Thursday, June 13, 2013

New things to try on Koan

Since Koan doesn't have standing head room, everything belowdecks is done either sitting on the berths or kneeling. The cork I installed a few months ago didn't hold up at all, so I've decided to try out these gym flooring tiles. Bonus points that the best berth in the boat while at anchor, that is, the floor, is now somewhat softer!

I also finally finished connecting the GPS to the VHF, so that the VHF can transmit our coordinates over DSC in case of distress, and it can also be powered by the house battery bank. That meant I needed somewhere to mount the VHF so that the cable would reach, the device would have signal, but it would also be somewhat protected from the elements. The default solution tends to be the companionway, and I confirmed with Mike, who owns the Moore 24 that I race on, and who has the same Garmin 76 device, that the companionway works for signal. So I went with it. I really liked the strong but flexible Gorilla-style arms that I've seen on some of the Mini Transat Zeros, so I looked for something similar. I decided to go with a solution from the photography world, where 1/4''-20 thread tripod mounts are ubiquitous, and modern DSLRs weigh more that my GPS. I'm using an i-Stabilizer bracket to hold the GPS and it connects to a stainless steel gooseneck with a tripod mount on the top end and a female socket for the same size bolt on the other. The default position is up (and invisible from the cockpit) and then you can bend it sideways to make it visible, and presumably improve the satellite reception.


Saturday, June 1, 2013

Ladies and gentlemen, we have solar!

A while back I ordered cheap, but allegedly accurate, digital voltmeters from ebay, and today I cut out holes in the tops of my battery boxes and installed them. I built them up so that they hook up to the batteries with little alligator clips, so they can be disconnected if need be.

I also moved the AC charger closer to the new location for the batteries, so that the cables run without tension. It's the big gray box on the right in the photo. Finally, I installed a PV7D solar charge controller, the little gray box on the left.
The improved battery situation.
The charge controller is fed by a cheap 20 Watt panel, also from ebay, mounted on a Sunsei articulating mount from the sale rack at West Marine. I finished the installation (14 AWG throughout, so the panel amperage can be increased in the future) yesterday and tested that everything works today. I'm pretty happy with it, except for the water resistance of the panel-side connections. It's pretty clear that this panel is not marinized, so my quandary is whether to wait for it to crap out somehow or replace it with something marinized and save this one for some sort of terra firma application.
The solar panel.