if you have bought the cockpit enclosure ? was it worth it ?

[Tomfoolery]

I bought some and will be trying it out in the next few days.

http://www.sailrite.com/Protectants#!Protectants

Please do! Mine is getting long in the tooth, but is otherwise structurally sound and still looks pretty good. A good cleaning and perhaps some waterproofing is about as far as I'm willing to go at this point, and should be all that's needed anyway. That, and cleaning the 'windows'.

[RGF]

I would love to get a Dowser enclosure for my X but unfortunately they no longer have the patterns.(burned I think) Being tall, theirs would've been the best for me.
Only choice now is custom.

Check out Genco Marine they have patterns for the

J

I am glad this topic came back up because I did not see this reply thank you highlander for your knowledge I will check into them. again sorry to be late with my appreciation.

[Herschel]

Herschel wrote:
I bought some and will be trying it out in the next few days.

http://www.sailrite.com/Protectants#!Protectants

Please do! Mine is getting long in the tooth, but is otherwise structurally sound and still looks pretty good. A good cleaning and perhaps some waterproofing is about as far as I'm willing to go at this point, and should be all that's needed anyway. That, and cleaning the 'windows'.

I bought the Multi-Surface 303 cleaner and cleaned the bimini, dodger, and connecting piece. Then, I applied the Fabric Guard 303. One 16 oz bottle provided one complete coat on all three pieces. I would like to have put two coats on, but I had only ordered the one 16 oz bottle. I wanted to sail, so I put the gear back on the boat. My intention is to order another bottle and put a second coat on. The fabric looks great, but I have not tried to test its water shedding ability, yet. I have been very busy with another boat project on another boat and just did this effort in between steps in the other project. So, I consider this piece "half done" at this point. I did make a more concerted effort to stretch the bimini tighter to reduce the likelihood of low spots where water could accumulate. Status: work in progress, more info to come.

[Wind Chime]

For keeping the windows clear in the dodger and enclosure, we use this two step cleaner/polish by Meguiar's.
This also helps a little with the himidity fogging, but we do a wipe with fog-off sheets we use in the car.

http://www.defender.com/product3.jsp?pa ... 0&id=72996
http://www.defender.com/product3.jsp?pa ... 0&id=72981

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Interesting topic as I have been considering the full enclosure for many years but have never pulled the trigger. Now the bimini is getting worn out so I have to decide whether to get a custom canvas maker to put new sunbrella on the bimini and perhaps build a connecting piece to my dodger too (for about 700 bucks), or scrap the whole thing and get a full enclosure (for thousands).

But to digress a bit:

Besides; electric water, 19” TV/DVD, stereo, autopilot (with below deck remote), cockpit VHF-mic, curtains, etc, etc. the best mod we did was adding the full enclosure.

Wind Chime, what 19" TV/DVD did you go with? I have been looking for something good for the boat but it seems to be very difficult to find one that is motion rated (ie, the DVD won't skip in the bumps), runs on 12V and maybe also has infrared for headphones and bluray too....just never see anything with even half of the features I would like so keep going with this old audiovox car DVD player (probably around 10 inches I would say).

[Wind Chime]

That's a long wish list for an all-in-one TV/DVD Dimitri,

We had similar items on our original list for a TV/DVD, but after a few years of searching with no luck we settled for the best we could find. We got tired of watching DVD's on the laptop waiting for the perfect unit to come on the market so bought from Best Buy for about $150, I believe it was made buy Signia. It doesn't have everything we wanted but works really well.

- No blue ray: but most of the ones we buy or rent at marinas are regular.
- No DC option: We run it off our 350 watt inverter when not on shorepower.
- Never any problem with skipping.
- no infrared: but we use a FM/Dongle. Through stereo.
- usually gets 3-4 digital station channels.
http://www.macgregorsailors.com/modt/in ... ?view=1826

Wind Chime, what 19" TV/DVD did you go with? I have been looking for something good for the boat but it seems to be very difficult to find one that is motion rated (ie, the DVD won't skip in the bumps), runs on 12V and maybe also has infrared for headphones and bluray too....just never see anything with even half of the features I would like so keep going with this old audiovox car DVD player (probably around 10 inches I would say).

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Thats a nice installation, and same place that I have installed my smaller one many years ago. I'll probably keep looking for that non-existant one though..You would think that someone makes these things for RV's that might run off of 12 volts.

[SENCMac26x]

Thats a nice installation, and same place that I have installed my smaller one many years ago. I'll probably keep looking for that non-existant one though..You would think that someone makes these things for RV's that might run off of 12 volts.

There are tons of 12 volt LED Tv's

http://www.my12voltstore.com/12_volt_tv_s/79.htm


Personally I like this one

http://www.my12voltstore.com/Naxa_19_12 ... td1952.htm

[Wind Chime]

Does a 19" TV/DVD draw about the same current running on:

A) a 350 watt A/C inverter
verses
B) an actual factory 12 volt D/C plug tv

[March]

You're always going to waste plenty of power when you use an inverter. Most of the circuits in a 110 V TV require much less, so the extra power is "toned down" via transformers. Most is dissipated as heat--you can sense it when you touch the back plate of a regular TV, or a computer transformer that you plug into a wall, or whatever. Now if you have an inverter, the power you have in the batteries is "bumped up" to 110 V with considerable effort (you won't be able to run a 350 watt appliance off your batteries for very long), only to be "toned down" in the TV/DVD circuits that don't need it. Pure waste.

An appliance that has been specifically designed for 12 V would be much more efficient.

Electrical engineers will probably be able to give you more accurate numbers, and a more scientific explanation but this is plain common sense, to my mind.

[Catigale]

Does a 19" TV/DVD draw about the same current running on:

A) a 350 watt A/C inverter
verses
B) an actual factory 12 volt D/C plug tv

You might lose 10% of the power in a cheap inverter, but the power (current times voltage) draw of the TV will be the same on DC or inverter. As pointed out above, the AC power supply for the TV is probably just converting it to 12VDC anyway! Typically, a small TV pulls about 30-40 watts, so you can run a group 80"battery for about 10 hours tomhalf discharge.

[walt]

Here is a data point for the power these small LED TV's consume..

I haven’t installed this yet (hopefully next week) but I bought this 16 inch LED TV for the 26S and picked it partly because spec said it works on 12 volts

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005EKJC78/ref ... 00_TE_item

and this 12 volt DVD player http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007WRPCN4/ref ... 00_TE_item

The TV power spec said 18 watts (or close to that) but I have measured the actual current over the 12 volt range (12 to 14.4) and uses close to 10 watts (about 0.8 amps). One nice thing about Amazon is that you can read reviews and the TV without DVD player seemed to have better feedback. I also found the DVD player by adding 12 volt to the search. The DVD player uses about 0.4 amps. So the TV alone is about 0.8 amps, TV plus DVD player is about 1.2 amps (at 12 volts). -

Below is for the 16 inch TV alone
14.35 volts - .74 amps
12 volts - .85 amps
Standby .01 amp

For the application I have in mind, I will mostly watch free off air (no power at all to the DVD player) and bought a Terk MFTV2 flat digital antenna - refurbished for $20. I haven’t done this yet but plan to install the antenna on the inside roof of the pop top cover.

[1-Tntimbo]

This has really gotten off-topic Now its a TV thing.

[SENCMac26x]

This has really gotten off-topic Now its a TV thing.

Mount the TV so you can see it from the enclosed cockpit for game day.

There, the conversation is full circle

[cptron]

This has really gotten off-topic Now its a TV thing.

Mount the TV so you can see it from the enclosed cockpit for game day.

There, the conversation is full circle