On a recent short cruise, I went down to give the engine room a quick check. I saw water spraying on the ceiling and found the raw water manifold for the air conditioning condensers had developed a leak. In this case I caught it before any bilge pumps even turned on and before bilge alarms. The wall of the manifold had gotten so thin you could easily push a nail through it. I am in the process of adding ER cameras. I likely would have been able to see it on the cameras.
This manifold looks pretty nasty. What is it made of? Brass or bronze? I have seen cruisair or Scott pumps bronze head eroding to paper thin and popping a leak I don’t like bronze head pump and for manifold I prefer nylon fittings or schedule 80 PVC
If you didn't clean the paint away, it could of lasted another few years.. HA It is truly amazing what mixture of brass and monkey metals mfgs put into our bilges years ago and still today. Cameras and daily checks are surely how to stay on top of things. Glad you caught this before,,,,,,,
It was made of brass and what's left is very heavy. It was made by NIBCO. I made a manifold of copper just to get me through until I can get a proper one. I'll find something better.
Whatever the material used, there is still going to be something that fails along the way. Whether it is the joints, elbows, hoses. Nothing beats regular & thorough checks. Well caught.
Planning to also add camera(s) in the ER when updating radar, sonar, & GPS but waiting for the FLL boat show. Have you picked yours yet ?
I have a Reolink 6 camera NVR system I was going to use at a house. I set it up temporarily to see how it would work and it seems to work well. At night with ER lights off I could see everything very well. Im going to put a 15” monitor up on the FB since I don’t want to use the existing MFD’s. Im putting a POE switch in engine room so I only need run one Ethernet cable up to NVR. I think it will work…we’ll see.
The important part of a CCTV system is not the cameras or night vision but the monitor it’s going to be on. That’s where it get tricky on an open FB compared to a skylounge or enclosed PH if you have to sacrifice an MFD which you otherwise need for radar, or if you have to show the cam in postage stamp sized window, it’s useless. low light cam or IR are pretty much useless. Just upgrade the lights to LED strips and leave them on. last year I upgraded the CCTV system on the boat I run using a DVR and most of the existing cameras. The DVR is connected to the Wi-Fi network and I can view any of the cameras on my phone or iPad. Being able to use an iPad frees one of your MFDs if you don’t have space to add a dedicated screen.
I was thinking an ER cam would share with the radar screen since radar not used down here very often but frankly have not really started looking into all the electronic upgrades. Will probably wind up "biting the bullet" and calling a pro.
I can view my cameras on my phone or iPad from anywhere. I also installed a dedicated monitor in the OVHD console of the bridge. I have 4 E/R cameras, one for the cockpit and one for salon. Mine is part of my GOST alarm and monitoring system.
Thanks for the iPad suggestions. I downloaded the app and it works perfectly. I may still put a dedicated monitor but I can think about that. I have the engine room fully lit and bright with LED’s. I just wanted to test it and I will set them to record on motion detection when I’m away and won’t need to leave the lights on.