Electrical Mayhem Part Deux

It only took two COLD days but the job is done! 

Sunday morning I pulled Verboten into the driveway and got to work. First half of the day (demolition) actually went pretty well. I disconnected the battery, then went to the stern and cut apart the wiring in the old battery box. The stock wiring for a Capri 22 Mark II is 10 AWG. Imagine my surprise when I found the wire running from the battery in the v-berth was 16 AWG! Yikes, talk about too small!

Once I had things cut apart I pulled out the original wires and ran them forward as far as they'd go. That turned out to be about 1/3 of the way through the quarterberth locker. No problem, I thought, I've got 20 feet of wire for the solar panel run, I'll have plenty. NOT! Turns out the run from the battery box to the v-berth is longer than the boat! Who knew! So I went and bought more wire (8 feet each of red & black). Which wasn't enough, either.

At this point I had the wire run from the solar panel to the new charge controller done, though the controller wasn't mounted in the v-berth locker yet. The wire run from the panel to the same locker was done too and ate up more of that 8 feet of wire than I expected. I spent quite a bit of time mulling over placement of the switch and trying to figure out how to get the bits I hadt left to work. Nope, can't do it. By that time it was around 5:00, the temps were dropping, and the halogen light was no longer keeping the cabin warm. Plus I ached all over. So I called it a night.

This morning I woke up to snow!  Not what I really wanted to see, especially since it was over a layer of frozen fog.  I ran to Napa and picked up 2 more 10' spools of wire.  No snow closer to town.  Weird.  Oh yeah, the partial gallon of distilled water I left in the boat was full of ice.  Yeah, it was cold in there.

While Deborah was in town I got to work.  First order of business was fitting a 3 way switch into the side of the v-berth.  I don't have a 2-5/8 hole saw so it was dremel to the rescue.  About 30 minutes of work gave me a round(ish) hole that was a perfect fit for the switch, and a big pile of powdered fiberglass in the locker to vacuum up.

Once the mess was cleaned up I mounted the solar charge controller in the locker and connected the wires from the solar panel, which already had ring terminal ends on them.  I ran the wires for the connection to the battery, then went to work on connecting the ends and hooking everything up.  I salvaged the buss from the original setup in the stern, and used it to gang together the negative wires, then started on the swiitch.  Guess who was 2 ring terminals short.  D'oH!   Must be time for lunch and a break.  Got the portable 120v charger out of the shed and hooked it up to try and get a full charge on the battery then went in to warm up and eat..

Deborah got home after a bit so back to the auto parts store for more ring terminals.  I hooked things up and . . . nothing!  WTF?!  Time to start checking things over.  Continuity seems to be fine, the switch is working as expected, so what's the problem?   A bit of monkeying with things and I figured out that the master breaker on the main panel wasn't working quite right.  It was sticking and wasn't actually turned on.  Hmm.  Hopefully that was just a symptom of the freezing cold weather and not something that I'll have to replace in the spring. 

Once everything was working I decided to try hooking up the "load" on the charge controller to the #2 position on the switch instead of the charger wire, which I tied off to the #1 with the battery.   Even with the switch in the off position I got a circuit that way.  Not sure I completely understand why but the switch internals apparently don't work the way I think they do.  Went back to the original plan and I'll do something else with the load; maybe a 12v fan.

Got things cleaned up (what a mess I made!) and ran the boat back down to the lockup around 4 PM. 

So, I've now got 2 clean wiring paths on appropriately sized wire.  Setting the switch to #1 turns on just the battery; #2 is just the solar panel, which makes the LED lights flicker, so maybe not too useful; 1+2 is the winner with both the battery and the solar panel.  #0 turns everything off, which is probably a good choice when we're on the road towing.

Electrical Mayhem

Last season I kept seeing these weird, cyclical drops in voltage, to the point that the GPS/Chartplotter would throw a low voltage alarm.  The solar panel charge controller showed a green light when the panel was plugged in and unplugging it had no effect on the fluctuations.  I checked the wiring, tightened up the screws and redid a couple of crimp connectors.

That seemed to help, but by mid-season I had to replace the battery.  The voltage cycling continued but seemed to throw alarms less often.  The new battery didn't seem to hold the same voltage as the old one (when new) but I chocked that up to different manufacturers.

Fast forward to last weekend.  I've got a new multimeter and the sun was out, so I decided to go check on the boat and take a look at the wiring while I was at it.

Eventually I worked my way back to the stern battery locker (my battery is in the v-berth) where I started to test the connections there.  When I got to the charge controller I was a bit baffled to find 12.7v on the power in and power out sides, especially since the panel was putting out 20-22v depending on whether the sun was behind a cloud or not. And the green "ok" light was on.  Hmmm.   I disconnected the charge controller and did some testing with it only connected to the panel.  20-22v at the power in, fluctuating 3-4v at the power out. Ah ha!  It's dead!  I guess 5 years of nearly constant use, in a not very dry battery locker, was too much for it.

I drove down to the local RV place to see what they have.  $150 for a controller capable of charging 4 banks of batteries, but only intended for dry applications.  Uh, no, I don't think so.  He did give me a website with the exact replacement (except with a blue case) for the dead Sunsei controller.   I went home and did some research.  There aren't many inexpensive (less than $150) options that are appropriate for a small sailboat.  One option is the SunSaver line, which has all of the electronics sealed in epoxy.  Perfect!  Not waterproof but way better than the exposed breadboard on the Sunsei, so I ordered one.

This one looks to be "smarter" than the old one, plus it has an extra set of connections for a direct load from the solar panel.  That will come in handy if/when I decide to put a powered vent in.  A powered vent or fan won't get any light under the tarp in the winter but it will if it's hooked up to a solar panel.  Hmmm.

Today I ran to Knechts for some wire, fuses, and connectors so I can hook things up.  I've been mulling over the way the wires run from the battery in the v-berth, back to the stern battery compartment, then to the electrical panel.  Everything is connected together, including the 120v Guest Charger that boils batteries, and I really don't like that.  Plus it seems like an inordinately long run for no good purpose.  The manual for the SunSaver calls for the controller to be within about 6 feet of the battery, which means it goes in the cabin.  Sounds like a new wiring plan is needed.  Here's what I came up with . .

I'm basically doing away with all of the connections in the stern except for the solar panel.  The Guest Charger will come out, though I'll leave the 120v outlet and extension cord; those are handy when I need to run a shop vac or other 120v tool on the trailer.

Depending on the wire size, I'll either reuse the existing wire that runs from the stern to the battery for the solar panel or I'll replace the run with the 10AWG wire I bought today.  I'll pull the original battery cables out and run them forward to the battery; I hope they'll be long enough that I can just reroute them without having to add an extension.  That will give me a single run from the solar panel to the controller/battery and another, shorter, run from the battery to the main breaker panel.  I think that will be more efficient and less prone to issues.  I'll add fuses to both lines (battery/main panel and solar controller/battery) which should improve the overall safety of the system (there are no fuses now).

Should be an interesting adventure tomorrow  . . .

When it rains it pours.. .

With sailing season pretty much relegated to memories I have more time for my other hobby, photography.  Deborah had Furlough Friday so I took the day off too.  Even though the weather was gloomy and wet, we drove east to check out a couple of waterfalls Heidi had told us about. 

First stop was Clear Lake.  It was raining but the wet just brings out the fall colors better.




Next stop was Sahalie Falls a few miles down Hwy 126.  It was raining pretty good there.  I took both K20D's, the tripod and the DA* 300/4 (which never left its bag). 

Things started off well; the clouds brought the light down enough that I didn't need a neutral density filter but could still shoot 1/2 second to smooth the cascading water.

Sahalie Falls





The trail is pretty nice, with steps in the steeper locations.





Little Salahie Falls(?)




Along about here my original K20D (I have 2) stopped working. I swapped out batteries and nothing. About 5-10 minutes later I noticed the back of the camera was getting hot even though it was turned off. Not good. I pulled the batteries.

On down the hill to Koosah Falls.








Deborah went on ahead while I was taking these photos. I continued on down the path and thought I'd joined the same one she was on. Not! Turned out I was on a path to the campground and reservoir. Luckily I headed uphill when given the choice and eventually found her at the Koosah Falls trail head where we'd planned to meet.

We decided not to take the trail back and walked up the highway instead. We were both pretty much soaked through so we called it a day and headed back home.



When I got home I checked over the camera. Everything looked normal except for a sheen of moisture in the battery compartment. Not good. I dried it and the camera turned on, for about 1 second. Into a bag of rice overnight. That helped but the image stabilization is not working right.

Back into the bag of rice . . .

It was nice while it lasted . . .

We had a great summer but the sailing season is over.  Zach and I pulled Verboten yesterday after a nice final sail.



The algae in the lake was really horrible (hence the blue-green algae alert a week or so ago) and the bottom of the boat was really disgusting.  The worst I've ever seen it.  The VC-17m didn't even seem to slow it down.  Yech!

Overall it's been a great season.  Deborah came along for a bunch of the beer can races and that was nice.  It's a little different than with Zach along, but it's still fun.  By the end of the season she was actually comfortable in some pretty strong wind when I had too much sail up.  I still haven't been able to break out the gennaker with her though.

Got the boat cleaned up today.  Rolled up the sails, got the food & most of the fabric items off, and Power washed the whole thing, scrubbed some of the tougher algae, and gave the deck its first good cleaning since spring.  Put together the tarp frame and Deborah helpded me get it on the boat.  Probably the last year for this tarp.  Can't complain as we've gotten 5 years out of it.

I really needed to wash the decks down a while back but the water was so full of algae/crud that I didn't think it would help. Next year maybe I'll take down some water mid-season to wash it down. 

The to do list for next year isn't horribly long but some of it is expensive. 

New main halyard  = $1 boat buck
Winch service kits (2), rebed & re-seat winches - $2 boat bux
New halyard clutches (2) - $4 boat bux

Also need to figure out what's going on with the wiring for the chart plotter.  It shows fluctuating voltage and low voltage at times even though the other two meters look fine.  Very strange.  Need to check the solar panel/controller voltages too.  Thinking I may rewire the entire power side of the electrical anyway.  There's really no good reason to run the wire from the v-berth to the old battery box in the stern and then back to the panel.  I think a separate run from the charger to the battery and a shorter run from the battery to the panel will be better.  Just need to figure out what gauge wire to run and how much it's going to cost.

Long weekend and I'm beat.

Been neglecting the blog!

Wow, I can't believe I haven't posted since July 7th!

So, let's see . . .

Deborah went out on a couple of beer cans with me.  She's getting the hang of it. 

James and I went out on July 24th.  Since he had to go to work at 9:15 PM we skipped the beer can.  Actually we nearly skipped sailing.  It was blowing like crazy and gusty as hell.  Even with the blade and reefed main we were overpowered.  First, and only, time I've ever been concerned that we might get knocked down!  We actually went blasting down toward the folks doing the beer can at one point and I wasn't sure we weren't going to broadside someone.  We got back but not without a lot of flogging.  James thought it was fun; I thought it was too much work. 

I think I'm going to get a second reef point put in the main this winter.  In post-sail discussion on the Capri 22 forum someone pointed out that a reefed tall rig has the same sail area as a non-reefed standard rig.  A second set of reef points should let me go out in 20+ knots without worrying about getting knocked over or losing the rig.

The end of July/first of August was spent aboard the Star Princess, sailing from Seattle to Alaska.  What an incredible trip!  I took nearly 5,000 pictures over the 7 days. 





After we got back I had a trip to Florida to help with my 96 year old grandfather, who'd fractured a vertebra and can no longer live alone.  Most of my time was spent with lawyers and banks, and at the hospital and nursing home.  He seems settled in now, so that's good.  I'm still trying to figure out his finances though.

Finally got back on the boat on August 18th.  What a great day! Light wind when we got there, then barely a whisper mid-afternoon, and then about 5:30 or so, blammo. The wind came up (16 mph) and we had about an hour and a half of glorious sailing high wind sailing. We snuck into the harbor to put in a reef, then on the last run we called my buddy Lou, had him jump aboard as we made a low speed pass at the dock, then flew down the lake and back. Boy did I need that and it was definitely worth the sunburn and tired muscles.

Tuesday the 21st Deborah and I did the beer can.  Great start (#2 at the start) and we sailed well until the turn.  We just can't seem to make up much ground on the return trip.  I suppose that I should be happy if we get back before the boats that were in front of us at the start . . .

Sunday (26th) we took Deborah's friend Laura and her kids (3 & 4) out.  The weather was nice with a decent, if somewhat shifty, breeze to start.  I swear we got caught in something like a dust devil over by the little cove.  The wind shifted at least 180 degrees!  Weird.  After some nice sailing we anchored in the lee of Gibson Island so they could swim.  Practically as soon as we did the wind shifted to the west and came up with a vengeance.  White caps even.  Made swimming tricky but they seemed to have fun.  When they were done we left the jib bungied on deck and sailed back under main only.  Over 5 knots and not overpowered like we'd have been with the jib.  Crazy.

Tonight (28th) James and I went down to the lake.  It was pretty windy to start, enough so we were a bit overpowered, but I let the main twist off and we hit 6.8 knots once.  Wow!   As usual, the wind dropped as the sun got lower, so by the time we headed in it was getting pretty light.  If we'd done the beer can it would have been another drifter from Leakin' Lena. 

Labor Day weekend coming up; hoping we can spend at least one night on the boat. 

4th of July fun

The 4th started early with a "Circumfern" on Tuesday evening; that's a full moon, group sail, around the lake (Fern Ridge Reservoir).

We had a close start at 7:30 PM

Man and beast participated

Some college sailors came along. They went to Nationals this year, in the FJ.

Leakin' Lena, the floating potty, was the first mark.

We even had a laser along, until the sun went down.

Things tightened up again on the downwind run



Falcor is always fast

Close sailing at the East Dash

Stairway isn't usually at the front, but she looks good!

The sail continued on after dark; the moon rise was spectacular which was nice, because the wind died once it came up!

Wednesday we went for a nice sail, returned to the dock for a while to relax, then anchored out to wait for the fireworks. Eugene Yacht Club puts on a great show every year.

While anchored I pulled out the cameras again . . .

This nice little Hartley always catches my eye.

There are a bunch of C22's on the lake.

There were more of these than normal . . .

Don't see many Marshall Cats on this coast

This is an interesting little boat. He's definitely rigged for offshore sailing in cold climates.

To paraphrase Indiana Jones - Wakes! . . . I hate wakes . . .

Wild Hare has an interesting window in the jib

The Rangers remind me of a wooden shoe. They seem to sail pretty well though.

Not sure what this is but it's kind of cute, and for sale.

The sun eventually went down . . .

And after a bit the fireworks started!

First Beer Can & CircumFern Night Sail

Beer Can Tuesday!

On Tuesday Deborah joined me for our first Beer Can Race of the year, and her first Beer Can ever.  We both survived so I guess it wasn't too bad! 




We were the 3rd boat to make the start, behind an S20 (Spy?) and Tim's Catalina 25.  We passed Tim and were the first boat to the buoy (not sure where the S20 went though.)  We were 3rd or 4th back (depending on whether the S20 was actually participating.)  I maybe should have headed up a bit on the downwind run from the Leakin' Lena buoy so we didn't get covered by the other boats.  After the race, as we were headed to the car, we got a "you were fast" from Ron @ The Sailing Center.  Cool!

Circumfern

The TYC calendar showed last night as the first of two Circumferns in June.  A Circumfern is basically a moonlight sail around the lake on, or near, the full moon.  Last year the wind petered out on us.  This year we had plenty of wind but it was chilly and mostly cloudy until we were almost done.   

Things didn't start out well; we were a bit later leaving home than I'd planned, and when we got to Junction City the center of town was closed for a Cruise In.  Detour . . .

So we got to the lake quite a bit later than the 7:00 I'd planned.  We quickly got things ready, Emily and Kate into their life jackets and motored out.   Dean and Tim had already headed out for the west dash by the time we had the sails up and started south.  The girls went up on the bow which gave us a bit more speed (hmmmm).  We passed Stairway, going the opposite direction, just past the little island at the mouth of the west finger, then Tim about halfway to the mark.  The rest of the evening was spent trying to reel Tim in.  Didn't have much luck but we did gain a bit and we finally found the East Dash buoy.   The girls went below when they got cold. 

The wind held up fairly decent until we started to get close to the dam.  When we made the turn at Leakin' Lena there was just enough to do about 1.5 knots and it kept dropping.  We lowered the sails and motored in the last 1/2 mile or so. We left the parking lot at 11:00 PM on the dot.