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Electric Drive H28


DrWatson

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Agree EE

 

Eco friendly energy retailers seem to be the new wild west of retailing. Plenty of self proclaimed 'experts' but when you scratch the surface, not alot of credibility. Im sure there are good ones out there, but sorting the wheat from the charf is very difficult usless you are hugely informed.

 

Offering 10 warrantees as a sole trader would be a very risky situation. I wonder if his assets are in trust?!

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Wheels has it on the money with Li based battery packs.

 

Just look at the issues the toymota Prius and RXh batteries cause. And the Honda Hybrid ones. Those are by FAR the two most common hybrids.

 

How many of you expect your phones to still have the same capacity as when new after a couple of years? If you do, your dreaming. Ipods, Ipads, laptops, cordless tools, etc, they all suffer from battery degeneration.

 

Factor into the equation that sometimes you want a LOT more than 10KW at the prop on a 40' boat - I doubt you could get into a lot of places against an outgoing tide with 10KW on a 12M boat of normal weight - sure as hell need reasonable RPM on to get ours into anything against a several knot tide and headwind. Also factor into that equation the ability of a smallish motor to be used effectively in emergency situations - such as being your only form of brakes, and I am not confident I would like to be limited in power so much. We have a 45Kw motor ( diesel ) of which its calculated 32Kw gets to the prop, on a 13m boat @ 9T.

 

Conversely, an electric motor is less likely to fail in a spectacular way, when most needed. And, electric drive is silent or very nearly so.

 

Diesel electric, as I pointed out ages ago in this thread and Wheels has talked about would by my choice - maybe a 20Kw diesel generator, mounted where its easy to service, not in the way of anything, and not going to be particularly difficult to make quiet, and a smallish bank of batteries. Silent cruising generally, the ability to get significant power, which is sustained ( motor sailing etc ), very efficient ( probably more so than a transmission and shaft driven prop ) etc. Using a 2Kw honda genset or similar is a horrible idea sorry - larger quantities of petrol on the boat, and they really do need to be in unrestricted cooling situations - so would have to be in a locker with forced cooling ( and quite a bit of it ) or on deck. Thats not going to work very well in nasty conditions!. Also, if you expect it to last at say 200 hours use per year, in a marine environment for much more than 3 or 4 years, then I suggest your a dreamer.. Also, for extended motoring, that 2Kw genset is going to be pretty hopeless. A genset which will last a decent amount of time, installed with fuel supply, etc, will cost as much as your diesel engine.

 

I can definitely see the electric drive being a great idea for racers to get in and out of a marina, but I do not see a huge advantage anywhere else at present. As much as I would like to stop burning complex carbon chains.

 

After all, even the Torqueedo on our tender has significantly limited range compared to one tank of fuel on the 3.2 merc eggbeater.

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Not really convinced. Easy to say.

 

Not registered on the companies office website, a quick whois of the URL search gives a person that is a shareholder registered to the same address in another 'marinetronics' website that registered as a company in 2000 ? That's not 30 years. Sunpower Plus their other 'company' isn't a registered company either? Yet they refer to their parent company AASolar? Not LLC's maybe? Then they have personal liability for the warranties.

 

Sorry for being a pedant but claiming to be in business for 30 years is a big call to put in writing if its not the case. I cant see any evidence of it.

 

Lol at that information! The AA Solar website does not look to be that of a company which has 30 years behind it. In fact, I would not even bother looking at doing business with a website that poorly designed. It reeks of a "DIY" without the skills to DIY, and to me, that indicated that the business behind it often is exactly the same. I am not saying that AA Solar are skilless or inferring anything about them at all, but, if that was their shop front, ( which it effectively is being apparently an online trader ) it would have died in the 60's.

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No idea how long AA Solar have been around.

 

I've dealt with them in the past and found the guys running it to be helpful, seemed to know their stuff, and price competitive.

 

Their Website may be basic, and when I visited them their warehouse was shipping containers - but that reflected in the competitive price of the gear, which I haven't had any issue with.

 

Want a flash website and a nice retail outlet - add xx% to the cost or go buy from from one of the swinderleries at Westhaven..........

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I have had my house batteries for 2 years or so, 6x2 volt 390 amp hour SLA and they have been good. Good folks to deal with. I have not had to make a warranty claim. Now to get back into gearbox wrasltlin. :D

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AA Solar have a ten year warranty on their Lithium yttride batteries.

How long have AA Solar been in business and how long have their suppliers been in business? If they haven't been in business way longer than the length of their warranty then that warranty is useless as they haven't even had a chance to develop their own confidence in performance of their product, let alone allowing the customer to develop confidence.

This little gem of advice given to me very recently by a solar/battery/alternative energy supplier.

I guess I should have worded that post a bit differently. I was in no way casting aspersions on AA Solar, having never dealt with them and having only heard neutral to good comments on their price and performance. It was an overall comment on the proliferation of alternative energy companies and based on a comment from a solar supplier here.

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It was an overall comment on the proliferation of alternative energy companies and based on a comment from a solar supplier here

You are correct Pete and there are one or two that have no clue at all. I actually emailed Trademe about one guy that was advertising a Grid tie unit. He had a male 3 pin plug on the unit which would obviously be live if the unit was connected and turned on. The idea was that you plugged the 3pin plug into the wall socket and the unit then fed power back into the grid. So firstly, having a live male 3 pin plug is darn right dangerous and illegal and secondly, power being fed back into the house wiring, if not fitted with the correct safeguards, is illegal and could be lethal to anyone that could be working on lines somewhere restoring electricity to a neighborhood expecting the lines to be dead. Now OK, today they use all sorts of safety gear to ensure that kind of thing can not happen, but still.

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Talking to a mate today who was going into coffs harbour in 40 knot onshore wind and large seas a while back when the impeller failed. Heart stopping moment no doubt and when inside, sailed in, had to get the coast guard to tow him to a mooring. Now if he had a hybrid electric drive setup , the type that has a electric motor off the rear of the diesel, he would have been able to simply motor in to a berth. In other words, an hybrid electric drive adds a lot of safety to a yacht.

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How often does an impellor fail right at the most criti.....oh yeah, "anything critical will always fail at the most inconvenient time".

But you could look at it this way too, the propeller could have fallen off. An electric drive would not have solved the problem. It is always nice to have back ups, but not always possible or practicle. So the better scenario would be to look at what ways you can safe gaurd yourself in a situation like that and practice the scenarios with all is working well. Like as this guy did, raise the sail and sail in, or maybe an emergency drop anchor or whatever needed.

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Just pointing out one advantage of this system, that is one has 3 ways to go. I think its a worthwhile, considerable advantage. Surely you agree. The above example also highlights how fragile the diesel engine system is.

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How often does an impellor fail right at the most criti.....oh yeah, "anything critical will always fail at the most inconvenient time".

 

Yes, the VSD that that controls the electric drive could just as easily fail. Or, any other part of the system.

 

As with anything, keeping up with maintenance should prevent things like an impellor failing at an inopportune moment.

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The thing with the electric drive is you could have a spare everything aboard if thought necessary.

I like the way electric propulsion compliments sailing. In light winds the drag of the prop can be negated by applying a small amount of "throttle" say 50 watts. So with a solar panel or a few off one could increase speed by a few knots without using any stored current, in effect. So whenever you are gathering photons, the speed of the yacht can be increased without noise or pollution. Don't need a folding prop at all.

Solar panels are getting cheaper so its feasible to have a very green machine if somewhere is found to place the panels. If a pushpit were extended just past the cabin on mine and raised to around 900mm tall, which would be a boon for safety also, I thought may be able to hang panels off the top and then have an arm thats adjustible so can aim the panels at the sun or lay them down for rough conditions. The thought of being in an anchorage reaping energy for the next leg of the cruise is endearing indeed. May be able to fit 6 x 290 watt panels which would give around 180 amps at 44 volts a day in summer. House loads would not be a problem! I doubt a diesel generator would be neccessary.

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May be able to fit 6 x 290 watt panels which would give around 180 amps at 44 volts a day in summer. House loads would not be a problem! I doubt a diesel generator would be neccessary.

 

Just how much space are you prepared to dedicate to these 1800w odd of solar panels?

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Well if we did place them as mentioned they would be outside of the hull. The inner edge being on the top rail of the pushpit and the outer edge held up by a bar that can be lowered to bring the panels in line with the hull. I imagine the higher panels , while sailing could be held out to an optimum angle to the sun. With these 2 x 1 metre panels x 3 that are generating should have power for 4 knots and a bit for the batteries. Only an educated guess though and it would be difficult to achieve the installation of the panels, for example they would have to be high enough to let the mooring lines room to go out under them. My old girls a heavy displacement cruiser so the weight won't be too much of a problem, maybe even get the weight (batteries) a bit lower than with the diesel.

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BBay, I hope you understand that I really am not trying to be negative to all your posts. Honest, but it really does seem that way of late.

While the flexy panels have some considerable advantages, do understand that they are very inefficient when compared to the Rigid ones. Like 25 to30% efficiency for rigid and only 12 to 18% for flexi. This then equates to a notable difference in panel area for watts gathered.

However, here's something that might tickle your fancy. Currently in development is a new coating that acts just like a solar panel, but you paint it on. So imagine your sail becoming one huge flexy solar panel.

The other technology is the "artificial leaf". Imagine your sail harvesting energy the same way as a leaf does. Except in this case, they can go a step further and produce electricity.

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Thats fine Wheels , no offence taken at all. :D No I like a good discussion and don't mind a bit of biffo in it. Its good to get different views and i do appreciat your input. In regards to the flexi solar panels above they are pretty good indeed, some having 17% efficiency and also some at 22%. The thing I like about these is the very light weight, which means one could fix to say 6mm marine ply and then have them stored below till needed and then placed on the side of the yacht that faces the sun. That feature would also improve the efficiency. Also having them light enough to handle would make them safer like taken below in a blow. They would be ideal for the application I have in mind which is attached to the lifeline. I'm not sure how one would wire this sort of a setup though.

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Wheels, is efficiency really a concern if you can put the flexible panels in places that you couldn't or wouldn't put a rigid one? One could argue that the flexi ones are 100% more efficient that a rigid one in that scenario :-)

 

bbay, I like your thinking although 6mm ply would be quite heavy. What about raiding some real estate signs (or something similar). Easy to store and could easily be moved around to maximise the angle to the sun.

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Just need something I can fix harware to Ferrari, using occume ply would be very light and probably strong enough to prevent them getting twisted in the wind if left out overnight for example. These panels can be ordered with zippers! Also eyes in the corners. Be nice with rounded corners on the ply.

Could just have some cord attached to the top of the ply and tie them to the lifeline, dead simple. The 100 watt panels are roughly a bit less than 1200 by 550 so for mine 8 panels would go all the way along one side giving 800 watts at 18 volts so 44 amps :thumbup:

Should be able to sell power to fellow cruisers! :D

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