I have a perfectly working automatic bilge pump on my steel canal boat. However, due to its design, it always leaves about an inch (2.5 cm) of standing water behind. Because a damp environment inside a metal boat is a recipe for rust, this always worries me. When the main bilge pump kicks in, it removes high volumes of water very quickly, but that last little bit is incredibly annoying.
The problem has always been: How much water do I have it the tank? This is part 3, the development of our solution. Software development is now pretty much complete, and the User Interface is detailed below. Next will come the installation process, but this will have to wait till warmer weather. Next Part 4 – installation and testing…
To see what happens I decided to give an AI a shot at assisting me with the code development. The chosen AI this time was Gemini from google (Other code writing AI’s are available). What had to do first was write down what I wanted the AI to produce, what IDE (Arduino) I was using, the hardware configurations, boards and accessories and how they are wired together.
This is the eternal question normally just before taking a shower or putting on the washing machine. On a boat first hired we had a water gauge, but it did not work very well, most of the time it did not move. When we got our own boat, it did not have a gauge and we tended to fill up as often as we could. I researched retro fitting a sensor in the tank, but it seemed to be a lot of hassle with…
We have fitted two 425W solar panels on tilting mounts, so we could have 850W of solar available on the perfect day, but the best we have seen and I don’t watch this all the time has been about 725W on a good day with the sun directly overhead. We have a Victron MPPT 100/50 solar controller, I have articles on our solar installation if you wish to read them. We normally have our…
We already have a 3000W Sterling Pro Combi S inverter which was installed by Black Prince Boats when we purchased our Ex-Hire canal boat in 2021. Luckily for us Sterling Power Products are based in the UK and in Droitwich very near our Marina. They also have their Sales/Support and Stock on-site, very useful when you need to get a problem solved PDQ. So after chatting to Ben at Sterling Power…
I have been complaining that our fridge does not get as cold as expected, but this year we have not had time for a real boat holiday and have been using the boat for short weekend trips with family or as a stopover for other longer trips, so I put the fridge temperature down to being switched off and on for just a short time. But the fridge may have been an indicator of bigger problems…
New in Lidl is the Monsieur Cuisine smart, which is a cheap Lidl version of the Vorwerk Thermomix TM6, which at around £1600 is well outside my budget, the Lidl Monsieur Cuisine smart comes in at £299 reduced from £399 (Probably will never be sold for that much). While this is quite a large gadget for the boat kitchen, it does replace a lot of devices I could never get onboard at one time…
Ordered for our Canal Boat from Currys a couple of days ago for delivery to our local store for collection, the process could not have been simpler. Once home, it was time to open the box, inside we find on the inside of the lid some simple getting started instructions, it the base are all the bits you need to get started (Well almost – more on that later). On the image above we can…
We have just purchased a StarLink Mini from Curry’s for £189, they were £399 just a short while ago so once we are back on the boat at the end of August for our next trip, we will do a series on how to install this on the roof of our Canal Boat, what options are available and how to power successfully from 12v. There are a number of options we are looking at for the roof mounting…
So we had a problem with our installation of the new Heatmiser thermostat. The thermostat is now positioned half way along the boat, before the old thermostat has been in probably the coldest part of the boa, much nearer the original heater controls. Now when the batteries are not fully charged the voltage drop on the 1 mm2 cable can to great to make the Eberspacher Diesel heater fire up…
I have been looking for a digital thermostat programmer for use on the boat and while browsing eBay I found a Heatmiser neo Stat 12V V2 for auction, that seemed a little cheap so I put a bid on it at up to £20, in the end it cost me just £20.57 including delivery and buyers protection. The heating control options also seem to cover most of the eventualities I could foresee including…
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