Electric Auxiliaries

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Mark F
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Electric Auxiliaries

Post by Mark F »

In the above discussion there was some talk about electric auxiliary. I have a 1976 Ericson 27 that had an Atomic 4. It died before I bought "Lotus Flower" and I repowered with an electric inboard. The unit is designed as an A 4 drop-in replacement. It's a wonderful thing, clean, quiet, strong and SIMPLE. I have electric service available at my slip so recharging is easy.

Mark
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Tim
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Post by Tim »

I renamed this thread "Electric Auxiliaries" so that perhaps it will generate interest and useful discussion on this power source, in a manner independent of any former or closed thread.
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Post by bcooke »

I, for one, would be interested in hearing more details about your installation.

How many batteries and what is their capacity in your system?

What's the power requirements of the motor?

What sort of range to you have?

How long does a recharge take?

So many questions...
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Hirilondë
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Post by Hirilondë »

Electric motors are on their way in. It may still be a few years until they are really viable. For the daysailor with shore power they work already, but not really practical for the cruiser yet.

Honda has just released the first all electric car with a fuel cell power supply. When this means of creating electricity is tweaked it will become a whole new ball game. Providing an efficient and practical source of power is the key. Solar just isn't getting there yet. Clay Burkhalter used a fuel cell and 2 custom made lithium batteries on Acadia to keep his auto-pilot, electronics and lights going for 4200 miles and over a month in last years Mini Transat. An electric motor is much more demanding, but they're getting closer.
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Rachel
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Post by Rachel »

I hope it's okay to chime in with some second-hand information. Since there aren't all that many people out there using electric drives yet, I thought it might be nice to gather this into the thread.

Not too long ago, I stumbled onto the blog of a fellow who's out cruising with his family in a Cal 34 which has an electric drive that he made himself. They're in the Caribbean now, but came from the west coast of the US, so more than just marina hops - and probably not much dockside recharging.

I forget how long ago he made the electric drive, but I believe it's been some years. In fact, he's just ordered and received one of the new electric drives from "Electric Yacht" company, and will be installing that in his Cal. He also previously linked (it's in the thread I'm about to link to) to a fellow in SE Asia who has recently re-powered his Cal 40 with a system from Electric Yacht.

The one thing that keeps me from reading this fellow's blog more than I do is that it is printed on a black background, which I find difficult to read from for very long.

What I"ve done here is link to all of his posts tagged with "Electric Propulsion," so it's a selection from the complete blog. To read them in order (since it's blogspot) you'll want to start at the bottom and scroll up as you go.

http://boatbits.blogspot.com/search/lab ... propulsion
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Peter
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Post by Peter »

Mark, good for you in taking the leap! More people need to follow, instead of waiting for the ever-promised "better" batteries. Can you post a URL for the place you bought the equipment? Did you do the installation yourself? What are you using for a controller?

Speaking of batteries, I'm very interested to know about your battery bank. How big, what type, how many, and where you placed them etc.
Battery weight is not as much an issue in a sailboat as it is in a car. A little extra ballast in the right places is OK.

I drove an electric car for six years, so am familiar with requirements for charging larger battery packs. Solar panels, unless you have a warehouse roof covered with them, are only useful for keeping the bank topped-up, not for a full recharge. Also, you usually use the vehicle in the day and charge at night. It takes a large whack of power to fill the bank. I found I could get a partial charge using a normal household outlet, but the serious work was done at night using a 120 volt 30 amp dedicated outlet. Unfortunately, anything more than a 100 Watt light bulb at our marina plunges the whole dock into darkness, but for the moorage rates we're paying I'm not complaining!

Using the prop to turn the motor for regenerative charging while sailing would help a bit, but there is no free lunch ... this would create a fair bit of drag slowing the boat down ... almost like leaving the motor idling in reverse.

I look forward to hearing lots more on this, and maybe some pictures would be great, too!

Cheers,
Peter
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Post by David »

Seems to me that electric propulsion for a sailboat certainly includes these issues:

Power consumption: how much amperage does it take to power the boat, and run ancillary equipment off the motor, such as an alternator to recharge the 12V house batteries, engine / motor driven compressor for refrideration, etc, as well as some recharging scheme to generate some amount of amperage back into the electric motor batteries.

Complexity: The motor is probably at 48 volts or so, requiring banks of batteries tied together in series to get up to that voltage and then in parallel for capacity. Long runs of heavy wire, protective conduit, lots of heavy batteries that must be stowed low and central, all vented properly, etc.. Tough to find room for all that in a small boat and still have room for stores. 48 volts is serious stuff. Some marine electric power solutions use higher voltages: 114 volts from one company. That would be 19 6V golf cart batteries for about 200 amp hours of capacity.

Heat: electric motors generate lots of heat which must be actively cleared from the engine compartment. Wiring carrying high loads generate heat

Range: It is not like you can carry extra fuel in containers tied on deck. Range is fixed and much more limited than with a combustion engine. For daysailing out of a marina I think it’s fine. For extended cruising, range becomes a much more important consideration.

Recharging: a 48 volt system needs a 48 volt charger, 114 volts needs a 114 volt charger, etc. I think the chargers would tend to be ferroresistant single stage, large, heavy, noisy circuits, etc.
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Post by bcooke »

The only installation I have ever seen was a 140 volt DC system.

Supposedly, sailing with the prop turning and 'surfing' down the waves would re-charge the system for a total of about 6 hours of motoring per day.

I was and am pretty sceptical.

I did hear that while the boat was on the hard, the rain cover lifted off and the bilge flooded with rain water. All the batteries were installed in the bilge and they were a total loss.

I like the idea of electric but since I don't like docks I don't think it is for me yet. Maybe a dedicated diesel powered generator and electric propulsion motor would be my move if I were going in that direction.
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So It Goes
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Post by So It Goes »

I happen to be the guy with the Boat Bits blog that Rachel linked to...
By the way Rachel I took your advice and changed the background color...

I've now had an Electric dive in my CAL 34 for quite a while and am still very happy with it. While not being for everybody if it works within your compromise envelope it is a very good way to go.

Just to cover the basics and to deflect some misinformation...

Electric drives to not really make a lot of heat and mush less than an internal combustion engine. On my last system I used to four inch computer fans to keep air moving in the engine compartment and never ever had an overheating problem in the system I am currently replacing.

Electric drives are much less complex that internal combustion installations. On My system I the longest wire run is four feet from my battery bank of eight golf cart batteries. Installing th system took me all of an hour....Not so complex.

Recharging...We are cruisers and the last time we pluggd in at a dock was when we still had our Atomic 4...We have solar, wind and a small honda 2000 for power generation and we have found that this is more than enough to keep our 48V bank topped up and have never found we did not have power when we needed it.

Range...Yep that is the big compromise of electric drive at the moment. For us it is not a problem as we sail ( that is what that big stick and the sails are for...) and even on boats I sail with diesels I don't make passages under power which I admit is not for everyone but it works for us. That said for use as an "auxiliary" the two to fours hours of range is more than enough. I should also add that the Honda can be used as a "poor mans" Hybrid if I really needed to get someplace and there was no wind.

We are just installing the new drive and are pretty excited about it. The reason we decided to replace the old drive was as we are doing a lot of longer passages the ability to regen is a big bonus. Plus as soon as Electric Yacht comes out with a couple items in the pipeline we will most likely be combining our 48V and 12V banks to go with one 72V bank which will be a much more whole boat integrated system and will tie up all of the various electric power items/systems in a very sensible manner.
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Rachel
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Post by Rachel »

Bob,

Welcome to the forum! And nice to meet you :)

I've quite enjoyed the sections of your blog that I've read, and now that you've changed the background color I'll go back and read more (I really wasn't expecting that you'd show up here and change the background color; gosh I hope it was okay to mention your blog, and that I didn't sound too demanding).

I'm looking forward to following the progress of your new drive.

Rachel
Mark F
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Post by Mark F »

Hi Tim, thanks for renaming the thread.

To the questions about my system;

I have 8-12volt AGM batteries. They are setup as two separate 48 volt banks; one set are group 27’s and the other group 31’s. They are installed under the port and starboard settees.

The motor I bought is a permanent magnet (brushless) unit with a Sevcon controller (you can see the specifications at the companies website).

As far as range, I’ve read 30 or so miles at 4 knots. In real life I’ve motored for seven hours at 4 knots and only used part of one bank so I should get over 60 miles at 4 knots (in calm conditions). If you ramp up the speed you eat up amps real fast - 20 amp draw at 4 knots and 110+ amp draw at 5.8 knots. I also have carried a Honda 2000i for backup but haven’t used it yet. With the two bank setup I can charge one bank while motoring on the other for extended range. Generally I day sail and do not carry the generator. Props are a big factor in electric propulsion range, the bigger the better, I have a 12x10 fixed 3 blade prop on my Ericson 27.

For recharge I use shore power. I plug in when I get back to the slip and walk away so I’m not sure how long it takes to get the bulk charging done after a heavy motoring day. On a “regular” day sail I doubt it’s more than a couple of hours. I’ve seen the battery monitor read 20 amps at 57 volts charging current when I’ve turned on the charger after a light use day and within 45 minutes it was at 2 amps and 54 volts. The float charge is around 53.5 volts and no amps showing.

I agree it would be great if more people would “take the leap”. While batteries are the weak link they are not that weak and as energy storage technology matures that part of the system can be upgraded. The motor at something like 95% efficient should be good for some time to come :-).

The motor controller I have does have regenerative capabilities. I don’t have many numbers regarding regeneration other than I’ve seen 4.6 amps once while sailing at 5 or 6 knots with the prop spinning. My battery monitor is down below so I don’t look at it that often.

The unit I bought is a SolidNav Explorer and I can highly recommend it, the factory support is great. It is engineered for marine use and really robust. One feature that I didn’t think would matter much when I first looked at the Explorer was that it uses your existing motor controls (throttle & shifter) to control the motor. Turns out I really like that aspect, it’s very convenient and “salty”.

One of the guys from the company came down to “Lotus Flower” and took some video you can see it at their website www.solidnav.com - go to the blog or news link.

Bob, you are a big inspiration!
Mark F
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Post by Mark F »

If anyone is interested, I hear Svendsens Boat Works is going to have SolidNav motors on display at the Strictly Sail Boat Show in Oakland CA this year.
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