Sea Ray SSS 1993 63 ft

rszarka · Apr 28, 2012

IanBat · Apr 28, 2012

Hi Rob,
I left foe China last Sunday, heading home on Tuesday. Will be back here again in another few weeks. I don't actually buy many products from here, most of our range is u.s. or European. I manufacture over here, my design, my q.a. To ensure the quality and consistency.
Incidentally I have the 24-12V reducers, will be better than $80.

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Lord Farringdon · Apr 29, 2012

rszarka said:
....I noticed steam coming out of my port engine once more, its not white smoke as it dissipates instantly .... a little worrying so need to get the mechanic out asap again ... do not want to go out of sheltered waters unless i am sure everything is 100%..

Also regarding the steam, my engine was not running hot according to the gauges when i noticed this ... wouldn't the salt water have to ride pretty far up the exhaust to find a part hot enough to cause it to evaporate like that? any ideas what could cause this steam ...seems to happen wen i go around 12 knots its not a lot just a little bit ....as i said the engine was perfectly within normal operating temperatures so what the heck could cause this .... i sure hope i am right and this is steam and not bloody white smoke cause then I'm in trouble . well either way its not good , hopefully its nothing serious!

Hi Rob,

This is most likely environmental that is just a unique set of air and sea temperature conditions that sets this up. You know when you start your car on a cold morning the exhaust blows quite a lot of steam. The colder the morning, the more steam. As the engine warms up the steam goes away. This is a function of hydrocarbon combustion which results in water or more specifically, superheated steam or water vapour (water gas if you like). When this water vapour travels down a cold exhaust pipe it condenses into water droplets and becomes visibile as steam. As the exhaust pipe gets hotter the water vapour doesn't condense as much and so the steam seems to dissappear. How much it dissappears once again depends on air temperature and humidity. On a really cold day even with a hot exhaust you may well still see steam that quickly dissapates. On a warm day you may not see any steam but if you place your hand gently over the exhaust you'll feel very hot air on your hand and you will notice it is very damp and laden with water vapour.

The same principle applies to a boat exhaust. In my case (stern drive) the exhaust is short and exits underwater. The seawater acts as a continuation of the exhaust pipe and since it is cool it will condense the water vapour into steam. Sometimes I can see this steam rising and dissapating behind me but only when the air temperature and humidity conditions allow it. Most of the time it is not visibile.

I'm not sure if your exhaust exits under water or above but it will be air temperature and humidity and even local air pressure conditions that makes the steam visibile. Only one engine? Maybe one operates a tad cooler than the other. The speed you experienced this at is the sweet spot for the conditions on that day. I wouldn't expect to see this every time you go out regardless of conditions. If that was the case then something else is happening.

Terry

rszarka · Apr 29, 2012

Ian: ah cool maybe I will pick one up from you if I go that route I would much rather give my business and money to you than another business. I will go look on your website for it and send the link to your shop to paul who is also looking for one. Hope your trip is going well!!

Terry: thank you very much for your explanation of steam and how it occurs in the exhaust system. Good know know what can cause it and how it all works thank you very much for explaining it and helping me on my journey to learn everything about these things !

Here is a new thing I noticed and tested today. I went up to the same speed it happened at the other day and pushed her a bit harder but got no steam.
What I have noticed before a few times and again today. The steam issue only occurs when I have the engine synchronizer on. Today went up to 12 knots no steam. Backed her down put on the engine sync went back up to 12 knots within a few minutes there was steam coming out of the exhaust.
Trying to tie together what this means, possibly the engine synchronizer is pushing the port engine harder than the starboard??
But again it did not overheat when the steam occurred so do not quite understand what is going on! Why would it create steam only with the with sync on? Any ideas? Don't think I will be using the sync until I figure It out !

ph321 · Apr 29, 2012

Hi Rob,

That sounds strange with the steam. Can't possibly imagine how a synchroniser could cause steam to come out of an exhaust. Having said that I also don't know how synchronisers work on mechanical engines as on the Princess the engine computers figure it all out. Let me know when you're thinking of heading up to Pittwater.

Good to hear you've found why the batteries were going flat. Was the pump constantly cycling? If so you probably have a vacuum leak somewhere in the system.

Shame about the new scratch from rafting up. Normally when I raft up both boats have fenders out. May be overkill I'm not real sure. Apparently it's also pretty important that there is a fair length of rope for each line between the boat so that it can stretch enough when dealing with wakes etc. Probably obvious but not something I thought about until I was told by an experienced boater.

I haven't received the LEDs yet. Normally eBay purchases arrive pretty quickly but I have had some purchases that take weeks to arrive. I'm not overly concerned as I've got too much on at the moment to think about working on the boat. I'm not sure how your boat is wired but with mine everything DC is 24volt except maybe the generator start battery so I have no choice but to use a 24>12v converter for the LED strips. I think it makes more sense to have these run off an existing light switch rather than running a whole new circuit etc.

Paul

rszarka · Apr 30, 2012

Paul:
Yes I agree that the whole steam with engine sync thing is strange but I have tested and retested and the only time it happens is when the engine sync is on. My guess is something is off and it is not running the engines in sync but running the port engine extra hard. Only thing I can think of.

Regarding the raft I had six fenders along the side and big ones. The deck of the other boat was higher than my deck the ferry wakes were large and the boat jumped up and over my fenders hitting above them. Me being the smaller boat I should of been rafted to him and him to the mooring bouy. Me being the anchor his boat just bounced into me over and over. His is a 65 ex pt boat quite a bit bigger. Was stupid of us both. Plus rafting together where ferries go by throwing huge wakes all the time was also dumb! Lesson learned! It's just some gelcoat damage so no big deal. Sounded like he ripped the front of my boat off though lol just remember when rafting the bigger boat should be the anchor! Also thanks for the other tip of giving plenty of line so they don't slam together didn't think of that and we were tightly rafted! Dunno I am going to do some research on this topic to prevent further issues.

This is just an assumption on my part I may be wrong. To create the 24volts I have two big 12 volt batteries connected together in parallel. Now if I run the wires to just one of the batteries the first in the pairs positive and negative terminals I should be getting just a 12 volt power feed. Again this is just theory I have to test. I believe that way I can connect my new 12 volt lights to my 24 volt banks battery and only get 12 volts.
Really this is stupid and I should just get the step down converter and attach it to my existing cockpit lighting but I like buttons and want one more hahaha
Will let you know how it goes.
On another note ianbat from this board has a store that has better prices on step down converters than jaycar, also has a lot of good stuff for boaters if you want the addy to his store pm me as I dont know if ian would mind if I posted the link here or not don't want to post the link without his permission first.

rszarka · Apr 30, 2012

Paul: thinking about the rafting thing and giving extra line to the boat rafted. This is just thinking if they are not rafted tightly together wouldn't that allow for the boat to swing out and then really slam into the other boat from a distance? Just thinking of the whole concept like in martial arts if someone swings a baseball bat at you. You don't step back away from him as you will then be facing the end of his bat which is the fastest moving part with the most power. You step into him thus being hit by the slower moving section with the least impact.
I would guess rafting together with slack lines would allow the rafted boat to swing out with the wave and really bloody slam into you with some
Serious force??
Comes on guys lets have a discussion on rafting theory and fact... Best way to raft up!??!?!

rszarka · Apr 30, 2012

Paul : just got some of my led bulbs. The disk like ones for my salon. They are great. Give off a very pleasant warm white light! So worked out really good my whole salon is lit much better now with much less power consumption. Supposed to last up to 50000 hours we will see.

Also got one roll of the warm white led strip lighting. My beds used to have that around them and will again now. So time to test my 12 volt in the 24 bank theory then install if it works out that way. If not will buy 3 step down converters from ian. Exciting to finally get it all. Have 20 globe LEDs also coming for my bathrooms and smaller reading lights. So not far from having my entire boat converted to all led lighting. Interested to see the difference on battery power consumption. So far the light they give off is much better than the halogen bulbs. They also emit practically no heat so yeah good stuff.

Oh and forget to mention the vacuum pump was not constantly cycling but yet there seems there was still a substantial power drain from there not sure how this makes sense, maybe a short in it somewhere.

Have a new pump on order from sealand so until it gets here no master bathroom for me lol. I do not like the guest bathroom
On this much smaller than the master!

Pyrojodge · Apr 30, 2012

Rob,

I'm not an Electrical Engineer but I don't think your plan of just hooking up to one battery is correct. I think the tho batteries in series will give you 24v no matter where you tie in. The step downs will be needed.

rszarka · Apr 30, 2012

Pyro: you are probably right

I know so little about stuff like this am
Kind of experimenting as I go. In about an hour I will be at the boat and will test this then post here what I find.

But it does make sense what you are saying if they are connected together one would assume no matter how you connected something you
Would get 24 v I hope we are wrong lol but I doubt it

Do you have led bulbs in place of your halogens??

How have you been!?!?!

ph321 · Apr 30, 2012

Hi Rob,

My understanding of how DC power works is fairly limited so I could be completely wrong but my thoughts are that once two 12v batteries are connected in series to supply 24v the battery connections will also have 24v (they are connected together). Simple way to test this would be to put a multimeter on the connections and check the voltage reading. I would definitely do this before I ran any cable or put much effort into running a 12v connection direct.

On the topic of rafting up. I didn't mean that the lines should be loose. The lines should be fairly long runs but still quite firm - the rope has a little bit of stretch and this allows the boats to move apart from each other when dealing with wakes and could potentially save a cleat from being torn out of the fibreglass. Remember these things weight 20 odd ton! Would be interested to hear the opinion of experienced boaters on this topic.

Paul

Pyrojodge · Apr 30, 2012

Doing very well Rob, I still have incandecent bulbs. I have not made the switch yet. I don't anchore out much and never over night. I don't have a genny and I am spoiled with heat/ac lol. Been spending some time on my boat the last few days...

http://clubsearay.com/showthread.ph...k-I-m-outta-here-for-a-LONG-weekend-on-Aftica!!!

Friday was my birthday and I went on a sea trial with a friend. Same boat as mine. It was a great weekend (other then cold rainy weather). A bad weather day on the boat ias always a better day then a sunny one spent at work.

You will have to let us know how you make out with the 12/24v senario. Good luck my friend!

rszarka · Apr 30, 2012

I'm with you Paul

never disagreed with what you had to say for a second was just thinking out loud!!
Yeah would love to hear from all the folk that have a lot of experience rafting so I know what to do in the future.

On my way down now to test the battery thing but I truly do believe you and pyro are right on this matter

Got all my strip lighting so installing tomorrow more than likely with the step down converter !!

ph321 · Apr 30, 2012

Sorry didn't mean to sound rude or anything! I wrote the last post really quickly before leaving the office so didn't re-read it. Out of interest how big are the fenders you are using to raft up? Our boat came with a massive one that must be 5 or 600mm wide - wonder if bigger fenders would have helped deal with the wakes?

Glad to hear you are happy with the cabin lighting. Will be good to get it all finished!

Paul

alnav · Apr 30, 2012

Rob, the equalizers you were worried about earlier are there to supply 12VDC to systems that don't use 24VDC, did you consider using that output to supply the new lights?

Captain B · Apr 30, 2012

Hey guys. Just saw the talk about the 24 volts and wiring the LED lights.

While I am not an electrical engineer, I do have some experience with it. (associate degree and 5 years in the field working on it.) so maybe I can help here.

If you take two 12 volt batteries and connect them in series, you will end up with 24 volts. However, each individual battery still supplies only 12 volts. It all depends on where you connect to in the system. I have attached a quick sketch I made while on the road to help show this. Sorry it's rough.

Bottom line is you can still get 12 volts from a 24 volt system if you connect to only one of the batteries.

Whatever you end up doing, please be sure to fuse everything properly! For this reason, I prefer to run my cables back to a central distribution area so I don't have to run around looking for fuses if they blow.

Please feel free to ask any questions, I hope that this helps!

rszarka · Apr 30, 2012

Captain B: thanks so much for this info!! So I actually was right in being able to connect to just one of the batteries and get 12 v. Damn lol I thought I was wrong for a bit there!!
Thanks for bringing up the fuse thing was not even thinking about that!!
Well that is great news so think I will wire it 12 v

Again Captain B thank you so much for taking the time to give us this very valuable and useful piece of information and the sketches I am sure this will be a great help to many of us!! It's people like you that make this board such a great place

Paul: I never thought you were rude my friend

The fenders were pretty big ones, did not matter what size they are as the bigger boat jumped up above the fenders and hit the side right under the railing. Well maybe those big wide red ball kinds would have helped.

Love this board I swear I would not want to own a big boat without a resource like this. This place has helped me so much and I have met so many nice people from here !! Club sea ray is truly the best !!!!

Alnav: hmmm did not even think of wiring to those battery synchronizes. But wouldn't I only have power when it's synchronizing the batteries in that case?? Will look into it and post what I find!!

Reattached my Rpm sending unit. Just found it on the other side of my engine room lol. Have to order a new one as the base of this thing is plastic and the threads are ****. Kinda dumb making the base out of plastic. I see now they only
Offer the bases in aluminum lol. Funny thing I still get an rpm reading for both engines with one of the sending units not attached. Strange!! Although the engine whiere it came off shows a jumpy dial haha

Pyrojodge · Apr 30, 2012

Well, learn something everyday!

rszarka · May 1, 2012

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1335862053.781342.jpg

some of my new led bulbs love em they are grrrrrrrreaaattt

Pyro : that's good news means we can all use out 24 v banks for 12 if we choose. I tested with a multimeter and like he said each battery is giving off 12 v. Now if you attach the positive to the first batteries positive and the negative to the second batteries negative you get the 24 v the boats systems are running off of

rszarka · May 1, 2012

Hey anyone got any ideas what kind of shop would repair a defective vacuflush pump motor?? Would that be an electronics store or maybe even an auto repair shop?? All it is is a regular motor with brushes. Who repairs that kind of stuff??

Sea Ray SSS 1993 63 ft

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