Dead Battery? - - - PowerPulse to the Rescue!!!!???

Last nights news said Super Heroes are the rage this summer.   So in that light:  What does one do with a classically 'dead' battery?  One that will not start the car, will barely hold the lights up, and will not take a charge?   Why, you use the a Battery Super Hero - PowerPulse!   - PowerPulse - Can leap tall Cells as well as squat batteries in a single pulse.  Fights sulfating with one lead clipped off.  Continued use will bring years of life to your battery, yourself, your dog.  Your Volts will be taller, your Amps stronger, teeth whiter, breath smell better.  All for the one time payment of . . . .

OK, having a little fun here I know.  Pulse technology of batteries seems one of those 'buy now, and get one free' type of things.  There are those who swear by them, and those who do not.  Myself, I really do not know.  I can say I installed a battery pulser on our  old L-16's temporary house batteries when I purchased them.  5 years of use (more correctly abuse), and they still would carry us over a weekend - supplying 300+Ah.  When I upgraded to the industrial cells I moved that pulser over and it has been purring away sense.  http://mvvikingstar.blogspot.com/2010/01/bringing-on-big-ones.html

The other night I had an opportunity to talk with Arild Jensen (noted contributor to the T&T mailing list) and the topic went to Pulsers.  He talked very favorably about the PulseTech brand, and mentioned many of the 'clones' do not work - but this one does what it says.   So I ordered one: http://www.pulsetech.net/PP12L-PowerPulse-12Volt-Battery-Maintenance-System-7291.aspx with the idea of replacing the existing pulser on our house battery.

As it would happen, last week my brother-in-law had a newly dead starter battery in an old truck  (Yup, Farm truck).  Though it was under 3 years old, it has been 'flattened' 2-3 times and would no longer start the truck.  So I thought, why not hook up the PowerPulse and see what happens?  And I did:

Dead Battery, PowerPulse, and a small 12v power source (Wall-wort)

 Over the next few weeks will leave it hooked up, along with a small wall-wort 12v power supply to provide make up current.  If all goes well, plan to pop it back into the truck and see what happens.  Will do some posts and update everyone on the progress.

Now, a BIG WORD OF CAUTION:   PulseTech, the makers of PowerPulse are up front that 'recovering' batteries may or may not work.  If this does, wow.  If not - I still plan on hooking it up to our house battery when I get back to Viking Star.  So, though this will be fun - if in the end the battery is still dead there is no way I am saying this is downtalking battery pulsers...

But will be fun to see what happens.   OK, here is kind of a log of the subject:

================================================================
Name:      Battery
Gender:   Group 31
Age:        2year, 6 mo.
Condition:  Poor.  Overnight on charger followed by 3hr rest shows 12.45v  Applying 5a load (running lights) drops voltage to 10.5.  Unable to start truck.  Acceptance rate per charger amp meter under 5a.

Trial:

7/23/2014:  Applied 16.6v / 800mA 'wall-wart' DC transformer to subject.  Acceptance  rate of 390mA at 13.5v.  Installed PowerPulse device with wall-wart connected.  O'Scope shows 3.5v p-p pulse

7/24:  Vbat 13.6v, acceptance not measured.  O'Scope shows 5.4v p-p pulse

================================================================

So, what does the PowerPulse do?  It sends out a voltage pulse every second.  Google will give up lots of info, and for fun here is an O'Scope photo showing it on 7/24:

PowerPulse at work.

 The ringing is typical of a charged inductor being set up and discharging.  And I can say something is changing.  The p-p of the pulses are up almost 2v higher after 1 day, and battery terminal volts are up 100mV.

A final thought for now.  I am under the impression that PulseTech kind of invented these devices, and word is they have the best.  Plus they are very reasonably priced.  Easy to find under $40.  So, if you are interested in one - why not get the original?  Heck, even the cheap in me would not try to recreate one for this price.

Make sure to check back to see how this story unfolds.

Arduino, Alternators and Generators - An update on the 'family'

With the current break at hand I have been down in the Man Cave working more on my Arduino based controller for a DC generator.   I also finished pulling out the alternator regulator portion of that design into a standalone external regulator.  Over the past few months there has been a 'group buy' of both of projects and I thought I would post some photos.

First off, the External Alternator Regulator.

It does what most external regulators do, regulator voltages in a 3-step approach (Bulk, Acceptance, Float) to quickly and efficiently recharge a battery - specifically house storage batteries.  As also expected, temperature of the battery is monitored adjusting target voltages, and the alt temp is also monitored to protect the alternator.  Other features like soft raping, the ability to reduce alternator output (help prevent burning out small frame alternators), equalize mode, round out the 'as expected' features.  But these are available today, so why (outside of boredom) create yet another external regulator?  One simple reason:

Many  have had problems with existing external regulators in that they too quickly stop charging the battery - leave Acceptance phase early -  and hence chronically undercharging the house battery.

Not only do we not get the capacity of the battery, but repeated undercharging leads to shorter battery life.  Adding the ability to measure the current entering the battery allows this regulator to measure the batteries state of recharge (via its acceptance rate) and following battery manufactures charge profiles accurately determine when to exit Acceptance and move into float. Contrast this to regulators which use a fixed amount of time in Acceptance, or perhaps some function of the time spent in bulk - problematic to know the actual battery state of recharge, esp in a real world with other factors such as varying engine speed, and different house loads being applied randomly.  

Another use of measuring amps can be to limit an alternators output, either to match the capability of the driving engine (ala, a small DC engine), or to protect the alternator.  Along the lines I added a few other capabilities:

• Measures and manages battery or alternator current (Well, already said that).
• Support P or N type alternators with only one jumper during installation.
• Support 12v, 24v, 36v, or 48v systems w/no change to hardware or software.
• (Can support 32v systems with changes in source code)
• Optionally support 4-stage charging, adding an 'overcharge' step specified by some battery manufactures in their charge profiles.
• Includes 8 default charge profiles - selectable by DIP switches.  FLA, AGM, GELL, LiFeP04. . .
• Reports out complete status via ASCII text over the service cable and/or Bluetooth.
• More advanced capabilities and full customization of all configuration parameters can be done using ASCII text commands send via service cable, or via Bluetooth.
• Based on Arduino, fully customizable if you wish.

Arduino Alternator Regulator

  Parts costs are under $100, add in $25 if you want the Bluetooth capability.   More details are here:  http://arduinoalternatorregulator.blogspot.com/

Next, the fully integrated DC generator engine and alternator controller

This is what started these whole open-source Arduino projects:  An integrated controller for our Kubota based DC generator / watermaker.   It started out as just the alternator regulator with the goal of better matching the power delivered to the capabilities of the small Kubota engine, but then grew into an integrated engine controller + alternator regulator.  Taking care of starting, monitoring, stopping the engine as well as adjusting the throttle / speed to match the needs of the alternators.  The controller can interface with an optional remote LCD display for nearly full automatic operation (no more into the rain to fire up the generator for me!).  It features the same technologies for the Alternator regulator as above, so all the above features (with the exception of the ASCII text configurations and Bluetooth) are here as well.  This is the 3rd revision of the controller board.

Newest revision of Controller Board.

And remote LCD display board

Now same size as LCD.

The system manages and monitors the generator.  It can be configured to turn itself off when the battery is fully recharged, includes a 'quite' mode - limiting RPMs when you don't want to upset the neighbors.  And a  built in RTC clock can be used to enable time/date based auto-starting, or blackout periods (time based code is not fully flushed out).   Fully customizable using the Arduino programming environment.  Want to add a feature to monitor outside temperature, and start the Generator when conditions fall below freezing to keep the generator house warm?  Maybe you are doing a co-gen project and want to be able to fire up the engine when hot-water is needed..   A expansion connector brings out unused ports and the I2C bus.   The sky is the limit.


Parts cost for the controller w/o heatsink and remote are around $150.  Controller will function w/o the remote if you wish just local switches to control things.  More on the integrated engine and alternator controller here: http://smartdcgenerator.blogspot.com/







Both of these projects are based upon the Arduino IDE, both are released using the CC 'open source' licensing agreement  for non-commercial use, and both are fully documented (source, design, parts list, etc) in their respective blogs.  Have just completed a group build of both the Alternator Regulators and the Controller sets to folks looking to install them.  I have had a lot of fun doing them, and do like to see others taking advantage of the work I have done.  As I am just wrapping up coordinating the group-buys, I am a bit behind in updating the two  web sites with details and documentation.  Will be working on that over the next few weeks.

Cost to not cruise - June 2014

With the arrival of June we now have half a year of 'un-cruising' data to look at.  And though we continue to see a decline in the average month costs (largely I think due to further amortization of travel costs over a greater period of time) perhaps things are starting to starting to settle down some in terms of the 'average'.    Each month still has some wild swings - though these days it is as much about how we share costs with Kristi's folks than anything (ala, the Groceries in April reflect a 'balancing' of things between us all).

Sharp eyed folks might notice the Medical costs.  They are 4 reasons:

1. We had to drop our IMG international policy as we are no longer outside the USA more than 6 months out of the year.
2. We had to take up an ACA policy, as we are not outside the USA more than 11 months out of the year.
3. We had to take up a policy in Minnesota vs. Washington State as we now claim Minnesota as our state of Residence.
4. I (Al) am working through a developing medical condition.  (Sigh)

Points 1-3 combined resulted in an increase of our yearly insurance cost from $1,400 to over $2,300, as well as a doubling of our maximum deductible/out-of-pocket for these 'catastrophic' insurance policies.   Point #4 is a life thing, don't want to make much of it - as it is manageable -  but it will add a bit to our ongoing medical costs.  And does go to show why one should get on with life:  "The whole idea is freedom, go simple, go cheap, go now"


With 6 months of averaging perhaps we can start to compare the cost to cruise vs. the cost to not-cruise.  Simply put:  $3,100 a month vs. $2,200 a month.   When looking at these monthly averages, keep in mind a few things:

• While cruising, we did not pay for moorage - outside of transient times and winter months (Nov..Feb)
• While not-cruising we have moorage, but are not covering 'housing' nor auto costs - that is part of the deal for Kristi and I helping out her folks.
• We do however share food costs (Groceries and dining out), as well as pick up any personal items.

For me, the most interesting lines to compare are:

• Boat Maintenance:  How much does it cost to use it vs. store it?
• Groceries:  Automobile = access to different stores, plus we have cut down on 'adult beverages'  (Hard to have sun-downers while fighting off the Mosquitos)
• Personal:  Oh So Much Time On Ones Hands + Oh So Easy Access To Internet + Oh So Simple To Have Things Delivered To Us....  (Each day brings a new surprise at the post office!)
• Medical, well - kind of talked about that above - and it really is more of a USA social issue than a cruising thing.  Until we are able to leave the USA for 11+ months out of a year we will be under the highest cost medical system in the world.  (Oops, that box was sneaking out again).  But given it still represents over 20% of our budget this is a major cost item and consideration for anyone looking to live life on a budget.

There you go.  July will be kind of low-key, August I fly back to Washington for 10 days of boat maintenance and preparing her for another winter alone.



====================================================================

And now here is the standard explanation: If this is your 1st time looking at costs on our blog, and want some more background on why we are reporting what it costs to not-cruise on a cruising blog - well, we are taking a break by moving back to Minnesota to help out Kristi's folks.  And we thought it would be interesting to be able to compare our costs on Land vs. on Sea., see more here:   mvVikingStar.blogspot.com/.../cost-to-not-cruise-january

For reference here is a summary of what it did cost us to cruise last year:

For Reference, Costs for Cruising in 2013

Again, following the link above will give you access to more details, or you can click on the Costs label to the right.

Slackers at the Blog..

Yesterday I noticed it has been, ahem, a bit of time from our last post.  And yet folks seems to keep coming back!  (Well, a couple of ya anyway).  But I do want to say sorry for not getting SOMETHING up at least every 2 weeks.

This will be a quick one, more of a 'checks in the mail' type post.  Over the past few weeks I have been really focused on coordinating group builds of the two Alternator projects,  the external alternator regulator, and the integrated DC generator controller.  What's new is am using a China firm to fab the PCBs as well as do some of the PCB component assembly.  Has been a mixed bag, but in the end am focusing on using China for the SMT parts, and then hand soldering on what is left.  Which made a bit of work converting the projects over to SMT components.  You can read more in their respective blogs, and if anyone is interested in a board set I have a few left over for both the integrated controller as well as the stand alone regulator.

Stand alone external Alternator Regulator

http://arduinoalternatorregulator.blogspot.com/

CAD 3d drawing of new LCD Remote

CAD drawing of new SMT  DC generator controller.

http://smartdcgenerator.blogspot.com/

Back to the Check is in the Mail.  It is time for another Cost to not cruise post, we will have 6 months of info now, perhaps starting to see comparable values?  Have some photos for a posting entitled "A tail of three LEDs",   A low power story full of Drama, Color, and even smoke/fire!


Till then,

Rethinking Water-maker raw water pre-heating

A while ago I posted about how I was going to try out re-plumbing the Kubota engine cooling system to pre-heat the sea-water in order to increase the output of our RO watermaker:
              http://mvvikingstar.blogspot.com/2012/01/refinements-to-water-maker.html

 Like all shade-tree ideas it is based on some sound reasoning:  RO membranes output is very temperature dependent.  And the warmer the input water, the more one can expect to get out of them.  So, last summer I re-routed things like this:

Good concept, bad idea.  Keep reading!

Note how the water flows through the Kubtoa engine 1st, THEN on to the watermaker!  Ha, Free Heat, Wow - really putting out the fresh water now..  This winter I am thinking about doing some more plumbing to the poor little Kubota, working to see if I can better manage its cooling and gets its operating temperate up (currently it runs around 160f or so, a bit too cool I think).  After thinking of several approaches the one I have settled on trying is a variable bypass of sea water around the heat exchanger.  Have located a sea-water safe 12v valve and will control it via the Arduino controller.

While I was at it I started wondering:  Just how much temp raise am I getting into the water maker using the above? Trying to measure it using an external IR thermometer did not give me too much of a raise.  And after all there are a few downsides to the engine-1st approach:

• Increased hoses and complexity.  Starting to look like an early 80's GM car engine with all its hoses and such.
• Health concern in case of faulre of engine heat exchanger, mixing coolant in with sea-water (I am not sure what the RO membranes would do and have been using low-tox antifreeze just in case)
• Interjection of Zinc into stream of water passed on to the RO membranes, again not sure what all that does..
• Lost fresh-water flush of engine when flushing out RO membranes after each run.

This last one kind of bummed me, as with the old plumbing every time I fresh-water flushed the RO system, the outflow would be passed down and fresh-water flush the engine as well.

So, Just for Fun I did some math this afternoon:

• A BTU is defined as the amount of energy needed to raise 1lb of water 1f
• A gallon of Diesel has 138,500 BTUs
• The Kubota burns about .25 - .3 GPH of fuel
• Seawater Pump pumps about 4GPM (per spec)
• Rule of thumb says 25% of fuel burnt goes into the coolant (another 25% into work, and 50% out the exhaust).

So, lets do some math!
  138,500 BTU/Gal * .3 GPH  * .25(25% of heat into the coolant)  = 10,387 BTUs/hr of heat into the sea-water.
  10,387 BTU/hr = 10,387 Lbs*F/hr  (1 BTU warms 1lb of water 1f)



  4 GPM * 60 Min/Hr * 8.33 lb/gal   =   1999lbs/hr of sea water moved through the engine.
  (Sea water is actually heaver then this, but as this is the "back of the Blog" doodle, lets just use 8.33lbs/gal)



  Combine them:   10,387 Lbs*F/hr = 1999lbs/hr

  Solving for F we get:  F =  1999 / 10,387  = 0.19f temp raise.

Hum...  Less then 1 degree F raise.  Even if I captured ALL the waste heat out of the engine AND exhaust I would be looking at less then 1 degree F.

Bottom line:  It was a stupid idea and I will be taking it out next when I return to the boat this summer.


(And hey:  Math guys, dbl check I did this right.  I even worked to carry forward the Units;  my Physics teacher would be so proud!)

 ================================================
 4/8/2015:  Well, a Math Guy did dbl check my figures, and gave me an 'F'  (See comment below from Bruce).   Forest from Trees, did not do a simple 'sniff test' on that last formula - and the 'units' did not help me any as they were the same (and hence canceled).  So, Bruce, here we are - showing my work:

Combining them:  10,387 BTU/hr = 1,999lbs/hr  * Xf

or:  10,387 lb*f/hr  = 1,99lbs/hr * Xf

Solving for X -->    (10,387lb*f/hr) / (1,999lbs/hr) = Xf

the lb/hr cancel (See, units to the rescue!)  leaving us with:
  10,387f / 1,999 = Xf  

Xf = 5.19f     And even the units match!

So, bottom line:  I should expect a 5 degree F raise in the feed-water temperature into the RO membranes.. Using this table from Dow:

Temperature vs Rated Fresh Water Production
Degs F	Degs C	% of Rated Production
40	4	38
50	10	58
60	15	72
70	21	88
77	25	100
80	28	109
90	32	127
100	38	147

and starting with 50f water (perhaps a little warm here in the PNW), that 5 degree rise might get me an extra 7% output.   Perhaps worth it.   As of 2015 I had replumbed to remove this pre-heating.  I think I will take some actrual inlet / outlet measurments from the engine heat exchanger and see how those compair to the calculations - then deside what to do...

Thanks again Bruce, and like your You-tube clip of your rig: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjgvyppxR0g









 

Plans vs Intentions...

plan

noun \ˈplan\

: a set of actions that have been thought of as a way to do or achieve something

: something that a person intends to do

: a detailed agreement for telephone service, medical care, insurance, etc.

in·tend

verb \in-ˈtend\

: to want to do (something) : to have (something) in your mind as a purpose or goal

: to want (someone or something) to do or be something

: to want (something that you control, provide, or have made) to be used for a particular purpose or by a particular person

For some time folks might have noticed I have a thing against the 'P' word.  When full time cruising, Planning just does not make sense.  Planning to be somewhere at a specific time can be dangerous (weather), and it also gets one into a mindset not appropriate for the Relaxed Lifestyle.  When full time Cruising, Kristi and I found making Plans was just silly.  Things happened, weather happened, boat happened, family happened.  Plans were for the dreamers;  Ever hear the joke how to make God laugh?  Tell him your Plans.

Instead we said we had intentions.  We 'intend' to head towards Pirates Bay next week.  We 'intend' to cruise to the Gulf Islands this Spring, heck, even up to last Fall we were starting to say we 'intend' to look into Desolation Sound the summer of 2014.  (Even using the 'I' word we were careful not to look too far out, a month at a time or perhaps less, seemed about right).

But now that Kristi and I are Dirt Folks for the year I am finding the 'P' word coming into use more and more.  I 'Plan' on flying back to Viking Star August 20th, we are 'Planning' on a Dr. Visit on the 16th.  What are our 'Plans' for this weekend??? Perhaps it is a result of being in a fixed position most all the time, of having roots - roots one can make 'Plans' around.   I know, being a bit silly, but at the same time there is a different energy around the P word vs. the I word.


I like the 'I' word better...


And with all of this we have a new Plan.  Kristi and I are Planning on extending our stay in Minnesota until the 1st week of April 2015.  We will then fly to BVI to join friends on a week-long Big-Cat charter in the Caribbean (hey, not a bad way to get back on the water!).  Then it is back to Friday Harbor, retrieve Viking Star and get her ready for getting back into Intentions...

Cost to not cruise - May 2014

For May we had a few extra costs in Travel, I purchased my tickets to fly back to Viking Star and see how she is doing.  I also have planned a few tasks:

• Finish re-installing the Kubota DC Generator
• Repair two rot-spots I found, and look for others.
• Apply a coat of Cetol to the bright work
• Re-pickle the water-maker
• Re-prepare the boat for another winter alone :-(
• Anything else I find.

Will be back there in August for a bit over a week.  Might get some other visiting in, but not likely.

Miscellaneous is a bit higher this month, as this is where we are putting stuff into that is more 'household' vs. 'boathold'.   OK, about it for this month.  After we get a few more months under way will be interesting to look at Land vs. Sea averages, but I think we need a few more dirt-months before we can do that.



====================================================================

And now here is the standard explanation: If this is your 1st time looking at costs, and want some more background on why we are reporting what it costs to not-cruise on a cruising blog - well, we are taking a break by moving back to Minnesota to help out Kristi's folks.  And we thought it would be interesting to be able to compare our costs on Land vs. on Sea., see more here:   mvVikingStar.blogspot.com/.../cost-to-not-cruise-january

For reference here is a summary of what it did cost us to cruise last year:

For Reference, Costs for Cruising in 2013

Again, following the link above will give you access to more details, or you can click on the Costs label to the right.