Strip light conversion installed

 

Ta daah!  Installed and working, the strip light I converted from fluorescent tubes to LEDs (see my post from November 21st).  So far so good, only a long term test will prove its worth, but I'm hopeful the LEDs will not burn out as I've built in a 12v regulator.  The light is not so diffused as from tubes but as it's overhead, you don't often look directly at it.  I'll probably begin converting the other 6 of these lights once I am confident of this one.  It hasn't proved particularly hard or expensive to do.

We're aboard Herbie for the weekend, mainly to check that she has survived all the hard frosts we've been having.  The plumbing seems OK at any rate. I'll look at the engine and start her up in the morning.

We're just burning the first of our coffee logs in the stove and that looks ok and burning at a steady pace.

Back home tomorrow.

On bilge pumps

 Happy New Year folks.  As Confucius might have said, let's hope 2023 will be a bit less "interesting" than last year.

Now, bilge pumps.  This year I want to sort out ours. Is it just me or are they not as good as they ought to be?  We get the odd bit of rainwater in the engine bay (not the oily bit under the engine which is self contained) and sometimes water from the stern gland.  The floor where it sits has an area which I estimate to be roughly a square metre or so, so even 10 litres of water ( about 2 gallons in old money) only sits a centimetre deep and whilst this is an annoyance, our bilge pump does nothing about it.  I reckon it needs to be at least  twice that before the float switch activates and then it will only pump out anything above that depth.  So that's 20 litres swishing about that the bilge pump ignores. (I hope my maths is right, I'm a bit tired after last night's revels).  

My question is, have we just got a crappy bilge pump /float switch or are they all like that?  Are there pumps which get closer to the floor?  

Now, looking on ebay I can find a £10 12v self priming water pump which I might be able to rig up with the inlet pipe just clear of the floor and manually switch on when needed.  I might risk a tenner on that.  But really there ought to be a proper automatic  bilge pump to get that close to the floor.  

Any pointers would be most welcome.