Tag: Electric
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Size does matter
The crazy Australians that built my hydraulic steering system had a tendency to super-size everything. Not a bad thing in a steering system actually. But the auto-pilot got super-sized too, and that was maybe not perfect. With the original pump the HO/HO time is about 2.5 seconds, which is waaay to fast. So I have…
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Yay! After almost 12 months I have a bow thruster again!
The thruster first gave up in Las Plamas in the Canaries almost exactly a year ago. Then it was the gearbox that called it quits. Since then the control electronics and the up/down motors gave up too, due to salt water penetration. Now I have a new gearbox and a new controller, and I actually…
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Fridge tune-up time.
Today was a day dedicated to the fridge and freezer. I had noticed that the fridge especially had very long run times, and was causing a bit of battery drain. When I had a look at it, the piping outside the actual fridge was covered in ice. This of course seemed a bit wrong, I…
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When it’s cloudy it’s usually windy…
The Journeyman is supposed to be powered only by the wind and the sun. (Except it has an engine of course, but we’re talking about when we are sailing her!) However my original ambitions that all electrical power was to come from the sun turns out to be a little optimistic. Especially when we are…
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Custom Power Monitor
I looked at a lot of commercially available electric power monitors, and none of them really suited me. Either they didn’t support dual voltages, or they had too small measurement shunts that couldn’t handle the 200A loads I have as worst case. Or they were of the “over computerized” type who insists on providing some…
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Power consumption looks promising
If you’ve been following this blog you know that I am close to over zealous when it comes to power consumption. I just ran a test. 18 interior lamps lit at dimmed comfort levels. Running lights on. Main computer and all navigation instruments running. Stereo on and playing music. VHF and AIS radio on standby.…
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Massive Amounts of Solar Power. Too massive.
The solar battery is in place, all 800 Watts of it: In other news, we have a heatwave situation. The boat becomes a sauna at around 10.30 in the mornings. And it looks like it will last. So starting today we will be switching to working nights and resting during days. So the workday starts…
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Power needs to be regulated
In governments and in sailing yachts…. Since the Journeyman aims to be an environmentally friendly yacht in all respects, I have decided not to fit any generator. At all. Not even a shore power charger! Well… that’s maybe also because shore power is a dangerous thing to have in an aluminum yacht to start with.…
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Detail of the day: Hull integrated heat exchanger.
One of the top electric energy consumers on a yacht is the fridge and freezer. The efficiency of the machines that take the heat out of the cooled space is heavily dependent on how efficiently the heat energy can be removed from the cooling liquid. Most standard yachts use a cooling element with a fan,…
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Some equipment is more important than other. Like the Engine.
Today work started on the engine mounting bracket. We unpacked and assembled the engine to make sure its dimensions matched the drawings I was given 18 months ago. It didn’t, of course. The engine is just one of many many pieces of equipment that will be installed, but it still feels like a bit of…