Hi All,
We had great fish and chips last night, fresh off the boat that afternoon.
Today was rainy, so we decided to just hang around and do Laundry and Email and
stuff like that. Besides, the marina has a hot tub!
I have been puzzling over the charging system for a while. It was working well
enough, but the voltage seemed low and the current into the batteries wasn't
quite what I expected from the new alternator. Last night I did a bunch more
testing with the multimeter, following on from what I
did at anchor in
I installed the new alternator in a bit of a hurry, mostly just changing it out
for the old puny one. Once it worked and was obviously putting power into the
system I moved on to the refrigeration, which I only got fully installed at
anchor in the St. Clair River. What I didn't notice along the way was that the
old wiring harness was only sized for a modest current flowing back to the
batteries. The result was that my regulator was controlling the alternator for
14.6 volts out, but there was an almost two volt drop along the cable to the
batteries. Yes, the connecting cable was drawing 25 watts all by itself and the
batteries were charging at low current from 12.7 volts.
After pondering where to get a big wacking cable to
make a better connection here in Killarney, I realized late last night that the
connecting strap cable between the two batteries was redundant if the switch is
set to "all" and I took it off this morning and bridged the
alternator to the starter connection that comes straight from the battery on a
big cable. Problem solved. The alternator now delivers 30 amps at 14.6 volts to
the batteries (even with the fridge running on high), which is probably as much
as they can absorb.
Today in the world's smallest chandlery I picked up shear pins for the
outboard, bulbs for the anchor light, and made the acquaintance of a fellow
named John who desperately needed an oil change pump. I just changed my oil
this morning and was happy to offer him the loan of mine. I felt a little smug
to be well prepared. (For those who don't know, you usually can't slide a drain
pan under a marine engine and need to pump the used oil out through the
dipstick hole, into an old oil jug. The pump is a little brass plunger pump
with a long skinny tube to slide down the hole.)
I went back to the fish place and picked up a chunk of today's whitefish for
our dinner. They vacuum pack it for you, making it very fridge friendly for
carrying on. I will get some more tommorow for the
next leg of the trip. I don't much like fishing, but this lake seems to be full
of delicious fish! They also have lake trout for anybody who is sick of
whitefish.
I got a shower today and a first look in the mirror for quite a while. I'm
looking rather scruffy, my skin is much darker and my hair quite a bit lighter,
despite enough hat and sunscreen that I haven't burned yet, except for a bit on
my lips early in the trip.
Life is pretty good,
Rick
PS I have combined these trip reports into a web version,
for those who are really keen to read the installments again, or for
those I forgot to add to the list until more recently. The
address is:
http://me.queensu.ca/people/sellens/personal/dragonGB/
It may not be completely up to date.