Hi James, Those are very sensible considerations. I am also a big fan of Gel's, except for their cost and energy density as you point out. I have happily used them in many military projects over the y

Nick, On the subject of safety ... A couple of years ago when I started thinking about a hybrid solution, I frequently heard the risk statement "you can't mix chemistries" because apparently bad thing

Nick, I understand your desire to extract best value from your existing lead batteries, but I would strongly recommend you think about big lithium and small lead content as being the optimum longer te

Hi Kent, Correcting the problem ... the key things are: 1. Use the correct Abs voltage. 2. Use a low tail cutoff current. it was difficult to find clear charge information from Crown. The attached Cro

Kent, I haven't seen the spec sheets for your batteries, but... is it possible that your ABS voltage is a little low? Solar is notorious for gradually undercharging lead batteries. You might think you

Nick, Yes. In 2020 I designed a directly connected AGM+LFP hybrid system almost exactly as you describe and proceeded to build a 12V version at home during Covid. I tested it thoroughly for 9 months.

Maxwell's equations explain everything perfectly. Don't they??

Hi folks, Thanks for all the recommendations, suggestions and imaginative ideas. To close out the initial question, my solution was to drain the dehumidifier down the galley sink. I cleaned out the bi

Hi Nick, Safe travels home. The holding tanks are a bit too high to be useful and I'm not too keen on T-ing into the toilet thru hulls/risers, although as you say it would work with a gravity feed. I

Hi Scott, My dehumidifier is specified at about 12L per day too, but it never produces that much water unless we are creating some major humidity with the clothes dryer. In reality it produces about 2

Vladan, Nice. I'm keen to hear how that one works out. I already have a reliable unit onboard, but it does need to drain the water. It's also great for using in the forward shower area when the clothe

Hi Ruedi, Thanks for that. Flushing the fridge/aircon with product is much easier than running it through the motor/generator due to water flow volumes. Do you think this is not needed so much with th

Mark, Don't I know that job from a previous boat, so I hear you loud and clear! Luckily Stella is all freshwater flushing. I had occasion to be servicing the heads (joker valves and macerators) earlie

I have always run a dehumidifier on my boats for all the usual reasons. Since I bought Stella, I have always wintered her out of the water. I've removed the depth-sounder transducer and drained the de

Thanks Nick. What you do is pretty much what I've done previously. I've been using the pink "Starbrite" anti-freeze. We had a great passage down here from Scotland and the boat performed superbly. Bre

Hi all, I'm preparing Stella for in-water wintering in southern Spain and will be filling all seawater lines with freshwater as I've always done in the past for non-freezing winterisation. I'm wonderi

Hi Clive, Interesting tools, I have not seen those before. However, I have ordered a 24mm Box Spanner from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/KS-Tools-518-0879-CLASSIC-spanner/dp/B001NYV3IA Looks like it

Martin, yes those are the ones. Thanks for the fast answer! Dean SV STELLA A54-154

Hi 54 Owners, One of my stern mooring cleats is a tiny bit loose, and on closer investigation I found the nut on the underside to be a little loose. It's in a difficult to access spot and needs an ext

Ian, I have recently replaced my alternator with the (expensive) Volvo numbered model. I had to modify (ie machine) the alternator mountings to accept the delrin 'sleeves' that Scott mentioned. I susp