By C45Sanctuary on 7/28/2008 10:25 AM

I purchased six new batteries a few days ago to replace the six T-105 batteries that have been installed for several years.  I figure I'll bring the six older batteries back to home port and use them for testing and lab purposes.  If I am able to prove the old batteries are still in decent shape, I'll use them for various lab and testing purposes around the house.

After the new batteries had been in the garage for a day, I remembered I would need a baseline for "good" battery discharge decay rates vs "bad" battery discharge decay rates.  All batteries will lose some of their charge over time.  Good batteries decay at a much slower rate than bad ones.  So, with multimeter in one hand an a pad and pen in the other, I began charting all six batteries.  After a few days a decay rate has emerged: they each lose about .01 volts per day, assuming they were fully charged to begin with.

By C45Sanctuary on 7/26/2008 2:13 AM

I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd do some planning on the electrical system upgrades.  So far, I have the Air-X Marine 400w wind generator sitting in the original packaging and two 100w solar panels on order.  I'd like to add a third solar panel to the solar array but there were only two available from my preferred supplier.

The Air-X Marine has a built in voltage regulator that enabled the wind generator to charge the battery bank whenever the voltage drops below 12.75 volts.  The solar panels operate closer to 17 volts at 14 amps max current.  I'll need to use a voltage regulator for the solar array that converts the excessive voltage into higher amperage.  I haven't identified exactly which products can do that, yet.  All of the ones I've researched simply limit the maximum voltage, which ends up wasting a significant amount (more than 30 percent) of the wattage generated by the solar array.  Ideally, the excessive voltage could be stepped down to somewhere near 12.75 volts and the difference be converted back into amps.  I believe this is possible, since watts = Volts * Amps.  If you have a 100w output at 17.4 volts, then the amp output is approvimately 5.75 amps.  If you drop the output voltage to 12.7, the amp output should be close to 7.85.  Such a regulator would require some internal parallel and series circuits to shift those values around a bit, since voltage is a constant when in a parallel circuit and amperage will vary, but in a series circuit the exact opposite is true (voltage drops and amperage stays constant).

So, what does this have to do with the remote control panel (Heart Interface Link 2000) for the Freedom 25 (now Xantrex 25) power inverter?  Well, after digging through some old documentation and doing a bit more research on the products, I learned that the remote control panel was built by Heart Interface Corporation as a battery monitor and charging computer.  It's a lot more than a simple remote control panel.  Yeah, the remote control panel has an RJ-14 plug that connects it to the Freedom 25 inverter/charger.  But, more importantly, it has eight wires comming out of the back of it that I couldn't comprehend until I couldn't sleep Friday night.  Those wires had to be doing something, I reasoned, so I went searching for some engineering documentation that would explain their purpose.

It turns out that the Link-2000 is a pretty decent battery charging and conditioning computer.  The documentation I located identified where, exactly, a solar array should be connected to the charging circuitry.  It also identified where a wind generator should be connected.  So, with that sort of knowledge on hand, I figure I can finally get some sleep.

By C45Sanctuary on 6/22/2008 8:00 PM

Spraying is a heck of a lot easier, and faster, than rolling and tipping.  The results from spraying are comparable to my best efforts from rolling and tipping.

My sister was put in charge of ensuring one scaffolding platform was relocated while I was using the other scaffolding.  This enabled me to continually move along the length of the hull without needing to pause every few feet and relocate the platforms.  Initially, my spraying technique was ... weak.  Within about ten or fifteen feet, though, I had a pretty good grasp on the technique.  The port side looked decent.  Not awesome, but not bad.  I am attempting to error on the side of "less paint and more layers" instead of trying to make the first layer look like a final coat.  It only took a few hours to paint the entire port side.  Starboard took even less time than the port side (I had learned the rhythm) and it looked even better.

Another task that I assigned to my sister was to "run interference" with the various people who visit me while I'm at my boat.  Every weekend, there is usually at least one or two people who walk by and want to know more about the boat.  I'm always happy to tell them three times more than they probably wanted to know.  The drawback to that, though, is I tend to get almost nothing done when they're around.  So, she did the talking and I did the painting.  It worked out pretty well.

There's one important thing about spraying that needs to be mentioned: Get a compressor that can push more cubic feet per minute than the spray gun can use.  It doesn't matter how much pressure the compressor can attain.  What does matter is how much air it can push.  If a compressor can attain 150 PSI, but can only push 2.8 cubic feet per minute, then you'll only be painting for about ten seconds before you need to wait for a minute or two for the compressor to catch up.  Get a compressor that pushed more cubic feet that the spray gun needs.  (Yeah, I needed to make an emergency trip to Lowes to get a bigger compressor).

By C45Sanctuary on 6/18/2008 8:00 PM

Last week I asked my sister if she wanted to visit the boat.  It wasn't until a few days after she agreed that I realized she might not know it wasn't in the water.  If she is thinking this is going to be a "sailing on the water" kind of weekend she's in for a bit of a surprise.  I wonder just when I'm going to let her know this weekend if going to be focused primarly upon painting.

By C45Sanctuary on 6/9/2008 8:00 PM

I spent all day Saturday morning by sanding the port side.  Again.  Then, in the afternoon, I attempted the "roll and tip" method on the port side.  The results were ... bad.  I think the best effort I made was destroyed by the swarm of bugs.  *$(#)@_!)@(#$*%^ ing bugs.  Most of the gallon of black paint I purchased is now gone.  I obtained a quart of black paint from one of the local marine shops and made yet another attempt at "rolling and tipping".  I'm not sure why, but every time I use this method the results look worse that the previous attempt.

Jack, the guy who is a few boats away, asked why I wasn't spraying.  He is of the opinion that the results achieved by "rolling and tipping" is a myth.  He's been around many yachts that were being painted and they were always sprayed.  I guess he has a point.  I definitely lack the skill required to make this technique work, so maybe spraying is the only option I have.  So, on Sunday afternoon and Monday morning, I sanded the hull.  Again.  I was able to finish sanding all of the starboard side as well as most of the port side before I needed to head home.

The next time I am down here I'll have a fresh gallon of black paint and all of the equipment needed for spraying.