I previously called these gadgets a scam or at least a barely allowed trick and I did receive some feedback on that, asking if a company like Victron really is selling a scam product so let me put this into context with this post: I call these gadgets scams or
You can buy a LIM for $1000-$2000, which is a great deal for a hospital operating room but a bit stiff for a sailboat where nobody dies when AC power is disrupted. A couple remarks before diving in: the diagram above is conceptual, not an actual schematic, which requires
In part one we arrived at the input bus where incoming AC power, if any, is present. This incoming power is used to charge the batteries and/or to feed the distribution panels for use throughout the boat. Multiplus inverter/chargers I recommend two identical units that are special-ordered from
For these posts I am using a diagram that closely follows our actual installation aboard Jedi. In this post I discuss the input side: the shore power and generator inputs, the transfer switch, the input bus and the P conductor busbar. I present a detailed description of an installation that
Now that we have solar arrays, lithium batteries and good electronics to run everything, it is time to upgrade the AC part of our systems to a safer and better setup. This better system is insulated floating power distribution, like used in hospitals, war ships and commercial ships and other
We are aboard the Nieuw Statendam, a Holland America Line Pinnacle Class ship, traveling from Florida to Rotterdam. This ship has Starlink and we have the entry level wifi package that allows email en web browsing. So that’s great to try everything we set up on our MacMini back
Cloud data became popular with the introduction of Dropbox and today we have iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive etc. that are all massively popular. While everyone accepts their small print conditions without even reading them, we know from sources like Snowden that governments do mass data surveillance including hacking and threatening
We run several websites on our MacMini, each with it's own URL, like http://blog.sv-jedi.org/ and http://files.sv-jedi.org/. With only our router having a public IP number, this means that in DNS these names all point to the same IP number, which is on
WireGuard was created by Jason A. Donenfeld and first appeared around 2015 as a new kind of VPN: lean, fast, modern and strong cryptography. it was added into the Linux kernel in 2020 and into the Mikrotik routers in 2022. Every serious router has it today. When your router has
The ISP we currently use for our VPN hub is Spectrum Cable. We get 700Mbps usable download bandwidth and their cable modem has a 1Gbps Ethernet port that provides us with a public IP number with DHCP. This is connected to our WAN port on the Mikrotik router. A public
Music is a large part of our lives. We have a large music collection that we prefer over any online streaming platform. In the past we converted everything to lossless digital format and used Squeezebox, Logitec and Sonos, progressing as they ceased to exist. For the last couple of years
Our experiment with growing hydroponic callaloo was a big success. This vegetable can replace spinach while growing in tropical climates and, using hydroponics, it can grow without soil aboard a sailboat. These plants can grow very large when it isn’t topped and harvested regularly. We put four in a