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The new LiFePO4 battery arrived today. A full 100aH and it is tiny compared to the lead acid monster I pulled out. A full 35lbs less than the lead acid monster and a massive improvement in capacity and cycle life.

As with everything in this brave new age, you can see capacity, discharge rates, and all the other parameters directly from your phone.

TrailerTrash wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2025 1:55 pm The new LiFePO4 battery arrived today. A full 100aH and it is tiny compared to the lead acid monster I pulled out. A full 35lbs less than the lead acid monster and a massive improvement in capacity and cycle life.

As with everything in this brave new age, you can see capacity, discharge rates, and all the other parameters directly from your phone.

Nice, that mini battery size is great. Our new LiFePO4's case is huge, but it is lightweight. I just got in a couple 40A fuses yesterday to put between the batteries and the DC-DC converter/controller. I was going to mount everything but the batteries on a poly cutting board, but thinking of getting one of these junction boxes to screw all the connections down inside and then just mounting our new master switch panel directly to it's outside:

https://www.amazon.com/Zulkit-Waterproo ... r=1-7&th=1

But maybe I'm just overly adverse to cutting any holes in the stock 26X liner...

Cutting the first hole is the hardest.

I don't know if this will be of use to you but perhaps it will apply to someone...

I mounted a sheet of plywood (cut to fit) on the back side of the head facing into the aft berth along with one hole in the corner (covered by the cushion) that all of the wires pass through. I was able to reuse all of holes from the bolts that connect the head to the liner so no new holes there.

By mounting most of my DC components to that board I've been able to avoid new holes (except screw holes in the plywood) for a couple of years now even though I've made a lot of changes during that time.

tuxonpup wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2025 6:55 pm

TrailerTrash wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2025 1:55 pm The new LiFePO4 battery arrived today. A full 100aH and it is tiny compared to the lead acid monster I pulled out. A full 35lbs less than the lead acid monster and a massive improvement in capacity and cycle life.

As with everything in this brave new age, you can see capacity, discharge rates, and all the other parameters directly from your phone.

Nice, that mini battery size is great. Our new LiFePO4's case is huge, but it is lightweight. I just got in a couple 40A fuses yesterday to put between the batteries and the DC-DC converter/controller. I was going to mount everything but the batteries on a poly cutting board, but thinking of getting one of these junction boxes to screw all the connections down inside and then just mounting our new master switch panel directly to it's outside:

https://www.amazon.com/Zulkit-Waterproo ... r=1-7&th=1

But maybe I'm just overly adverse to cutting any holes in the stock 26X liner...

I was going to move mine to behind the electrical panel but I'm rethinking access. I ordered replacement navigation lights on Amazon, and some 16AWG marine wire so I'll just replace all the stock MacGregor lamp cord. Hopefully, I can just tape it together and pull the new wire through the liner as I'm removing the old. I doubt it will be that easy but there is always hope, and now I'll have properly tinned marine wire.

I finalized buying 95% of the goodies for my Mac26D refit today.


My Autopilot arrived this week too. It has been too cold to do any of the fiberglass work so I've mainly been wet sanding the hull and cleaning her out and doing a lot of thinking about how I'm going to mount the various bits.

The only thing I still need to purchase at this point, is the deck hardware and I wanted to get feedback from anyone who cares to give it.

For rope clutches I was going to do two of these:

https://www.mauripro.com/products/lew29 ... 8866801970

For a deck organizers, a pair of these.

https://www.mauripro.com/products/lew29 ... 8377870642

And to mount above the daggerboard:

https://www.mauripro.com/products/sel40 ... 7691315506

The Lewman clutches are super! They leave all the older designs in the dust.

Those deck organizers look nice and trim and the price is good.

I have no experience with the deck block, but the specs look like they are well-suited for the load.

It's been fun following your saga. Keep posting!

Stickinthemud57 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 31, 2025 1:53 pm The Lewman clutches are super! They leave all the older designs in the dust.

Those deck organizers look nice and trim and the price is good.

I have no experience with the deck block, but the specs look like they are well-suited for the load.

It's been fun following your saga. Keep posting!

I'll have some pictures once the weather warms and work moves forward.

Parts are filtering in, and I'm anxiously awaiting warm weather to work on the boat.

The Rolly Tasker Main & hank-on Big Jib along with the Stackpack for the main storage on the boom.



Assortment of parts. I'm impressed with the quality of the Garhauer blocks. I was also trying to figure out how I was going to run a line for my daggerboard back to the cockpit and Todd to the rescue, pulled the stock 26M part out of the bin, and that worked perfectly.



Some new LED running lights, and the quick rig parts, of which I'm not 100% certain where they all go yet.



The electronics package, which isn't complete yet because I need to buy a VHF but I have the simple depth meter, which doesn't share data with anything. The Wind Instrument and the HAL 9000 Autopilot, all the way from the Netherlands. It arrived faster than most of the things from this side of the pond.



The Boomkicker is very nicely made. If it works half as nice as it looks, I'll be thrilled.







And the final boat candy of the day, the LiFePO4 battery with Bluetooth connectivity showing the state of charge, discharge rate, and other functions that I don't need.

That’s quite a haul! You’ve got some great projects lined up there!

Jimmyt wrote: ↑Wed Feb 12, 2025 7:59 pm That’s quite a haul! You’ve got some great projects lined up there!

I enjoy working on the boat so it is a labor of love. I got to climb around on Todd & Cheryl's 26D, which is the same year as mine to check out how they had it set up. He rescued that one from sitting in the water for a decade and has it looking tip-top. I don't have indoor storage for mine but I think I can get mine looking as good.

We just got our Lite Skin 26X main sail this week! Was hoping for some higher temperatures next weekend when I'm off for four days, but that's not the direction it's trending...

Trash,

I envy you (to an extent).

While I doubt I will ever entirely run out of mods and projects, all the big ones are done.

Enjoy your "labor of love"!

Ditto!

The rudder showed up yesterday; it was well packaged and on time.


The bottom has this swept trailing edge, which I find interesting. I assume this reduces turbulence on the trailing edge of the tip. This is the fiberglass version, not the HDPE version.




The stainless mounting hardware is robust. The backbone is a rectangular bar stock with various tig welded and bolted components. It is very stiff compared to the stock rudder.




The tiller is gorgeous; I almost feel like hanging it on the wall of my office rather than using it.







The mounting portion of the rudder to the bar stock & gas strut. The cheeks are 3mm stainless, and some of the other mounting parts are 5mm stainless.



I am tempted to order the daggerboard, too. Gorgeous work, and I know they are expensive, but you get what you pay for. I can do the math on the cost of materials and estimate labor, and I think for the quality, it is pretty good value.