What do you do about Power?

ksanders said:

My wife is that way. I on the other hand can sleep in full daylight. No problems

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Wifey B: Masks?

BandB said:

Wifey B: Masks?

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Dark shades

>TV on a boat that's not a live-aboard is for the person that's addicted to football or just has to have everything just because they can.<

Not so, The VHF - NOAA weather is seldom accurate as they do not wish to be wrong and have worse conditions than forecast. No more perfect storm litigation.

The local TV weather guy on a cruise usually will show the radar and a re drawn weather map.

This can give a far better idea to a cruiser of what the say will bring than NOAA.

On the AICW many folks put south in the fall.

During he November election season , with the local candidates stomping each other is a far better show , and insight to the locals than most major programming.

Fun underway is where you find it!

It's also useful as an ER camera display.

Wow, an on-duty ship's engineer in the ER! Now that's yachting!

Yes, except in a rolling sea, he sometimes interferes with the alternator belt operation. It usually shows up as a small glitch on the ammeter, a visual of the flailing kid on the TV and a lot of squealing (the kid, not the belt). We carry a spare kid for those times.

We still enjoy watching some television late at night or watching a movie. And as pointed out all the televisions can be much more in today's world with access to so much through them. Linked to your security system, your navigation system.

Oh, and we make no apologies but we will be watching the Heat and Spurs tonight, starting while eating dinner since it's 6:00 Pacific Time. We enjoy basketball. We still find gyms and play sometimes while cruising, actually carry a basketball on board. So, we'll watch.

BandB said:

We still enjoy watching some television late at night or watching a movie. And as pointed out all the televisions can be much more in today's world with access to so much through them. Linked to your security system, your navigation system.

Oh, and we make no apologies but we will be watching the Heat and Spurs tonight, starting while eating dinner since it's 6:00 Pacific Time. We enjoy basketball. We still find gyms and play sometimes while cruising, actually carry a basketball on board. So, we'll watch.

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We watch a movie probably 1/2 the nights aboard.

We have Hulu, Amazon, Itunes, even Dish network so we have a broad selection of content sources.

We do not download movies on the satellite terminal though. At .99 a Mb a movie can cost $1500 for a SD, and $4K for a HD movie.

What we do when we're out of the Cellular network is to have contend pre-downloaded onto a Ipad or the Apple TV unit.

sunchaser said:

.....

I remained puzzled as to how propane saves on energy needs. ........

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Let me see if I can solve the puzzle:
1) Not every cruising boat has a genset. With a propane system and range, one can cook pretty much like at home. I have three burners and an oven with broiler. 20 lbs of propane lasts me for months. No noise and no maintenance.

2) Burning fuel to make heat to run a genset to produce electricity to be converted to heat to cook with is not the most efficient plan. It's even less efficient if you try to store the electricity in a battery and then use an inverter to raise the voltage so you can make heat with it.

rwidman said:

Let me see if I can solve the puzzle:
1) Not every cruising boat has a genset. With a propane system and range, one can cook pretty much like at home. I have three burners and an oven with broiler. 20 lbs of propane lasts me for months. No noise and no maintenance.

2) Burning fuel to make heat to run a genset to produce electricity to be converted to heat to cook with is not the most efficient plan. It's even less efficient if you try to store the electricity in a battery and then use an inverter to raise the voltage so you can make heat with it.

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+1

rwidman said:

Let me see if I can solve the puzzle:
1) Not every cruising boat has a genset. With a propane system and range, one can cook pretty much like at home. I have three burners and an oven with broiler. 20 lbs of propane lasts me for months. No noise and no maintenance.

2) Burning fuel to make heat to run a genset to produce electricity to be converted to heat to cook with is not the most efficient plan. It's even less efficient if you try to store the electricity in a battery and then use an inverter to raise the voltage so you can make heat with it.

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I agree w Ron.
We heat w diesel (henceforth w kerosene), cook w propane and most of the time our hot water that's usually too hot comes from engine heat. So just about all we do w "power" is turn on a light and read books. Don't know any TV that's better than good books. The Basto draws a little and that's about what we do with and "about power".

I'm not really sure of course but if we got a bigger boat (I would if moorage wasn't so expensive) I don't think I'd do electrical power different either.

It seems that I have posted something like this in another thread. Here is the regimen on Moonstruck. We do not have propane other than a grill. When anchored we run the generator about 1 1/2 hours in the morning, and then again in the evening. That takes care of water heating, cooking, charging batteries, and sometimes air conditioning to dry the air in the boat.

The 60 amp charger and two 80 amp alternators through a battery combiner keeps the 510 amp hour house bank at an acceptable state of charge. We have electric refrigeration and ice maker. We have a microwave/convection oven. I have a single burner butane stove for making early morning coffee on the aft deck. We do a lot of grilling on a propane grill.

LED lights including anchor light on the whole boat. Flourescents in the engine room. Purasan Hold-n-treat system. We are pretty self sufficient for a few days. We basically live like we are home. Plenty of filtered and softened water. Nice stall shower. My mattress is more comfortable the the one I have at home. It is pretty comfy on Moonstruck.

Oh yeah, satellite TV. Don't want to miss any of my grandson's football games.

The NL 12 KW gen is quiet and smooth. It puts out great clean power, and will run the 54K btu of A/C on the boat. Like I said, we live like we are at home.

In my prior post on saving power I forgot to mention rewiring the 12 volt connection for the refrigerator and freezer. The wiring initially was correct but by increasing the wire size I reduced the voltage drop/loss by perhaps 1 to 2%. With a daily draw of 140 amp hours this is a savings over 120 days each year at anchor.

Bay Pelican said:

In my prior post on saving power I forgot to mention rewiring the 12 volt connection for the refrigerator and freezer. The wiring initially was correct but by increasing the wire size I reduced the voltage drop/loss by perhaps 1 to 2%. With a daily draw of 140 amp hours this is a savings over 120 days each year at anchor.

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I have run over-sized DC wiring and have seen a savings as well. Resistance or heat is wasted AH's on a boat's house battery system.
Bill

janice142 said:

Hello Wil. HOWEVER, if I didn't have real estate and was limited to the number of panels I could fit up top, I'd have opted for an MMPT regulator. What I've seen/read regarding the differences between them:

But live with what you've got at first. There's a reason your boat was outfitted as she was. Perhaps it's not apparent today, but in six months you'll know for certain. In the meantime add batteries, a great charger, and live with your generator.

In my opinion that is.

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Hi Janice, missed your message earlier. Thanks for all the tips. I'm by nature lazy, so will indeed be living with what is on the boat at first. No plans for making any mods that don't provide very real increases in comfort or efficiency. MPPT controllers would qualify imo. For those interested, here's an introductory article on MPPT charge controllers: What is Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT)

Came across a lengthy but imo fascinating article on the Duckworks website titled "DC Charging System Design": Duckworks - DC Charging System Design. It's written with the DIY cruiser in mind, might not follow ABYC standards, but is interesting food for thought. Small type and repeated paragraphs, PM me if you want a cleaned up version I did in Word. Hope you enjoy it.

psneeld said:

It's nice to have opinions.

Some people have lead a tough life for moments or decades for all kinds of reasons...

Because there's finally a chance in their life to live it exactly the way they want it to be...well whose to judge?

Wow...I couldn't face the mirror in the morning if I passed judgment on someone who deserved to live the exact life they chose to for the moment.

being polite and not spoiling quiet moments with a genset for a whole anchorage is one thing...thinking someone else should lead a life like they like it to me is just over the top.

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FlyWright said:

I don't see anyone saying their way is the only way or judging others who have a different approach. Maybe I missed something. Are you reading more into this than has been posted?

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+1. Well said. It was never my intention to "....thinking someone else should lead a life like they like it", and all the rest of that post. This thread is meant to be a safe place to speak about a/your boat's power systems, to speculate on power system possibilities, all with no personal judgements. Sure, there's intentionally some green in it; that doesn't mean personal judgements are being made either way, especially in this thread.

read more closely and the posts make more sense....I usually try to be specific without calling out anyone personally unless that are just as far out of line. I have no general issues with people being green or not wanting gensets or to run them too long...I like others only point out what the average boated does and for what specific reasons.

both you and flywright are not even close guessing on this one....

psneeld said:

read more closely and the posts make more sense....I usually try to be specific without calling out anyone personally unless that are just as far out of line. I have no general issues with people being green or not wanting gensets or to run them too long...I like others only point out what the average boated does and for what specific reasons.

both you and flywright are not even close guessing on this one....

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Ps, dont want to get in a squabble with you about this (Here comes the But), but the sentences "Wow...I couldn't face the mirror in the morning if I passed judgment on someone who deserved to live the exact life they chose to for the moment." and "being polite and not spoiling quiet moments with a genset for a whole anchorage is one thing...thinking someone else should lead a life like they like it to me is just over the top." just aren't needed in this thread. **Nobody is making those judgements here.**

I tried again to state that in my last post to you. Not trying to be 'righteous' or whatever word comes to mind, just don't think that is a hard thing to understand--personal judgements like those (yes, those are personal judgements) are inflammatory and unnecessary.

Wil said:

Ps, dont want to get in a squabble with you about this (Here comes the But), but the sentences "Wow...I couldn't face the mirror in the morning if I passed judgment on someone who deserved to live the exact life they chose to for the moment." and "being polite and not spoiling quiet moments with a genset for a whole anchorage is one thing...thinking someone else should lead a life like they like it to me is just over the top." just aren't needed in this thread. **Nobody is making those judgements here.**

I tried again to state that in my last post to you. Not trying to be 'righteous' or whatever word comes to mind, just don't think that is a hard thing to understand--personal judgements like those (yes, those are personal judgements) are inflammatory and unnecessary.

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Again a swing and a miss...

You don't think this is a bit judgmental....

"TV on a boat that's not a live-aboard is for the person that's addicted to football or just has to have everything just because they can."

I do... and you guys need to pay a lot more attention to what's written...it's amazing how much is shoveled though or totally missed here.

TV on a boat that's not a live-aboard is for the person that's addicted to football or just has to have everything just because they can.

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Some folks seem to think they are somehow better than other folks because they claim to not watch TV. That's pretty judgmental.

The fact that someone does or does not watch TV has no bearing on their worth or intelligence.

Oh Oh! Hope this forum doesn't turn into Nastiness like "The Hull Truth"

rwidman said:

Some folks seem to think they are somehow better than other folks because they claim to not watch TV. That's pretty judgmental.

The fact that someone does or does not watch TV has no bearing on their worth or intelligence.

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Well said Ron, my wife happens to enjoy the 24 hour news cycle me not so much but to make her happy and keeps me boating we use a KVH M3 on Direct TV when not watching OTA local news.
Bill

Sailor of Fortune said:

Oh Oh! Hope this forum doesn't turn into Nastiness like "The Hull Truth"

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Hey...if people want to be judgmental whether it's because someone chooses not to follow ABYC "suggestions" or because they watch football on their boat....they should expect someone to call them out reasonably politely on the subject.

When others "miss" that in someone's post, they too should expect a return post for them pointing something out that other's may see or take affront too.

Hey...I don't like pro football either...but I do believe that in America if you would like to watch it on your boat...no one has too knock it with the term "addiction".

I don't think TF will go that way...but if people think they will never be confronted, sometimes bluntly, on their posts...well...then what have we really come too?

How does one not follow ABYC suggestions if they are watching TV on their boat? Did I miss something?
Bill

Billylll said:

How does one not follow ABYC suggestions if they are watching TV on their boat? Did I miss something?
Bill

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It's been an ongoing "discussion" as to whether you are sane or not if you do/don't follow ABYC to the "T"

...fits in all discussions even anchor/gun ones...

psneeld said:

It's been an ongoing "discussion" as to whether you are sane or not if you do/don't follow ABYC to the "T"

...fits in all discussions even anchor/gun ones...

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Well you've just met a rare person here, I had (8) Superior Court issued NJ carry permits over the years. But I'm still trying to figure out how TV has anything to do with ABYC suggestions can you clarify?
Bill

Sailor of Fortune said:

Oh Oh! Hope this forum doesn't turn into Nastiness like "The Hull Truth"

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Nah, we're not going there--we're all too cool......(how's that for a positive judgement?)

psneeld said:

Again a swing and a miss...

You don't think this is a bit judgmental....

"TV on a boat that's not a live-aboard is for the person that's addicted to football or just has to have everything just because they can."

I do... and you guys need to pay a lot more attention to what's written...it's amazing how much is shoveled though or totally missed here.

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Y'know, you are right about that, in that judgements are being taken all the time. It's just human nature. I guess I was afraid that we would lose the collective sense of humour...now there's a judgement of mine.....

OK, let's bring it back to the OP topic and put aside the pissing contest currently being conducted. This is a thread about electrical power on a boat. Let's go back to that and keep a useful and informative thread just that.

Thanks for your help in staying on topic and avoiding personal barbs, pokes and judgements.

My comments on power is to look at it as a system, meaning pick a type and number of batteries that will provide you with enough reserve that you are comfortable with. Then pick alternative charging sources and see what they can replenish size properly from there as needed. If you have a generator how long will you have to run it to recharge your batteries with the smart charger or inverter/ charger you picked. Finally look at your engines alternators and use ACR's to supplement them charging the starting bank and then the house bank. These are all separate systems but they need to be all integrated. If you are lucky enough to have a generator that puts out 50 or more DC amps use an ACR to supplement the house bank. Judicious use of over sized DC cables never hurt after all power lost in the cables is a constant and you can't recover from their losses. I don't believe in the 10% loss for many devices I prefer to keep my losses at as low as possible even 3% is too much loss in my book.
Finally look at devices you can run on DC instead of AC and look to change out those amp grabbing lights replace them with LED's.
Bill