Where does the time go?

Well I didn't win the lottery... lol.

But I have started to go back to school. This past month has had my nose crammed in a math textbook looking at equations that I haven't seen in 25 years. Its been interesting to say the least. Of course, this has had a profound effect on projects onboard Liberty Call. I'm starting to get a hand on the schedule, so hopefully I'll be able to start working on projects in a more timewise manner.

Speaking of time, the people that run the Atomic Clock are officially adding a leap second at the end of the day today. Should be interesting to read the tech blogs tomorrow and see what bugs pop up in all the electronic devices.

For instance, I love my iPad and all of the related marine and navigational apps that are available for it. It's my chartplotter, celestial navigation calculator, heck, it even chimes a ship's bell every half hour in case I feel like my old Navy self. BUT, I do not depend on it by itself. I've always believed in the old saying "2 is 1, and 1 is none". Meaning, have backups, because something WILL break. It always does. My backup GPS is a very old Garmin unit that my Father gave to me as a birthday present back in the 90s. It still works and is very accurate, but it does not provide all the bells and whistles of today's units. And I have all the nautical almanacs I need to perform celestial navigation by hand if I have to. Its not fun, buts its not hard. Sometimes, simple is better.

Anyhow, before I started rambling, for people who depend on these new devices for their navigation purposes, I hope they have a backup. Who knows what sort of bugs are going to appear tomorrow?
<<cue dramatic music>>

On another note, I finally got around to ordering a slew of new parts for my Universal Atomic 4, so hopefully I'll have her started here in a week or two. Fingers Crossed!!!

Another amazing find

I'm thinking, and someone mentioned it already on the dock, to go buy a lottery ticket because my luck lately has been pretty outstanding. Just last week I scored a sweet deal on an electrical panel, and just yesterday, I picked up a 2010 Honda 2hp outboard for an amazingly cheap price... less than half of what it is worth new..
Normally, this would seem like just an ok deal with the amount of abuse that most outboards receive, but this engine has a total of less that 10 hours of run time on it! Its practically brand new! Imagine running your car for only 10 hours in 5 years. How far could you have gone? Where would you have gone? Not anywhere practically.

A little about the Honda - its an air-cooled, 2hp 4-stroke outboard that weighs 27lbs. It can propel a small dinghy (like my Walker Bay 8) at up to 6-8 knots. Also, being a 4-stroke engine means I don't have to make any special gasoline mixtures like you do with a 2-stroke engine. Remember mixing oil with your gas to feed a chainsaw? Yeah, that wasn't annoying or anything...
And its a Honda. If I keep the oil properly changed and keep running clean fuel through it, it'll last forever.

Yeah... I'm gonna buy lottery ticket :D

Electrical Connections pt3

Today has been a good day for Liberty Call. For a while now, I have been wanting to change out the old, dated electrical distribution panels with something a bit more modern and that has all working bits.

This "works". But its a freaking nightmare behind that panel. Whoever wired it up didnt know, or obviously care, about what they were doing.  The DC Meter as well as the old battery select switch don't work, So obviously, these need replacing.

I've always liked Blue Sea Systems. Their products are top notch and are well designed. Its for this reason I was drawn to their traditional metal panels. They are REALLY nice. Unfortunately, they are also REALLY expensive. A simple 8 breaker panel runs around $200. If you need two of these and an AC panel as well as a guage or two. Things begin to skyrocket pretty quick.

A couple of months back, I priced my ideal setup for my new Electrical Distribution System and it was close to a $1000. Nope...  So I put that away in my "nice to have, but keep dreaming" column of my project book.

Fast forward to today as I walk into a Marine consignment store and what do I see sitting in the bottom of a rubbermaid bin? Almost exactly what I have been looking for. Holy Cow!

Now of course, I try to remain calm, and ask the store manager what they want for it. He doesn't know as it just came in, so he gives a call to his partner. They come back with a price for $200. That is a steal in and of itself, but I tried talking them down. After a little bit of haggling. I walked out with this sweet piece of tech for $150. When I got back to the boat, I checked West Marine and they're website has this exact same panel listed at over $700!!! Talk about bargain of the year. I couldn't be happier.

Now the panel does have some cosmetic issues that I will try to address. It also has a couple spots of corrosion on the back and sides of the panel that need to be cleaned up as well. But all in all, its in excellent shape.

Here's the backside of the panel.

It may look imposing, but its actually quite simple and logical once you inderstand what you're looking at. I can't wait to get this installed, but first, I will remove every item from the panel and clean the panel the best I can. I'm also going to call Blue Sea Systems and see if they refurbish old panels. That might be the way to go.

UPDATE: Blue Sea Systems cant refurbish the panel unfortunately. It appears that they get the parts offsite and build the panels at their factory. The Customer Service Rep was shocked when I told her how much I paid for it though. :)

Electrical Connections pt2

I've mentioned in a couple of posts that I want to upgrade the electrical systems on board Liberty Call. Its been a slow process, but its starting to taking shape. I've installed a new House Bank, new Battery charger, and just last month I installed Solar panels - 2 100 watt panels with a Blue Sea Systems MPPT Controller. (There are two styles of controller MPPT and PWM. MPPT controllers are a bit more pricey than PWM controllers, but they are more feature rich and boast up to 30% better charging than the older PWM style.)

Here it is installed.

The display is currently showing the amount of amps being sent out to the batteries by the panels.
You'll notice that the Aux Out light as well as the Float light are lit. This indicates that the batteries
are full and all power being produced by the panels is being used by the fans and lights on the boat.
FREE Energy! cool :)

I decided to install it underneath the Nav table as it does generate a bit of heat when its cranking out a lot of amps to the batteries. Its working so well with my solar panels that I can turn off my battery charger during the day and the batteries are still topped off by the time the sun sets that evening.

Happy Memorial Day

I've always enjoyed what the Navy did on special holidays like Memorial Day or the Fourth of July. Its a tradition known as Full Dress Ship. It involves using every single code flag a ship has and constructing a "Rainbow of Colors" that is flown from the bow to the stern draping the whole ship in a parade of colorful flags. It always looks really sharp and when the whole fleet is in port, it is really something to behold. A lot of yacht clubs and individual sailors also perform Full Dress Ship for these holidays and other special events and its just as pretty.

Last night I downloaded the NTP13b, the Navy's Flags, Pennants and Customs procedures manual and followed the code flags as best I could (The Navy uses some flags that normal sailors dont have access to, nor need). Here's the result. I did add a Pirate flag. Why not? I'm former Navy, I could consider myself a Privateer of some sort... ;)

I hope on this Memorial Day weekend, we all take a moment to remember those that did not return home to celebrate this special day. May we always remember the Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen that gave their lives so that we as Americans can still live free.

More modernization

Another project I completed last month was installing new lifelines. However, instead of replacing the aging coated wire that I had originally, I have replaced them with 1/4" Amsteel lifelines. Amsteel for those of you who might not know, is a super high strength, very low stretch synthetic line. It is often used in rigging for racing boats due to its low weight. It is also UV resistant, which means it can stay out in the sun and not fall apart as a lot of synthetic materials will. and it also floats! Cant say that for steel lifelines.
The best part of using Amsteel is the amount of Hardware required for install was next to nothing. Each end is spliced with an eye that is attached to a shackle and the gate is a simple pelican hook that provides the tension for the lifelines when they are engaged. Its a very simple setup, but it works great and I keep getting compliments on good it looks.

In addition to the lifelines, I also extended the stern pulpit rail to the gate on each side of the cockpit. Each length was a straight run of 1" stainless steel tubing about 58" long, which is perfect for one of my next projects. Installation of solar panels! I plan on having one 100W panel attached to the pulpit via rail clamps and attach them in such a way as to have them flip up and down as needed to catch the sun (think like stubby wings).

Bringing Liberty Call into the 21st Century

Liberty Call was built in 1973. That makes her 42 years old as of this writing. Her age has never really bothered me and I didn't really think a lot about that until the recent battery incident when I got up close and personal with some 40 year old wiring. It was at this point I started to see her in a new light. She needs some upgrades!

I've already started electrically. All interior lights and running lights have been converted to LED. The steaming light, spreader lights and the Tricolor/Strobe/Anchor light at the top of the mast are still old style filaments and it really shows with the new battery charger. Example:

Charger remote displaying EVERY interior light on as well as my two Caframo fans running at High Speed.

Just the Steaming light, spreaders and tricolor light are on.

The energy savings are really incredible. Once I am able to replace the remaining lights with LEDs, my two new house batteries should last nearly ten years. Plus having a digital smart charger will ensure that the batteries remain at their most optimum state.

If something bad will happen on a boat, its usually at night

or...  An old charger leads to a battery explosion

So there I was, minding my own business, sleeping peaceably at 0230 in the morning on a Saturday when I awake to the most awful smell you can imagine. Think of two dozen eggs left in the sun for weeks and broken all at once right under your nose. Kinda like that.
   After opening all the hatches in the boat as quickly as possible, my thoughts went immediately to a propane leak, but since the propane alarm wasn't, well, alarming, that eased my mind somewhat. I checked the main propane tank and it was shut off at the valve, so no leak there. It was at this point that I remembered that only one other thing on the boat could produce a smell like that, and it was the batteries and only if something catastrophic had occurred. With trepidation, I very carefully opened up the battery compartment panel and lo and behold, a battery had split itself apart. Now mind you, these aren't the new AGMs I had purchased a while back, this was one of the old ones that I still had installed and had been procrastinating removing since they were still in good condition. It seems that Fate would have its way with me for being lazy.
   After spraying everything in the battery compartment down with a baking soda and water mix to neutralize all the battery acid that was everywhere, I cleaned everything up and pulled the bad battery out. I left it in the cockpit in its battery box, which kept the battery from leaking all over the boat. I didn't want to put the battery on the dock for fear it might leak into the marina. In the morning I inspected the damage. The battery was quite a mess.

As you can see, one whole side of the battery blew itself apart. Thankfully, it didn't do any lasting damage in the battery compartment.

So with a half blasted battery sitting in the hazmat locker at the marina, I pulled the other two batteries and both of them had boiled themselves dry. Since I had just serviced them less that a month ago, that could mean only one thing. The old charger had bit the dust finally and cooked all my old batteries. But, as Providence would have it, I had already purchased all the necessary items to wire up my new charger and install my new batteries. This weekend has been a very busy weekend.

My first order of business was installing my new Sterling Pro Charge Ultra. It has the capability to operate as a 12v power supply even when not hooked up to a battery bank which is a very nice feature. I pulled the old charger out of the small engine compartment. It was an old Sea Ranger charger and it must have weighed at least 50lbs! Trying to remove something that heavy from a bulkhead while keeping from crashing on top of the engine all the while contorted like a performer from Cirque de Soleil is no easy task.

After that fun experience, I mounted the new Charger at the foot of the quarterberth so it would be easier to access.  I ran new wiring from the AC panel to the charger as well as from the charger to the positive fuse bus as well as the grounding bus. 

Here it is, and it sure is purdy!

This picture was taken before I added the case ground wire, remote control wire and the battery temperature sensor wire and securing the wiring to the bulkhead. 

 After several hours of pulling old wire, (START RANT) cursing the name of whoever installed this electrical system (I swear, if I ever find out who wired this boat, I will have some not so friendly choice words for them)(RANT OVER), and replacing the runs with properly crimped and supported wiring.

Again, photo taken mid install, but you can see the fuse block on the right I talked about here, And on the left is one of two ground buses that i will install. You can see the difference in the wiring quality i was ranting about earlier. On the far left of the ground bus, you will see a very nice, neatly crimped and heat shrinked wire, the other three are nasty, but since I can only do so much in a day, they stay until I can get to them. Which will be very soon.

The boat is now back under 12v power after two days of darkness. Boy it sure is nice to have lights and running water again.

Another reason to love San Diego

It's the beginning of  February, I'm following blogs of fellows that have to use a generator exhaust to clear their sidewalks and here in San Diego it was 71 degrees this afternoon.

Yes, this may seem like gloating... Well actually it is...

71 Degrees!!! in February!!!

Electrical Connections

I have decided to rewire the entire boat and bring it up to date with the latest electrical safety standards. So with that in mind, I started with the main fuse block that covers all of the major electrical loads on the boat.

I will not take credit for this design though. I got this from Compass Marine - so kudos to MaineSail and his excellent how to articles.

I started with a piece of 12" x 1" x 3/16" Copper Bar Stock I purchased from Industrial Metal Supply here in San Diego. I could have purchased it in a 3ft length, but at the time, I didn't think I would need all three feet. In hindsight, I should have gone ahead and bought it and saved the rest for future projects. Aw well. 20/20 and all that...

Next, I measured the distance between individual fuse blocks and marked it (measure twice, cut once). A friend of mine who has a drill press cut the holes and I hacksawed the bar to its correct length.

That was the hard part. Now all I had to do was piece the components together. The Copper Bar acts as a bus bar so I don't have to use 2/0 awg cable which is a bear to bend in short lengths. This makes it so much more compact.

The Fuse Blocks themselves are Blue Sea Systems ANL Fuse Blocks. The Three fuses are House Bank (250A), Alternator (100A), and Battery Charger (50A)

And there you have it. A new fuse block.

The Fuse Block with the Plastic Covers. I used a label maker to mark where I want to run cables from and to for ease of tracing them.

A New House Bank

I found a local supplier of AGM batteries that sells them super cheap as they are "blemished", meaning that they have some sort of cosmetic damage to them. As I don't care about that, I purchased two of these batteries for $125 apiece. They are Alcatel Lucent AGM Batteries that are rated at 175amp-hours at 20hrs. So with two of these installed in parallel, I'll have a 350ah battery bank. Not bad. These batteries are so inexpensive for what they are I am seriously tempted to go back and buy one more. BUT... I need to install these two first replacing my old batteries and see how much room I will have left. They're 105lbs apiece and heavy as hell to lug around, so once I have a place set up for them, the next time I take them out of the boat will be to replace them.

Here's a link to the Deep Cycle Battery San Diego

Back to the Boat

...and back to reality,

I finally got back to Liberty Call last night after a very long day of travel. Thankfully, I didn't lose any luggage. Of course when I got back, I open the hatch and I am shocked to find the huge mess I left before my trip. I could swear I didn't leave the boat this disorganized. Everything's here though, so I know this mess is my fault... I guess I was in so much of a hurry to leave that I left more out than I thought I did. Aw well... The mess has been organized, luggage stowed and clothes neatly put back in their drawers and lockers.

In that time, reality set in and I started to think back on all of the projects I dreamed about doing while I was away. The big one of course being Electrical Propulsion (EP). I've done a lot of research these past couple of weeks and I have come to the conclusion that battery technology is not quite where I would like it to be. The $/kWh of lithium batteries is not yet truly affordable and AGMs are just too flippin' big for the amount of energy that they provide. I still think EP is the way to go, don't get me wrong, but I think I will just wait and see how batteries develop in the next year or two. In the meantime, it gives me time to set aside funds for the new propulsion system, and slowly save up for it.

On that note, I've also learned that there is a guy here in my marina that is a whiz with Atomic 4's, so with his help, I should be able to get a couple more good years outta my A4.