{"id":330,"date":"2023-07-05T21:34:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-05T20:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nbtallulah.co.uk\/?p=330"},"modified":"2023-07-05T21:34:00","modified_gmt":"2023-07-05T20:34:00","slug":"springwood-haven-marina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"Springwood Haven Marina"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spared you a lot of the visual state of the canal when I passed through Nuneaton, although I did mention it in the last post. However here is one photo of a large piece of polystyrene, floating aimlessly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I have seen hundreds, if not thousands of items, such as plastic bottles, traffic cones, plastic bags, bin bags containing rubbish, tyres, pieces of carpet and so on. It’s disgusting but it is the same for most large built-up areas and cities. I have also seen piles of rubbish cascading down the embankment from a footpath higher up, building up, down the bank towards the canal. I’m sure there will be an avalanche soon.<\/p>\n

Nuneaton is not the worst I am sure, but a friend said that the council have done nothing to promote the canal and improve things. If done properly, canals can attract people to developments of shops, restaurants and such like. Places such as Stratford on Avon and Little Venice in London. But to be honest, I’m not sure Nuneaton is that kind of place at the moment.<\/p>\n

Here’s something to take your mind off that terrible trash…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

After passing through Nuneaton, I decided to call in to Springwood Haven marina for water, rubbish disposal and to use the elsan. I’ll show you what the elsan is in another post as I don’t have any resources to show you.<\/p>\n

I also wanted to upgrade my inverter charger as the one I have is not man enough to handle running the washing washine, microwave or the toaster singularly, let alone together. To be honest, I could do without the microwave and just use the cooker instead but it is used solely out of convenience. Most of the time, the washing machine is fine except when it is heating the water it will trip the inverter, even on a 30 degree wash. The toaster does work but you normally end up with toast that is not done enough and you have to put it through again. Meanwhile the inverter is straining… To overcome the inverter shortcomings, I have to run the engine with a little increase in revs. The biggie leisure alternator I have does provide quite a lot of extra current to run these things. However, as I have mentioned before, it is a pain to go and do this, especially when it is tipping down outside, or there is a bear sitting where I need to get to!<\/p>\n

So fortunately, when I went in to the office, Steve and Dave from the marina had a couple of days blank and they fitted me in the next day. They gave me a rough quote for the replacement inverter and labour and although it was quite expensive, it needed to be done to make my life on board easier.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Springwood Haven Marina, is, to me, something like a little Teletubbies valley with a canal and a marina at the bottom of it. I did have quite a few photos of the place which shows its similarity, but I can’t seem to find them now despite an extension search, apart from one…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There is a hill behind me going up and, also to the left and right. The place is surprisingly green…<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So here begins the replacement of my inverter. This shows my electrics cupboard emptied out apart from the items on the top right which are a couple of busbars, a shunt and the right hand one is the galvanic isolator. That item attempts to prevent corrosion of the hull of the boat and it is designed to prevent electrolytic corrosion. It blocks low voltage DC currents that enter the boat via the shore power earth wire. These currents can cause corrosion to the boat\u2019s underwater metals, like the hull, propeller, propshaft etc.<\/p>\n

Here is my old inverter sitting on my worktop ready for sale on ebay, complete with cables and fittings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This was on day two of the transformation, and Steve had to make a new back board for the cupboard, which looks fantastic. The wiring is a huge improvement to what it was. Again, I can’t find my photos of what it was before. Quite remiss of me not to fully capture all the different stages. I promise to do better in the future!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And here is the completed cupbpoard, almost. I still have to fit the trims around the edges yet but it should look very good when done. You can see on the top there my Venus GX which I made myself out of a Raspberry Pie, with the 7 inch display. It does pretty much the same job as a Victron Cerbo GX, which costs around \u00a3550. I enjoyed making it and it does exactly what I want it to do. It shows me Tallulah’s current electrical status, and includes such details from the batteries and solar panels etc.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here’s the underside of the top of the cupboard, where I drilled a couple of big holes for the fans. I then screwed the fans on, soldered the connectors to the small board you see, et voila!! It just needed the connection of the ends you see to the ends in the cupboard.<\/p>\n

This whole idea came about as the old inverter used to get very hot in the cupboard and sometimes I used to have a fan directed in there to try and cool things down. This new inverter is bigger and produces more heat, although it has a very good cooling system itself, I thought I would add these fans to try and extract more heat from the cupboard. They will only turn on when the inverters fans kick in. Clever, huh?<\/p>\n

Needless to say but these electrical items should not have been installed in such a small cupbord in the first place. I think it was done either out of convenience or ignorance by a previous owner. I could have paid for the construction of a real good proper job but that would have taken longer and also cost a small fortune on top of the small fortune I have already paid.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Well, I think that covers everything for a few days. The next installment coming soon to an internet near you!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spared you a lot of the visual state of the canal when I passed through Nuneaton, although I did mention it in the last post. However here is one photo of a large piece of polystyrene, floating aimlessly. I have seen hundreds, if not thousands of items, such as plastic bottles, traffic cones, plastic bags, bin bags containing rubbish, tyres, pieces of carpet and so on. It’s disgusting but it is the same for most large built-up areas and cities. I have also seen piles of rubbish cascading down the embankment from a footpath higher up, building up, down the bank towards the canal. I’m sure there will be an avalanche soon. Nuneaton is not the worst I am sure, but a friend said that the council have done nothing to promote the canal and improve things. If done properly, canals can attract people to developments of shops, restaurants and such like. Places such as Stratford on Avon and Little Venice in London. But to be honest, I’m not sure Nuneaton is that kind of place at the moment. Here’s something to take your mind off that terrible trash… After passing through Nuneaton, I decided to call in to Springwood Haven marina for water, rubbish disposal and to use the elsan. I’ll show you what the elsan is in another post as I don’t have any resources to show you. I also wanted to upgrade my inverter charger as the one I have is not man enough to handle running the washing washine, microwave or the toaster singularly, let alone together. To be honest, I could do without the microwave and just use the cooker instead but it is used solely out of convenience. Most of the time, the washing machine is fine except when it is heating the water it will trip the inverter, even on a 30 degree wash. The toaster does work but you normally end up with toast that is not done enough and you have to put it through again. Meanwhile the inverter is straining… To overcome the inverter shortcomings, I have to run the engine with a little increase in revs. The biggie leisure alternator I have does provide quite a lot of extra current to run these things. However, as I have mentioned before, it is a pain to go and do this, especially when it is tipping down outside, or there is a bear sitting where I need to get to! So fortunately, when I went in to the office, Steve and Dave from the marina had a couple of days blank and they fitted me in the next day. They gave me a rough quote for the replacement inverter and labour and although it was quite expensive, it needed to be done to make my life on board easier.   Springwood Haven Marina, is, to me, something like a little Teletubbies valley with a canal and a marina at the bottom of it. I did have quite a few photos of the place which shows its similarity, but I can’t seem to find them now despite an extension search, apart from one… There is a hill behind me going up and, also to the left and right. The place is surprisingly green…   So here begins the replacement of my inverter. This shows my electrics cupboard emptied out apart from the items on the top right which are a couple of busbars, a shunt and the right hand one is the galvanic isolator. That item attempts to prevent corrosion of the hull of the boat and it is designed to prevent electrolytic corrosion. It blocks low voltage DC currents that enter the boat via the shore power earth wire. These currents can cause corrosion to the boat\u2019s underwater metals, like the hull, propeller, propshaft etc. Here is my old inverter sitting on my worktop ready for sale on ebay, complete with cables and fittings.   This was on day two of the transformation, and Steve had to make a new back board for the cupboard, which looks fantastic. The wiring is a huge improvement to what it was. Again, I can’t find my photos of what it was before. Quite remiss of me not to fully capture all the different stages. I promise to do better in the future!   And here is the completed cupbpoard, almost. I still have to fit the trims around the edges yet but it should look very good when done. You can see on the top there my Venus GX which I made myself out of a Raspberry Pie, with the 7 inch display. It does pretty much the same job as a Victron Cerbo GX, which costs around \u00a3550. I enjoyed making it and it does exactly what I want it to do. It shows me Tallulah’s current electrical status, and includes such details from the batteries and solar panels etc.   Here’s the underside of the top of the cupboard, where I drilled a couple of big holes for the fans. I then screwed the fans on, soldered the connectors to the small board you see, et voila!! It just needed the connection of the ends you see to the ends in the cupboard. This whole idea came about as the old inverter used to get very hot in the cupboard and sometimes I used to have a fan directed in there to try and cool things down. This new inverter is bigger and produces more heat, although it has a very good cooling system itself, I thought I would add these fans to try and extract more heat from the cupboard. They will only turn on when the inverters fans kick in. Clever, huh? Needless to say but these electrical items should not have been installed in such a small cupbord in the first place. I think it was done either out of convenience or ignorance by a previous owner. I could have paid for the construction of a real good proper job but that would have taken longer and also cost a small fortune on top of the small fortune I have already paid. Well, I think that covers everything for a few days. The next installment coming soon to an internet near you!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-to-the-north"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nbtallulah.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}