And A Bit More Progress

(Boat "Flamingo" - posted by Alan)

A week or so back Cath and I managed to spend a couple more days up at the boat, and further progress was made with the 12 volt electrics.

I'll gloss over the bits that went less well than expected.  I hadn't expected to break my only 6mm tap when trying to cut threads in a bulkhead in the engine room, but when I did I was inevitably forced to suspend operations long enough to drive to the nearest Screwfix for a replacement.

Then the next day, when I hoped I had stopped drilling holes, tapping threads and routing conduit in the engine room, and was actually ready to start wiring in the new cupboard in the main cabin I discovered I had no Lucar connectors sufficiently large to go on some of the cable sizes involved.  They were not an item I could have got at Screwfix, at least, but another trip was needed to a Toolstation.  First Daventry, then Northampton - I know how to live!

Anyway, by this point I was never going to get as far as I hoped I might, but on the final day, did manage to get much of the wiring sorted out within my new cupboard.  So far it is only the basics - cabin lights and pumps, but it is all ready now to the point that adding circuits for 12 volt power points and the headlamp should be straightforward.

I have relocated the SmartGauge that attempts to predict the state of charge of the batteries onto my new panel - it's very much easier to check it in the main cabin than to have to clamber into the engine room to do so.  I've also added a very basic (and cheap!) digital read out that shows the current being consumed in total by everything in the main cabin.  It's dead easy now to see exactly what is being used at any point in time.

The final bonus is that for the very first time since we have owned it none of the cabin lights flicker when either the fresh water pump or the bath emptying pump is running - indeed not even when both are running together.  The reasons why this used to happen were clearly understood, and I expected new very much heavier duty cable would fix it - it has.