Recently been away in the other vehicle I look after the electrics in, we have a bit more space than the traditional VW seat base for our battery bay...
Yes, that's 5 110 Ah leisure batteries
The far left is the starter, the other 4 are our house bank.
Charging wise it's mostly old school, just this monster relay energised directly from the ignition not even voltage sensing - the fancy stuff just seems not to last in the engine room
Everything powered from this rather lovely 52hp Nanni Diesel. No ECU here just a solid 20 year old Kubota block that just keeps on trucking. I think the only work we've had done on it beyond regular services is an oil ring change.
By now the clues should give away that this is our 62 foot narrow boat owned by a bunch of us. That engine has run for about 45 weeks a year for now over 20 years, so glad we took the engine advice we did when we had her built. The equipment top right is the reservoir and control system for the hydraulic bow thruster, a healthy 10hp not a wimpy 12v system, the pump is on the back of the engine between the block and the gearbox.
Despite the massive battery bank folks still keep slamming the bank flat, most of them are not from a camping or sailing background and treat it much like a holiday cottage. So we had a Merlin battery monitor fitted that alarms at 50%. Personally I'd have linked that to a really loud buzzer but I was overruled so it's just an indicator...
Lurking behind that MDF grill, well out of fiddling reach, is the heart of our electrics, a Mastervolt Dakar. It's an amazing bit of kit, both in capability and price when we had the boat built. Today inverter systems are common but 20 years back, not so much.
The Dakar is what the monster cables from the house battery bank go to, along with the 16a shore supply socket. The Dakar then does whatever it needs to. No shore power? 1500w self throttling full sine wave inverter kicks in to run the mains in the boat from the batteries. Shore power on? Inverter shuts down and transfers to mains, house bank gets a 30A four stage charge, all 12v loads floated by the Dakar.
I'd quite like to move up to DC-DC charging as the bulk charge of the house bank is healthy but the final 10% is glacial. I'd also like to get solar on the massive roof, but again with a large group to convince likely not to happen.
A tew shots of the inside, you can tell from the decoration the majority of the group are more retired than I am. She's smart and wearing her age well but it's a bit holiday cottage. Best antidote to modern hectic life though, at 20 tons she moves at a fast hike flat out in a canal so you can't rush. She'll do much more in rivers, much to the surprise of the cruiser crowd, but then the simple narrow boat rudder gets a bit of handful to hang on to!
So what other unusual vehicles do folks look after?
Yes, that's 5 110 Ah leisure batteries
The far left is the starter, the other 4 are our house bank.
Charging wise it's mostly old school, just this monster relay energised directly from the ignition not even voltage sensing - the fancy stuff just seems not to last in the engine room
Everything powered from this rather lovely 52hp Nanni Diesel. No ECU here just a solid 20 year old Kubota block that just keeps on trucking. I think the only work we've had done on it beyond regular services is an oil ring change.
By now the clues should give away that this is our 62 foot narrow boat owned by a bunch of us. That engine has run for about 45 weeks a year for now over 20 years, so glad we took the engine advice we did when we had her built. The equipment top right is the reservoir and control system for the hydraulic bow thruster, a healthy 10hp not a wimpy 12v system, the pump is on the back of the engine between the block and the gearbox.
Despite the massive battery bank folks still keep slamming the bank flat, most of them are not from a camping or sailing background and treat it much like a holiday cottage. So we had a Merlin battery monitor fitted that alarms at 50%. Personally I'd have linked that to a really loud buzzer but I was overruled so it's just an indicator...
Lurking behind that MDF grill, well out of fiddling reach, is the heart of our electrics, a Mastervolt Dakar. It's an amazing bit of kit, both in capability and price when we had the boat built. Today inverter systems are common but 20 years back, not so much.
The Dakar is what the monster cables from the house battery bank go to, along with the 16a shore supply socket. The Dakar then does whatever it needs to. No shore power? 1500w self throttling full sine wave inverter kicks in to run the mains in the boat from the batteries. Shore power on? Inverter shuts down and transfers to mains, house bank gets a 30A four stage charge, all 12v loads floated by the Dakar.
I'd quite like to move up to DC-DC charging as the bulk charge of the house bank is healthy but the final 10% is glacial. I'd also like to get solar on the massive roof, but again with a large group to convince likely not to happen.
A tew shots of the inside, you can tell from the decoration the majority of the group are more retired than I am. She's smart and wearing her age well but it's a bit holiday cottage. Best antidote to modern hectic life though, at 20 tons she moves at a fast hike flat out in a canal so you can't rush. She'll do much more in rivers, much to the surprise of the cruiser crowd, but then the simple narrow boat rudder gets a bit of handful to hang on to!
So what other unusual vehicles do folks look after?
