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Hi Tor
Not long. Replaced a set of Interstate gc wet cells we got in 2008 last spring. If they are Deka, and everyone I found said they are, they are a good deal. We replaced 8 wet gc batteries with 6 agm gc batteries. Since we have solar and 200 amps of alternators, our bottleneck is the battery bank acceptance rate. Six agm batteries charge as fast as 8 wet cells.
In the past, we used Sams Club wet cell gc batteries. They lasted about 4 years, but cost back then about $60 each. The agm gc batteries were about $170 each. Group 31 agm that we put in the rv were $180 each.
Are you going camping this summer?
QuentWe bought Sams Club agm batteries made by Deka. Cheap, so far still good.
Tor, if Claire reads your last, I’ll be sleeping in the cockpit.
QuentHi Linus
I’m thinking your question is how to reliably extend the battery cables to the new battery location. I had a similar problem with windlass cables that needed connections in the anchor locker. Nothing lasted until I did this.
Cleaned the cable ends until they were bright metal, then joined them with heavy duty butt connectors, the kind that are as heavy as battery cable lugs. Attached these with a heavy duty hydraulic crimper from Harbor Freight. This is so strong that it really crushes together the cable strands. Only costs about $50 if you catch it on sale. I then covered the butt connections with heavy duty sealant filled shrink tubing, the Ancor stuff they sell specifically for battery cables.
Third season, no problems.
QuentHi Rich
We have one of those AIS equipped VHFs. I think that you will like it. IMHO, the big advantage is that you only need one antenna, and it is at the masthead. Much better AIS range than our old AIS receiver antenna at deck level. Lots of wires to hook up though.
QuentHi Charlie
Could be a high resistance connection between the battery and the glow plugs. Suggest you clean up all the connections, including the relay and see if you get better voltage.
You can check the glow plugs by disconnecting them and checking each of them with an ohm meter. Should all be about the same resistance. Open circuit means that one is fried.
A full minute of preheat sounds like a lot ot me, but I have no direct experience with a W-60. Engines get harder to cold start if compression is low, or the starter is not spinning the engine fast enough.
QuentSliding storage trays and shelves including for batteries are popular with the RV crowd. Try Google. Only problem might be finding one that will stand up to the marine environment.
QuentAmazing, Ken. Took me all winter at my home dock to do that job, and you did it on a mooring at Velcro Beach.
Opinions will vary on a proper fuel cleaner, here’s what we did. Idea was to filter and remove water as quickly as possible. We used a racor 1000 and a groco vane pump on a mechanical timer. Added separate connections to tank. Pick up at lowest point and the return at top of tank. All lines are 1/2″ so entire tank is filtered quickly.
Filter and pump are mounted to a plywood bulkhead we added to forward in port lazerette. It’s important to access the top and bottom of the racor to drain water and change filter elements. We can climb in there to reach the filter.
There’s a surplus boat place near Vero where you might get a deal on a filter.
QuentBrilliant, Ken! Reminds me of my old army days, latrines with a hole over a drum with just enough diesel to burn the stuff later. Sometimes they would use gasoline instead, in which case you always wanted to beat the smoker next to you outta there, before he threw the cigarette butt in the can.
QuentHi Tor
By all, I meant all the charts available from Navionics. Perhaps not including the secret treasure charts sketched by old pirates on the back of rum bottle labels of the way into harbors through secret gaps in invisible sea walls. Navionics will get you in a class A east coast US inlet, but for Tor’s secret haunts, not so much.
That is a downside to navionics apps, its only their cartography. MX Mariner sounds pretty good if it includes all standard raster charts and they store on a mini sd card. Don’t think that you will find all the flexibility to load any chart format or image on a tablet app that you have on your real computer.
My little Samsung has 8gb basic memory. It also has a mini sd card for as much as 32gb.While 8gb sounds like a lot, by the time you load the operating system and some apps, you’re left with just hundreds of mb, not enough for raster charts unless you can put them on the mini sd card.
Raster is an image that goes all course when you zoom in. It takes a lot of memory to store raster images. Vector is code to draw a chart. It is lines instead of pixels when you zoom in. Stores in much less space.
I suspect what you need is an app that can work with any raster image that can be indexed to gps locations. Don’t know of any yet.
QuentThe Android Navionics apps, run about 60 mb each. You will need two, North America and South America. Not too bad as they include all the charts. Current version must be stored on primary memory, not on mini sd card. Apps using raster charts like the beta system that NOAA recently tested simply required too much space to store the charts. There are other apps out there that use NOAA vector charts, and some apps that just display instruments.
Another way around the internal GPS issue would be to use a bluetooth or wifi connection if the tablet was so equipped, with a bluetooth or wifi equipped multiplexer. While this would almost double the cost, it would allow the tablet to access depth and wind. Actually, for folks running a computer with bluetooth or wifi, you might link the tablet directly to the computer.
QuentSome cell phones use cell towers for location but unless you get your tablet from a phone company, it won’t do that.
I don’t know about getting the tablet to talk to the chart plotter. Seen to remember something about ipod talking to Fugawi software on a laptop. You could check with them.
QSamsung has a built in gps that works quite well. Nav programs do not need wifi or bluetooth and the tab with Navionics app has all the charts in memory. It is essentially a charting portable gps. You will need a shady spot to see the screen. Nav wise, it was fine both on Chesapeake Bay, and on a trip in the Galapagoes.
Regarding backup, I agree with Tor’s wisdom on carrying paper backup. Position is critical as well. We carry a couple portable gps units and extra batteries that are bulletproof and autonomous.
I like our Raymarine C-80 chartplotter because it is weatherproof and doesn’t have the laptop moving parts, namely the hard drive that could crash. The Raymarine gps, not so much. It got weird last time in the Gulf Stream, and got replaced by a Garmin.
QuentWe have a 7″ Samsung Android tablet that works reasonably well. There are several marine navigation apps, including Navionics which comes with all the Navionics charts and does waypoints. Got it at Costco.
They also do boat speed and gps compass. Since they have bluetooth and wifi there’s potential to interface for other data. The downside, IMHO, would be the lack of weatherproofing and relatively short battery life between charges.
They are also good for going ashore to do Internet.
If you have an Android phone, check out the apps using that.
QuentPlenty of threads here on fuel tank leaks. Unfortunately, I don’t remember any on spontaneous fixes.
Quent
