There’s nothing special in this video. No water spouts. No near-death experience. No hula girls, and no tropical fruit drinks. Just a normal and pretty routine day in our cruising lives. Not a great day and not a bad one either.
What caught my attention was the resonance between the song that was playing on my phone and the scenery sliding by. The right music, for me at least, turned a relatively dull day into a beautiful experience. Contrary to what some vlogs would have you believe, cruising is not all nail-biting action or orgasmic bliss. Most of it is just life.
This was on a dead downwind motor-sail from nearby islands to Mackay, Australia on Legacy, our Catalina 38 (S&S).
The music is He Aloha No O Honolulu by The Maile Serenaders from an album called Hawai’i’s Favorite Slack Key & Steel Guitar Instrumentals.
We use satellite images a lot for navigation. I’m almost exclusively using SAS Planet now to download the satellite images from various sources including Google, Bing, and ESRI. A few weeks ago, my favorite, the ESRI images stopped loading. Today was my second go-round at trying to fix this and I found a simple solution…
If you have this issue, in SAS Planet try to display ESRI arcGIS.Imagery. If nothing loads and while arcGIS.Imagery is still selected, go to settings/map settings. You should see something like this…
Template or Base part of request URL:http://server.arcgisonline.com/ArcGIS/rest/services/World_Imagery/MapServer/tile/
Just add an ‘s’ to http: and away you go (or away I went, anyway!). It should look like this…
We’ve had a Balmar alternator on Legacy for the past 20+ years but with this last failure, I think I’ve finally found a better solution.
What’s gone wrong…
On our first trip to Hawaii from Los Angeles, the rear bearing failed. Since the alternator belt also drives the fresh water pump, we couldn’t run our engine to get into Radio Bay. I did a MacGyver and was able to get a few hours of run time when we needed it most.
I don’t know that I can blame Balmar for this failure. I don’t know how old the alternator was as it was on Legacy when we bought her. We ordered lots of extra parts for the alternator (this was back when Balmar supported their products by selling spares), as well as a new, complete Balmar alternator.
On the way back from Hawaii, the new Balmar Alternator quit producing power. Keep in mind that this was a new alternator. I took it apart and found the rotor failed. We unwound the wire, found the break near the center, soldered it, rewound it and made it back to Los Angeles. We had lots of spares, but no spare rotor. Why would anyone carry that?
About half way into our current Pacific cruise, we had another Balmar fail. I really don’t remember what the problem was that time. I think the stator windings shorted.
About a month ago, in New Caledonia, we had another Balmar failure. I put our old Hitachi stock alternator on (that we carried as a spare) and had the Balmar serviced in New Cal by an automotive electrical shop. They found broken connections from the stator and silver soldered them.
I no longer trusted it…
I’ve always been bothered by the low output once the alternator was hot and just how hot the alternator was getting. At best, once the alternator was up to temperature, we’d see about 60 amps out of our 100 amp alternator. All of them have been this way. Our 60 amp Hitachi was putting out a constant 50 amps when hot and it wasn’t getting nearly as hot as the Balmar.
The Balmar would exceed the 107C limit set in the regulator. The regulator would reduce the power to about 50% for two or so minutes, then take it back to full power and in another two or three minutes the cycle would repeat. If we say 2 minutes at 50% and three minutes at full power, that amounts to a continuous 80% and 80% of 60 amps is only 48 amps.
Maybe that’s the way all small-frame alternators are, I wondered. Nope.
Recently, I bought and installed a 120 amp Bosch alternator and wow, what a difference! The full story is here, but now we get a continuous 100 amps and the highest alternator temperature I’ve seen is 88C. I’ve been told that the reason for this is that the Bosch alternator is much more efficient, in both energy production and cooling. I believe it.
Another big advantage was the price. The fully marinized Bosch alternator I bought from SmartRegulator in New Zealand was about $330 USD. The lowest price Balmar 100 amp alternator I can find online in Australia (where we are now) is about $915 USD. That’s almost a three for one deal!
The Bosch alternator is standard on many cars and trucks (like Ford trucks) and so, I expect parts and service to be easy to find. I’ve heard that Balmar is no longer selling parts for their alternators and you have to send it to them for service.
I think so many boaters buy into the Balmar myth. Not me… No more.
I’ve been wanting to post a review of this regulator for a long time now. Every time I have to deal with it in any way, I seem to get more and more angry (that should give you a hint as to which way this review is going – also the big BOO above!).
We’ll start with reliability, or rather lack thereof.
(Remember, all of this is just the opinion of one person, all be it a person with a lot of experience with boats and electronics. Don’t sue me for speaking my mind Balmar!)
In ten years of cruising on this trip, we are now on our third Balmar regulator. The first one was an MC-612 model. The second, short-lived regulator was an MC-614, as is the my current regulator. I just don’t think this is an acceptable lifespan for a product like this.
A quick Google search shows prices between $500 and up to $1,000. Ridiculous. If I knew I was buying it only once and that it would last many years, that’d be one thing, but $200 or $300 per year for voltage regulators is just too expensive.
The second issue I have with these units is the ridiculous way you have to program them. They come with a small magnetic screwdriver that you have to hold up to a red dot that’s above a magnetic switch. You have to hold it there long enough but not too long, and you have to release it over the correct cryptic display shown on an archaic LED alpha-numeric display.
Here’s an example of the procedure to program the bulk voltage…
Touch the screwdriver to the red dot. When the display says Pro release it. When you see three dashes on the display (—), touch the dot again. The display will cycle through AP0, AP1… AP5. Release it on AP5. Now the display will cycle through the advanced programming options. Touch the magnet when you see Bv (but the display has no “v” so it’s really Bu). The set voltage will display and slowly increase, a tenth of a volt at a time. Release the magnet when you see the value you want. If you want to go down instead, release the magnet. When Bu is displayed, touch the dot again and the reading will cycle down. Release the magnet when you get where you want to be. Then the unit will cycle through everything again three or so times before it saves your changes. There’s no way to know when this happens if your not watching it constantly so just leave your engine running and go to lunch!
During my last update, I had to change a setting from 3 to 50. For some reason, this setting moves very slowly, like one unit every 15 seconds. So there I am, hanging over the sharp lip of the lazarette for what felt like an hour to make this change.
The above is real. I’m not kidding. I wish I were. This is the 21st century and someone thinks this is a good user interface. I can see only two reasons for this.
Complete incompetence (or maybe stupidity).
Whoever designed this is sadistic and wants to inflict as much suffering on the human race as possible!
Or maybe both.
All that said, once you have suffered through the programming (possibly quite a few times to get everything right), it works pretty well (while it continues to work – which is not as long as I’d hoped).
When it fails, you’ll have to replace it as it’s submerged in epoxy to protect the unit from water, thus rendering it unserviceable. Then you have to go through this programming torture all over again.
Note: Balmar now makes the MC-618 regulator. Here’s what one vendor says about it…
Upgraded From The Mc-614 Voltage Regulator. The Mc-618 Communicates With The Sg200 Battery Monitor. The Mc-618 Battery Monitor Is Directing Your Onboard Charging Activity From Either The Sg200 2 ́ ́ Color Display And/Or The Optional Bluetooth Smartphone App. Basic Setup Functions Can Be Accomplished From The Sg200 Color Display, Smartphone App Or The Traditional On-Regulator Programming Tool. Advanced Programming Functions Are Available From The Bluetooth Smartphone App.
Not exactly the change I’d hoped for. It seems to me you might have to buy not only the regulator but the color display as well. I don’t know about it’s reliability but maybe it means an end to the magnetic screwdriver. (I’m surprised it’s not programmed with a 5-1/4 inch floppy!)
I am not really happy with the Balmar regulator we’ve had on our boat for ten years now (we’re on our third one, but that’s another story, here). I searched the internet for one I could love, and didn’t find anything that made my heart flutter (Yep, I’m strange!). I started to think about designing my own. Here’s my wish-list so far…
Remotely programmable with an iOS or Android or PC app. I’d love something like what Victron does with their products and the Victron Connect app.
Remotely monitorable via the above and again similar to Victron Connect. (Come on Victron, read this and make us an alternator regulator!!!)
Save and load configuration files so that settings and setup can be shared among users. Have a great LiFePO4 setup that’s worked well for a while now? Share it with friends or on the internet.
Monitor alternator output with a dedicated and included shunt on the alternator positive output. (We can’t use the negative side as some alternators are grounded through the engine.)
Be able to set and control max alternator output via the app.
Alternator and battery temperature monitoring standard. Don’t make me buy the temperature sensors separately!).
Alternator temperature control. Set a maximum alternator temperature and have the regulator control the output with something like PID control. (Sorry for those who aren’t techie. This would subtly change the alternator output to keep it from overheating. It wouldn’t just periodically cut the output in half the way the Balmar regulator does.)
Loud fault condition alarms built in to the unit and not relying on the app.
Automatic P or N type switching. This confuses people. It would be great if the user didn’t even have to know if their alternator was positive or negative switching. It’d be easy for the regulator to detect it.
Relatively waterproof or splash proof with a cover over wire connections to prevent splashes from corroding wires and connectors. But don’t pot it (I’m talking to you Balmar!). We need to leave the disposable society behind and make products easier to service.
Alternator cool-down mode either via the app, or better yet, an external and optional button. If I turn my engine off shortly after the alternator has been running full-bore, the alternator can overheat as its cooling fan stops when the engine stops. I’d love a five minute cool-down cycle that stops the alternator output and then beeps when the cool-down period is done. Or better yet, when the alternator reaches a set cool-down temperature.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this subject, having just upgraded my alternator and completed Balmar alternator and regulator reviews.
My hope is that some enterprising manufacturer will read this and include these features in their next regulator. Please don’t make me design this myself! 😉
