang has gotten hot.  And that means that everything has been damaged.  If you replace just one side (say, the shore power cord), it is likely that the now-damaged shore power inlet on the boat will cause the new shore power cord to overheat.  So then you'd have to buy a second shore power cord as well as the inlet connector.  Save yourself some money, a second risk of fire, and do it right the first time.

By the way, the marina end of the power cord and the connector in the marina's power box are also candidates for failure - you should check that end too.

Tho the shore power connection seems to be a common failure point, every electrical connection in the boat's wiring is a candidate too.  There are too many of these for me to call them out individually.  But if any electrical connection down below gets hot or shows signs of having been hot, repairs are in order.  Bad connections make heat, and heat makes bad connections worse.

When doing a general inspection, check the connections that carry the most current first - and yes, this does indeed mean that the 12V connections are a bigger risk than the 110V connections.  Remember, the heat generated is as the square of the current, and the highest current connections on your boat are likely to be the 12V ones.

Tis The Season

Escalation in Problem Solving

Recently, the generator onboard Eolian began acting up.

First, there has been the smell of diesel present under the floorboards whenever it has been run.  This started small and grew so gradually that I had been ignoring it.  Jane however is the ever-practical one.  "Why does the generator smell like diesel?" she asked, pointing out that there was indeed an elephant in the room, and leaving me no more room to pretend that there was nothing amiss.

I searched all the diesel connections and didn't find any leaks.  Finally, I put it down to a possible fine mist escaping from a high pressure line feeding one of the injectors - it's hot up there and any leaked diesel would quickly evaporate.  Yeah, that's the ticket. 

But the smell persisted. 

And then the generator began to act like it was starving for fuel.  So as an experiment I turned on the electric fuel pump and pressurized the diesel feed line to the generator.  It immediately smoothed out and ran normally.  No problemo!  All I have to do now is run the fuel pump whenever I run  the generator.  And the bilge blower to get rid of those diesel fumes.

Some of you probably have this figured it out by now...

OK, at this point I have grudgingly admitted that there is something actually wrong.  So I took the simplest and cheapest approach as a first step:  I changed the generator fuel filter.  As a problem-solving method, this is a good first step.  It cost very little, was very little effort, and in even the worst possible case, it does no harm.

Unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem.

Next step:  Change the fuel lift pump on the generator.  Cost $75 (yeah, that's a lot for a fuel pump, but then this is a Yanmar 2GM).  As to effort, well there is a reason this was the second thing I tried.  The lift pump is cam-driven, just like a fuel pump on a car, and is located on the port side of the generator, about 3" away from the port battery bank.  Just about enough room to get a socket on the 2 bolts attaching it to the block.  But not enough room to get my head in there to actually see the bolts.  Oh and did I mention that the pump was a corroded mass so ugly that it was difficult to identify except that the fuel lines ran to it and from it?  Apparently the Previous Owner had had a water leak from the exhaust elbow, which is immediately above the pump.  But this also meant that changing the pump not only did no harm, but was a huge positive, regardless if it was the cause of the problem.

Putting the new pump in was an even bigger puzzle because the hard line on its discharge must be installed before the pump is placed and it must be threaded thru some obstacles before the pump can be placed into position.  And all of this must be done while maintaining the gasket in place (I used Permatex to glue it to the lift pump) and fiddling the mounting bolts into their holes, blind.

Yup, that fixed it.  Both problems.  Although invisible under the mass of corrosion, apparently the pump casing had corroded thru or cracked, allowing diesel to escape on the pressure stroke and air to be sucked in on the suction stroke.

This was a classic case of following my troubleshooting aphorism: 

"Do the simple, lowest cost things first." 

Escalation in Problem Solving

Solar panels, on the cheap

Some time back, I wrote about how the solar energy market was in a state of flux. And I may have mentioned that I bought a kilowatt's worth of 6"x6" solar cells...  for $350.  That price is still pretty much the same.  I am embarrassed to admit that that post was made more than three years ago.

Eight cells to go...

Well fast-forward those three years to the present day. Being retired has given me the time to get some of the "must do" projects off the list, leaving time for the "fun to do" items. And the solar panels are one of these.

Since I am doing this on the cheap, the first problem was finding something to serve as a substrate.  Tempered glass is expensive, and aluminum extrusions are not cheap either.  But guess what?  Shower doors, made from tempered glass and already rimmed with aluminum  extrusions are free, or nearly so.  And a regular shower door is just the right size to hold 40 of the 6"x6" cells in a 4 x 10 matrix, creating a panel that will produce a nominal 8 amps at 22V...  175 watts!  Not bad, for a $60 investment (so far).

And I have enough cells to make 6 of these panels.  Tho they will be too big and heavy to be suitable for a boat, they will work nicely on the roof of my shop where they will feed grid-tie inverters, allowing me to sell the power they produce back to the grid.

Solar panels, on the cheap

Tie shooter

(I wonder how many folks ended up here because they were looking for some Star Wars © related toy)

• Zip ties,
• Tie-wraps, 
• Wire ties,
• Cable ties,
• Nylon ties,
• Panduits (if you work for the Boeing company)...

Whatever you call them - they're all the same thing.  And I know you have them on board - every boat does.  In fact you probably have a stash of them, ready to hand.  They are so handy that they get used for everything.  They're probably right there next to your duct tape.

That's where this tool comes in - it can pull the ties a lot tighter than you can by hand, and it cuts them off almost flush with the retainer/ratchet gizmo.  The little red knob is an adjustment for the tension that is applied - the tool is strong enough to break the smaller wire tires if the tension is all the way up.

It's not an expensive tool - I'm sure I paid less than $10 for mine, but it was an impulse buy (too many of my tool purchases are...) and I don't remember where I got it any more.  But here are some available today that I found on the Intertubes:

• http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-241/Cable-Tie-Guns-Mounts/Economy-Cable-Tie-Gun, $16.  This looks like mine, but I'm sure I paid less than this
• http://www.amazon.com/Eastwood-Professional-Cable-Wire-Tie/dp/B006ISG5M0/ref=pd_sim_sbs_auto_1, $14.99.  This one looks like a better tool than mine
• http://www.amazon.com/Electra-Force-89605-Automotive-Tension-Settings/dp/B002CWPYBO/ref=pd_sim_sbs_auto_4, $6.95

The bottom line is that these things are incredibly cheap, they allow you to pull and cut a wire tie in a restricted space using only one hand, and they do a better job than you can do by hand.  You need to have one on board.

Tie shooter

The wonder of new batteries

Well, nearly new

Eolian has new batteries. 

We bought them a year and a half ago, when the old ones would no longer hold enough electricity to make Jane's morning latte at anchor.

Last year when I performed my annual battery maintenance, I found that they needed quite a bit of distilled water (harvested from our dehumidifier, natch!).  But since I had never checked them when they were brand new, I didn't know what water level they came with.  So I didn't really know if I was re-filling them, or just filling them.

This year, the first where the initial conditions were known and established as full, I topped off the seven batteries using a cup and a half of water.  That's simply amazing.  In past years with the old batteries, I'd need most of a gallon.

And Jane's morning latte is safe, so all is right with the world!

The wonder of new batteries

A tiny addendum

Because the fuel tank repair caused two of the "footman's loops" that were used to retain our batteries to be removed (they were both right where the round cutouts had to be), they had to be replaced.  Before we could leave the dock.

The old footman's loops were plated steel - the moisture in the bilge had turned them into garbage.  So the first order of business was to get new ones...  new stainless ones.  West Marine sells them, for $6.49 each.  We have eight battery positions; we need 16 of these little fittings.  Woo boy.

So off to the internet for a quick reality check.  And in today's world, with everything at your (and Google's) fingertips, the real trick is knowing what to search for.   You have to know what your gizmo is called, and probably at least one alternate name.  Its really hard if you don't have this as a starting point.

As it happens, I recognized these as the fittings that were used on carriages as anchors for strapping to hold down the luggage, thus the name.  A look on eBay found them for $1.15 each in lots of 10.  So I bought 2 lots, for a total of $23 plus $3 shipping.  And I have spares.

Now another problem appears...  If I mount them on the bulkhead below the cover plates, they will be below the tops of the batteries.  They certainly would wear or punch a hole in the battery sidewalls as vibration took its toll. 

So I once again hit the internet, this time to an old familiar place:  Online Metals. I ordered a square foot of 3/4 inch "cutting board" (HDPE), and sawed off a couple of strips a little thicker than the footman's loops were tall.  With suitable counterbored screw holes and screws, these were mounted on either side of the footman's loops, providing a large, relatively soft riding surface for the batteries.

Standoffs installed

Batteries strapped down

Now the project is really, truly over.

A tiny addendum