Steev's Canal Pages . .

A friend with a boat recently treated himself to a hospital silencer and 6 new batteries, 5 domestic and a start after he was let down by his start battery and subsequently discovered that the others weren't too hot either.

He slaved away for the best part of a day getting the old batteries out and the new in and I then spent a happy half hour testing every one with the hydrometer to discover that 4 of the domestics were indeed 'shot' but 1 and the start read OK. Seems that the battery management system he has couldn't cope with 4 dead batteries at once and decided to give up trying to charge the start by way of protest. As he was at a loss as to what to do with them I offered to find them a home - surely someone must want a couple of batteries FOC.

A few days later we went to start our engine and were rewarded with a noise that says "you've got no chance pal" as the starter made a token effort then gave up due to a distinct lack of power. Got the volt meter out and it read 13.8v - a more than healthy figure, but as anyone familiar with batteries will tell you "it ain't all in the volts - it's the current that counts" and we had none. Got out the hydrometer for the second time in a week and found the problem straight away - no water in any of the cells.

So, instant recycling it was then, pressing the 'homeless' starter battery into service and being instantly rewarded with a healthy turnover and start of our engine.

More power

Whilst down the engine hole I looked to see if I could fit another domestic battery in. I've often looked at this but come away deciding that it can't be done but this time my eye was caught by a space occupied by an oil can and after a bit of measuring it seemed like a winner. All that was needed was a couple of new battery terminal clamps, some connecting leads and some time.

So after much careful measuring we acquire the requisite parts and I spend a 'happy' few hours re-wiring the engine hole. What we need now is to test it all.

The ice cream cruise

OK, we know this is a really weak excuse for a cruise, but with just the two of us and a reasonable weather forecast we set off on Friday night an going 'downhill' moor at 'our spot' overnight. As the nights are drawing in we had the chance to try out our newly installed lights. Fancy LED jobs made by :Labcraft and called 'Orbit' they use a gnat's fart of power, run cold, look smart and are dead easy to retrofit. We put one in the galley and one in the bathroom. They work well - we will be getting a lot more and replacing the old hire style fluorescents as time and finances permit.

We get up Saturday morning to discover that despite the inverter running the fridge freezer all night the voltmeter on the boat was telling me that we were still very well off for battery power. Still, given we hadn't used the TV or done much else I guess they should have been OK. We get down to Sawley, buy our ice cream and head back, settling down for the night between bridges 9 & 10 'in the middle of nowhere' having decided not to stop at Shardlow because we wanted somewhere quiet. Went to bed having set the central heating then got woken up by a huge explosion followed by a bright light. Yep - fireworks.

Woke up Sunday morning as the heating came on and listened to the various 'boat sounds' that tell me what is happening power wise. Before our extra battery we would be down into the red by now and the inverter would give a brief squeak as the fridge motor kicked in. All was well. Had a brew, went up on deck and looked at the voltmeter - hardly moved at all and still well in the green.

Cruised back to home and decided to try an experiment. Didn't hook up to mains and left us running on inverter power. Didn't tell Sall this so she continued to use everything as normal, including our electric kettle which is a 720w job. In the past this would have dragged the meter right down and there was no way we would ever get a second kettle load without the inverter squeaking at us for low voltage - even if we were cruising. By the third kettle boil I'd decided things were brilliant, the voltmeter still being over 12 volts and hooked us back to mains.

I can only assume that for some time now our start battery has been going downhill and hogging the charge that would otherwise have fed our domestics which in turn meant that they never got a decent charge. Whatever the explanation we have got a real result.