Toph forum posts in last 60 days

shaggybaxter said..
The real annoyance..... their annual license is now the costs of the old perpetual license.

I bought an app based logbook for work that cost a one off $80 period. A few years later it became a $125 a year subscription. While I get there’s constant costs in customer support, upgrades, updates etc, I was happy with the version that I bought and it’s just an excel based program anyway.

Navionics was the same. You bought the program, downloaded the area you were interested in (all of Aust if you wanted to) and it worked perpetually but without updates is you didn’t pay the annual subscription which was $19. Now if you don’t pay the annual subscription of nearly $100 it becomes unusable.

i enjoyed some hobby CNC work, but I can’t justify the annual subscriptions anymore.


The problem is literally everywhere.

JonE said..
I just read Tophs post - 25 amps is quite a lot. I wonder if it goes up with a high fibre diet

😀😀

Have I got my terms mixed up?

It doesn't sound like a voltage issue to me. It could be the BMS doing its thing (but I am extremely new to Lithium research and haven't yet converted).

Are you able to measure the draw from the battery when flushing? I have just taken a look at my Jabasco manual and it will draw 25 amps when being flushed. An old pump can draw more and a pump starting under load can also draw more. Then if you combine the 2 maybe the system has reached the BMS limits.... AGMs can handle that extra load surprisingly well.

And if you have someone whom tends to swallow olive seeds and frequents your vessel then no amount of power is going to overcome that. And no, don't ask how I know that 🤔

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-...cord/106885260

If those of you in Tasmania are feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, it literally is.

But what surprised me is by how much such a high pressure system lowered the water level. 30 cm is lot.

southace said..


I have wasted so much money on agms over the past 3 cruising yachts I have owned. Simply they don't like loads or being used below 12.5 volts. I fitted 3 iTechworld 160 pros 6 months ago and am so happy with the performances. I treat them like AGMs nothing added other than I can use the coffee machine and toaster without having to wake up the neighbours with the genset. I have a Victron dc/dc 40amp charger , Victron 70amp charger , and the 20amp solar when the suns out all with recommended fuses. In the app I can see the temperature on each battery, set alarms and see each individual cell voltage. I can also turn each battery off and on separately. Tonight I have turned 2 battery's Off and just running the fridges and diesel heat on the one battery just to see how quickly the one battery will charge from the overnight discarge. Use the recommended wire sizes and correct fuses and get a qualified sparky to check your work. That's what my insurance company suggested to me. I will never have a agm as house battery on my yachts again in my lifetime.

Lithium certainly seems the way to go now I am pretty keen to move away from AGMs.

Having done a little research since some of the comments above it doesn't look like the Australian standard is too arduous to meet and the main issue is with the internal BMS with AS/NZS 3004 requiring external BMS and an audio and visual alarm. Ive since watched several videos by Will Prowse (posted above by ActionSportsWA) and if he is indeed that knowledgeable in the subject then some of those battles - even the cheaper ones have in-built BMS's that most likely meet the AS/NZS 3004 except for the fact that they are not externally fitted..

So if to stay compliant even if it's just for insurance purposes, you'll have to fit an external BMS and alarm system. No big deal and not all that expensive in the big scheme of boat ownership, but if the Salty Captain batteries I linked to above use Prismatic cells and Victron (a well known and probably the market leader) uses the same cells, how is there a $1000 dollar difference for the same amp/h battery? BMS and Bluetooth connectivity I see being part of the difference, but as I noted you'd have to fit an external BMS anyway, and build quality. Both those seem to be what Will Prowse gets the most concerned about in his videos. Rarely does he mention the cell types or quality. Even some of the more expensive batteries had some cons which is what I think some of the posters above were trying to point out.

I am not trying to find the cheapest option here and I am not interested in a battery from Temu or Ali Express. But surely an Australian business selling within Australia must only be selling batteries that meet Australian standards right 🤔🤔🤔

Or am I missing something?