Sea Ray SSS 1993 63 ft

Rob, Do you have a multimeter? is there no power comming out of the converter? Led's have to be wired in the right direction (positive and negative exactly as required) or they will not work? Sorry you're having such a hard go of it man!
 
Ray, what guage wire did you run from the ER to the lights and how long is the run? It might be that the length of the run/wire size might be degrading the voltage getting to the lights. You might want to see if you can find a place to tap the existing wiring harness closer tot he point of use.
 
Pyro: I have tried wiring it every which way backwards forwards sidewards upside down on my head with a wire up my nostril lol no go. So got pissed gave up tapped directly into one of the batteries 12 v took the converter out of the equation for now. The bedroom strip lighting I got needs the converter more anyways.
So have power now but the switch I have is funky so can't figure that out lol. Has a momentary function and an off on function and a bunch of prongs so dunno will get there eventually lol using the circuit function of my multimeter to figure out what does what. 230 am and still cranking!

Alnav: no idea what guage wire it is shows how damned inexperienced I am with all of this. Got the wire the electronics guy recommended for this. Should learn this stuff. Thanks for the info in thw current drop the further away you get from the source! also makes me wonder is it smart me even doing this knowing so little about it all am I gonna burn my boat down!!! Should led light strips be fused?? Probably a dumb question everything should be fused right?? At least I am doing one thing right and using heat shrink connectors and properly wire tying it all down so there are not sloppy wires all over the place! Well the only way you can learn is by experience right!

Paul: this job sucks its not as easy as it seemed like it would be, hope you have an easier run of it than I have. Have your lights arrived? The adhesive strip is 2m and very strong as long as you clean the surface properly it should hold very well as the led strip is very very light!

Something has come up and I have to leave my berth for 1-2 weeks starting Monday. So will be out at anchor for awhile. Tomorrow is provision up and off I go! Not sure where I will go might start off the usual place rozelle bay in the anchorage as I need to be close to this place to help out with some stuff.. Hate being exactly opposite maritime they live to mess with me! then will bounce around maybe even get that trip up north to Pittwater in finally geez!! Anyways will put that boating tracking thing on once I head out so people can see where I wander! Will post the link once I enable it. Getting pretty cold here while the rest of the world heads into summer this place is getting freezing!! Looking forward to the ice skating rink they put right on the sand on Bondi beach and give out free chai teas all night! Apart from there being 600 people on a tiny rink very dull blades on the rentals and a permanent ambulance on station to Cary away all the fingerless people with head injuries it's a great time haha Jk it's not that bad although they do have medics on standby at all times as people do wipe a lot!
 
Hi Rob,
This week, I should be able to catch up and go through a few things with you if you want. I need to organise to come into town at least one day, so give me a buzz or at least keep answer your phone.
Actually, i am currently sitting in Darling Harbour at the Pumphouse enjoying a couple of beers whilst I wait for my wife and daughter


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Hi Rob,

I didn't end up at Darling Harbour this weekend unfortunately. Probably not going to have time to make it there for a few weeks at least. How was the night there?

With the step down converters they can sometimes be remotely switched. Have you tried giving 24v to the extra wire you have?

My LED lights haven't arrived yet. Guessing they should come this week. I'm hoping they aren't as difficult as well! Looking forward to getting them in - just to find time! Have you got any photos of yours at night yet?

Agreed on the Navionics App. Very handy! I use mine with an android tablet so don't think I can get the boating suite on it. Will have to have a look.

Let me know if you end up Pittwater / Hawkesbury way and I'll try and get out to say hi. I was out all afternoon at Hallets Beach and then America Bay for a bit. With the nice weather was a bit surprising there weren't that many boats out.

Paul
 
Ian: what day were you thinking? I have your number but have not added your name to the contact. Will do that now as if my phone rings and I do not recognize the number i do not answer it.
Bear in mind as of tonight I am at anchor so can not leave the boat to meet you anywhere. If you would like to come out to the boat would be great to have you :) plus really great to finally meet you as well.

Paul: I did not make it to darling harbor with the boat after all. The place where I am berthed had a bit of an emergency and needed my help so i could not leave.
Have you looked into what it will take to run your wiring? I just assumed that the engine room vents opened directly into the engine room so it would be easy but that was not the case. There is a grp wall between the vents and the engine room and only one way to run a wire through there where i had to remove some filters. It was pretty tricky running the wiring! I can not give you pictures as it is not ready. I forgot to get fuses for the circuit well the converter had a built in fuse but now that it is out of the picture there is no fuse. I do not know if simple 12 v led lighting should be fused but when in doubt just put one in for safety right. So I am waiting until I get back to jaycar to get a fuse assembly for my new circuit. Will be trickier now that I am out on the water and do not know for how long could be a day or two or could be weeks until this issue is solved.
My mum was just asking me if I could take her to Pittwater on the boat for a bit so Pittwater is a definite possibility :) I will let you know. If I go will be for several days to a week.

I am anchored in rozelle bay. Kind of tight 4 other boats in here with me. Just hoping for calm weather as could not put out much chain. Have an anchor alarm set and hoping for the best! It's beautiful here esp on a calm night like tonight. Just a shame the bay is so small. I don't realize how big this boat is until I get into a place like this where other boats fit no problem my boat takes up half the bay and dwarfs everything in here it's just massive compared to the others she's just about 60" overall even though she's a 55 the swim platform and the anchor make her just a tad under 60 when the bay is only like 150" wide or so "guess" it sure makes things tight. They really do not provide much space for boats in this harbor. These two little bays are the only places for visiting boats to anchor and they are always full. Need to stick here for a day or two to help with some things then I am off to wander around Wednesday. Will put my web tracking app on so people can see where I go.

So my first time out with led lighting on batteries. Will be able to see what a difference it makes and let you guys know. Already just in the last hour or ao I see the difference with very very very minimal battery drain where on the halogens I would have lost much more already. Seems to be brilliant so far!
 
Hi Rob,

Sounds like you've been having plenty of fun working on the boat!

I was looking back at your post in which you showed some links to LED lights on eBay ( http://clubsearay.com/showthread.php/40951-Sea-Ray-SSS-1993-63-ft?p=569062#post569062 ). Are you happy with these lights. It looks like the warm white ones you got for the cabin are the 2watt version - do they provide the correct amount of light? I'm hoping to get some ordered fairly soon - need about 45 for the interior and a few more for the cockpit.

Sounds interesting in the bay. I'm yet to sleep on the boat whilst at anchor - a lot easier to find a mooring around here than Sydney. I think I would be so nervous I'd barely sleep at all!

Paul
 
Hi Paul

Yes love the light these bulbs give off!! There is a very distinct difference between the warm white and the bright white. The bright white is great for the bathrooms and the warm white for bedrooms salons etc. I am
Posting some pics so you can see the difference. The very best thing about these les lights is how much power you save. Last night I left every single light in all rooms on all over the boat for the entire night. I lost under one volt by morning!! With the halogens I would have been down at 8 -9 volts by the morn for sure !! When I turned them all on the volt meter said 12.7 volts after around 8 hours of then being on I was down at 12.2 and that is just simply amazing!! With the halogen bulbs I would have been to that point in 30 mins!! Definitely go led is my advice after testing and trying these.
Even the warm white led bulbs are brighter than the halogens so it is a bit of a different light not quite as warm as what the halogens give off but so worth the power saving and you get used to it super quick!!

As for anchoring over night it can be very nerve wrecking there have been countless nights where I barely slept a wink. Set an alarm to get up every hour all night etc.
I always use an anchor bridle! Super easy to to make one and it lowers where the pull is from the boat down to the water level making it much safer. Instead of it pulling upwards when the boat bounces it pulls more horizontal.
I also have an app for my iPhone where you set the radius 50 circle whatever and if you boat goes out if that area it screams and wakes you up. There is always other boats where I anchor and they keep a look out and warn you as well if something happens. One of the first times I anchored I got woken by a fellow boater in a dinghy I had dragged my anchor around 200 ft over night and was almost touching a sailboat by the time he got me!!
I anchored once in middle harbor in 72 ft of water in string winds and it held. It all comes down to practice I think the more you do it the better you get at setting it and judging where and how best to anchor. I can now sleep sound through the night at anchor and not worry.
Think about making up a bridle it's easy to do and makes it much safer!! Also prevents the chain from jumping off the roller when you swing and making that loud crunch. Our boats do not sit nice and steady like sailboats but swing all over the place. The bridle lessens that as well. Of course I learned all of this from the fantastic place :) somewhere in this thread is diagrams and a discussion in anchor bridles.
Anchoring is a bit of an art I think, but once you get good at it can open many doors in terms of so many more places you can stay! Pick a spot and if it is yours :)


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bright white

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warm white

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bright white

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warm white
 
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Thanks for the photos. I'll have to order some LEDs fairly soon! Will be good to not have to worry about following everyone around and turning lights off behind them. You mention that you were measuring 12volts from your batteries - is that directly off your batteries or are your lights 12volt? The Princess is all 24volt which makes it that little bit more difficult to find LEDs (or anything as you know).

Good to hear that you're comfortable anchoring now. I think I would be ok with it after a few times - especially in a bay where the currents aren't too bad. We've got a chain counter which gives a little bit more comfort knowing that enough chain is out for what the depth sounder is showing. I've also installed an anchor alarm app on my tablet which goes off and sends an SMS to my mobile if the drift limit is exceeded. I think I might try sleeping on anchor next time I'm out if it's a calm night - would be good to get a bit more confident with it.

Paul
 
Paul: the lighting in the cabins and as pictured are all 24 v. I am attaching the blue led in the engine room vents directly to one of the batteries in my bow thruster bank. Those batteries hardly get used ever! I try not to use my thruster at all. Figured attach it to batteries I use the very least.

After all that anchoring talk I gave I woke up to people banging frantically on my boat this morning. I tend to stay up late and sleep in till around ten. They are yelling out you are dragging!!

4 other boats in the bay and I am in between two and headed for a poor little catamaran and not slowly!! My eyes just opened and I'm throwing switches run up the front to get the bridle off but I forgot to turn on my windlass The hook is all the way down by the water. Run back to the cockpit run up to the bow raise it enough to get the bridle off run back to the cockpit raise the anchor and pull out just before I slammed into that catamaran!! One of the guys from the sail boat chases me down in a dinghy I stop. Apparently there is a giant cable stuck across my anchor and why it did not dig in properly! Well that and I could not let out much chain because of how tight this bay is! So much junk on the bottom here!! So yeah close call and that's how I woke up this morning to running and chaos so be careful when you try that anchoring lol I too have an app that yells when the anchor drags. I sleep pretty deep got too comfortable with it all and slept through it! I remember kind of hearing it and ignoring it in my sleep kinda. These big fiberglass boats do not seem to anchor and hold as well as the sailboats. I have only twice seen them drag and that was in very strong wind! That or I'm just bad at it or unlucky lol Well anyways the ocean figured I was getting to cocky and it would teach me a lesson! I was only feet away from four different boats and it was close. I was moving pretty fast and would have caused some real chaos if I hit one of them!
 
Rob: I'm a bit confused about where you are getting the 12 volt reading to say that the batteries haven't lost much charge. The gauge in my switchboard normally shows about 25volts from memory?

Wow that sounds scary this morning! Pretty lucky the others noticed and came to wake you up. It wasn't even windy this morning was it? Might have to find somewhere with a bit more space to anchor in future?

Paul
 
Paul: I have a volt meter on the panel in my salon. I can view both my 24 v banks and each 12 v battery individually. It's a knob and as you twist it you go from bank to bank then battery to battery. I know exactly which batteries get lower as I use power so I watch then to get get my comparison. Instead of watching my 24 v bank I watch the power in the 12 v batteries. I know what I usually draw and at what rate my batteries go down. There is anabolic solute massive difference now that I have the led lighting :)

If you look at the pic of the panel I posted a few days ago you can see the volt meter with a knob below it.

Yes good thing people were around or I would have awoken to a thud !
 
Rob,

Sounds like you are still having your usual fun..maybe not a good idea coming to pittwater because there won't be as much mayhem. We went to the Basin today must have been 50 free moorings and the usual specticle of wallabies walking along the beach. None of this tight space anchoring problems.

My 250w 24v solar panel arrived. Bit bigger then I had imagined..oh well will work out a way to bolt it to the roof. My second lot of LEDs took only a week so I have how replaced 15 of the halogens. Also bought one of those multimeters which will read dc current (uni-t digital clamp monitor) just stick the clamp over the positive lead from the terminal of the battery and you can get a readout.

Maybe we should have an aquapaloooooza here in pittwater for when you come up with your mum lol
Ozzie
 
Ozzie: your right I can not leave confined rule ridden no moorings Sydney harbor or my thread will get boring!! Always some bloody drama when I take my boat out but it keeps it interesting! The look on the sail boaters faces as my boat was heading for em this morning was priceless. I can just picture what they were thinking me knocking out of their spot and pulling up their anchor too lol I dunno how I managed to navigate out of there without hitting anything I was sideways between four boats in very tight quarters. How lucky is that as well to drift right between the two one which was directly behind me :) Now times like that is when bow thrusters do come in handy :)

That multimeter you got sounds handy!! Will find one on eBay and order it. So sounds like you now will have your entire boat converted to led like me :) did you get the warm white for the salon and bedrooms like me?

From my experience mounting the solar panel will be easy. Getting the wires to where you want them through the radar arch is going to be the fun part!! I also have a solar panel but have not put it up yet as waiting for my friend who has a wire snake with a digital camera on the end. Why suffer if I can use that :)

Let us know how the panel installation goes Ozzie will it be a friend or foe to you !
 
Rob your living the life man. Now you understand why sail boats hate us! haha "They" were probably up at sun up, and complaining about your boat swinging around like you own the place.
Sounds like you are melding as one with your boat and figuring out the sweet spots. Your a seasoned mariner now. It was enjoyable watching you grow up, thanks for this thread and me being able to read it all! haha
 
Rob,

this is the ebay link to the guy i bought it from out of china. you need to make sure that you buy a unit which can do AC and DC current not just AC. This unit took about 10days


http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170813692161&ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:AU:1123


I only purchased the bright lights. At night I like to be able to see things. there are about 6 lights I haven't changed yet due to a different fitting. they are above the pillows in the cabins and they produce yellow light. Will change them over but may use a softer light. I was also thinking of adding dimmer switches, hey only thinking but might be a cool thing to do

Ozzie
 
Ozzie: Thanks for the link to that multimeter :) I hear you on having the brighter lights, although the warm white bulbs are a little warmer they are still much brighter than the halogens..... one of the sellers i bought my strip lighting off of has all kinds of dimmers and control switches for LED lights here is a link to a page which has his ebay store..they are very inexpensive as well ...i saw the exact same thing that he sells for 4 dollars in jay car for 50!

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/16060754...NX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649#ht_4060wt_922

Islandhopper: Thanks for following along, if it were not for all of you here at CSR i think I would have sunk or burned my boat down by now lol ...I can't claim to be a seasoned mariner yet but slowly getting there... always seems to be so much more to learn! Keeps life interesting :)
 
Rob,

How did you cope with the wind over the weekend? You still out on anchor? I took the boat out for mothers day yesterday and the winds were terrible! We were booked in to Peats Bite Restaurant which has a wharf out the front for boats to pull up to. Tried coming into the wharf but there was no chance with the wind blowing side on. Then dropped anchor and set the anchor alarm on my tablet. Sat there for about 10 minutes and it looked like everything was holding fine until the boat suddenly moved 10 metres according to the app - obviously had dragged the anchor.

Just as this happened another cruiser showed up and headed for the wharf - pretty sure it was a SR 48 sedan bridge. After a couple of failed attempts at lining up the wharf he brought it around and lined up so that the wind was blowing him into the finger as he reversed. From where I was it looked like a mistake as the boat slammed into the finger at some speed - pretty sure the fenders wouldn't have helped a lot at all and the bow thruster didn't stand a chance at fighting the wind. After watching that I decided to call the restaurant, cancel our booking and offered to pay the set menu price by credit card. They were really nice about it, refused to take any payment at all for the cancellation and just asked that we come again some time. Pretty glad that I chose to cancel - would have been a super stressful lunch leaving the boat on anchor in those winds and wasn't keen at all trying to get the boat into the wharf - took about 1200rpm + on both engines spinning the opposite direction to even slowly turn the bow into the wind!

You still thinking of heading up this way at all soon?

Paul
 
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