Supra Saltare in France

[wotan2525]

You are absolutely correct about the "white smoke" it is actually steam. I would not worry about this.

22liters is close to the right amount but I have to wonder if you made sure to pull the thermostat out first?

Also -- automotive antifreeze (at least here) is incredibly toxic and bad for the environment. You'll need to drain/capture it before you can run in the spring. RV antifreeze is much preferred, it's cheaper, will naturally decompose and even though I personally think it's immoral, you can dump allow it drain back into the ground/water if you need/want to.

[Sdc77]

Thanks for advises wotan. No didn't pull the thermostat out. I ran the engine till it reached working temp (~90°C), assuming the thermostat was opened enough to let antifreeze come inside the engine block.
I will drain the block/exhaust/water pump next season and get back antifreeze, as it is expensive and in fact toxic for environment.

I did a search on google with "RV antifreeze". I have to admit something : We don't have such thing in France ! How can we be so prehistorical people ?
Definitly not born in the good country ...

[wotan2525]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the thermostat only opens for a brief period of time (unless you are recirculating the water.) There's no guarantee that it was open while you were sucking in the antifreeze. I always pull the thermostat before I flush with antifreeze -- just makes me know that the antifreeze is being pushed through and hopefully replacing the water that was in there. You could pull the thermostat housing, remove the thermostat, remove the drain plugs and then pour antifreeze into the thermostat housing until it was draining out the back. Would (probably) be cheaper/easier as long as your drain plugs aren't stuck.

[Sdc77]

Hi guys, It's been a while !
I just start working back on the boat for this season.
Here is how it looks after winter (we didn't cleaned it after the last season ...)

and after acid cleaning :


So, as I promised, here is my home made underwater led spots.
I start with This 24 SMD 12v 5050 LED bulb :

And broke it (carefully, as leds tend to unweld easyly ...) to keep the pcb board :

[Sdc77]

Then, I bought table feet plastic sheet, lagrer than the pcb. I cut 3 pieces of plastic sheet and hot glued it to the board to keep it few millimeters from the bottom of the table sheet, and weld wires.
Then I pour inclusion epoxy resin in the sheet and waited 24h.
Here is the result :





It's perfectly sealed from water.
I then put it in place of the flap connectors, with SS screws and silicon behind it :

[Sdc77]

It's powerful, but not as directive as a dedicated wated led. Weather here is awful, so I can't say if it works as good in water as on the trailer. Wait and see

[TitanTn]

Wow, that looks like a big clean up job! How did you go about that?

Once again, your fabricating skills are impressive. So how much do you have into these lights? I'm assuming you saved significantly over buying a pair.

[Sdc77]

Hi Titan.
I cleaned it with oxalic gel acid. It's long because you need to wait 20 min before cleaning with water.

My led are the cheapest way for underwater stuff.
Plastic sheet is 1.6$ each, led bulb is 8$ each and resin is 30$ for 1liter ( I can build many spot led with this quantity !)
We can say about 13$ each underwater spot led
So yes, I saved significantly $$$
Thanks again for your feedback

[sybrmike]

As always - impressive work! Be sure to post some pictures of the lights in action once the weather improves.

[Sdc77]

Thank you Mike. The boat should be in water in 2 weeks, don't worry I will post pictures of the boat by night with LEDs.
Next step is home made tower spot led, keep watching