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Date:Tue, 15 Aug 2023 19:11:00 GMT
It's the CURSE!
Just when you thought it was safe to go for a sail...
So on Saturday, the generator decided to blow a leak. The side of the
heat exchanger that was a scaley mess blew out and dumped a hundred or so
gallons of raw water into the bilge. So much for going for a sail. I've
spent the last 4 days rebuilding the heat exchanger. First I had to
figure out how to get it out of a 4-5 inch wide space in front of the
generator. That took most of the first day. Then I cleaned it up with a
wire brush, put it in acid (thanks Don!) and then I made a copper plate to
put over the coroded areas and soldered it with high temp silver/copper
solder. Then I put it in without pressure testing it... bad idea... it
leaked and that scared me. So this morning I pulled it out found the
leakes, re-soldered it, cleaned up the surface for the gaskets on the ends
and tested it. It seemed ok so I put it back in. That took most of the
morning but around 11am I got it running again and no leaks! There is so
much depending on this generator that it's scary.
Well as I wanted to make sure I had an alternate way to charge the battery
I started to try and debug the balmar house battery charging system that
has never quite worked correctly. And you know what? I found the problem.
See, the generator would kick on for 30 sec or so then kick off for a short
period like 1min. Then kick on again. It was very frustrating and I
re-programmed the 614 several times trying to figure out why it was
kicking off. Checked the belt tension, the temprature... wait! that was
it. the temprature of the batteries climbed in 30 second to 56deg and
then it kicked off. Once it was at 51 it would start up again. Well, low
and behold, the alternator temp and the battery temp were swapped. The
alternator temp can climb to 100 before it starts limiting the circuit.
After swapping them to the correct positions, the battery is staying below
51deg and the alternator is staying around 85 and it charges happily. I
reset the programming back to lipo4 and let the default settings do their
job and it's charging fine. So we have 3 ways to charge: generator,
engine, and solar. I feel much better.
Now it's time to clean up the boat and take a well deserved break.
Hopefully we will be heading north soon. This has been one heck of a
shake down and we have fixed a lot of things on this 53 year old boat.
There is always more to do but I am pleased with what we have accomplished
in the last 8 months. Isn't that what they call cruising? Fixing a boat
in exotic locations! Have a wonderful afternoon and I'm going to clean
up.