help needed with electric porpulsion set up

Hi i have just completed buiding a 29' river boat and am now thinking of going with electric motor instead of marine inboard engine.has anyone done this i am thinking of useing 20kw motor as i would not have used anything over the 28hp on the boat.i am completely new to this and would like to know what i would need to buy regards total setup.:?: kind regards mark

 

Batteries, controller, drive train, motor: ~$20 000US or more...

-Tom

 

thank you big money

 

Currently, electric propulsion isn't practical when compared to other, more conventional systems. This may change, but today it's not viable.

 

PAR, with all due respect, I disagree. It is certainly true for the majority of applications but not all. Look at Jeremy Harris's success.

-Tom

 

I haven't seen Jeremy's setup, though I suspect it has all the draw backs of nearly every electric propulsion arrangement I've seen in pleasure craft with, weight, range and cost issues. In most cases these systems rival diesel costs with a fraction of the range and usually more weight. I'd love to see some storage capacity innovations decrease the common issues, but to date none are viable. Do you have a link to Jeremy's setup? In other words, the Tesla is a cool car and fast, but it handles like it has 3/4's of a ton in ballast (which it does), it cost a hell of a lot more then a Corvette and on a good day it has a few hours of range, which is a joke. At the other end of the scale are the little around town cars that have modest range, lack luster preformance and handle like the burdened slugs they are. Okay so you feed it a buck and a half of electricity over several hours and you're good to go another 50 miles. Please . . . Don't get me wrong, it's coming, but we've been hearing this same dribble from the electric guys for decades. The bottom line is the weight of storage and the amount of storage. Costs have come down a tad, but compared to a gas engine and tank?

 

Jeremy runs his boat on cordless drills.

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/beautiful-skeleton-37456-5.html#post468621

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y139/Clayhithe/101_2275.jpg

That's a bit unfair. Actually he has a few different projects/ideas in the works, but I liked this one because it is so applicable to canoes, of which I own one.

 

Cordless drill motors are not continuous use applications and frankly you don't want to know my opinion of such an enterprise, unless you have a truck load of drill motors lying around looking for a home. Then you still have the weight of the nicads and literally hundreds of yards of range per charge! Oh please . . .

 

sun21 crossed the atlantic using batteries and solar cells

http://www.transatlantic21.org/
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/05/0517_solar_vehicles/source/6.htm


how about the DSE hybrid?
http://www.dsehybrid.com/




right now all these options are pricey, but if you have money and are a strong determined goal oriented person, you can power a boat using solar power.

 

Most of these boats plug in at night so are really just "solar assisted". I used to run a solar assisted gondola-style tour boat here in the harbour, they were grossly underpowered and only lasted a couple of years despite huge government grants...

-Tom

 

The DSE has received a number of scathing reviews, I believe Tads was the most comprehensive, sorry not sure what thread its in. I'm going to have to go with Par on this one, who is likely still picking himself up off the floor. You are right tho, if you have enough money you can "make" something work. But is it in any way practical. Electric cars are pretty much here to stay and thankfully so, but for energy density and convenience liquid fuels are still, unfortunately, the norm.

and that coming from a guy who runs his truck on alternative fuels. I"d like to see some pretty big changes about as bad as anyone but its got to be practical and effective, thus far ocean travel by electric power is simply not very practical.

If your trying to find an alternative fuel for ocean travel consider plastic, the pyrolysis process yields a nearly 1 to 1 conversion ratio when #1 and #2 plastics are used. The system can use its own by products to generate the heat needed but its difficult to calibrate so most DIY systems use electric power generated off previous fuel production. You can use a simple diesel engine. Drawback, is you need to collect waste plastic, or you can buy it, goes for about $50 a ton graded and shredded, sold in bales.

 

thanks for all the information

wondering would it be possible to look for a scrape electric car or forklift

and buy the battery bank and motor and redesign it to fit my river boat.

My range will not be to far when using it few hours a day up the river weekend usage only

But i do recognise the choice to keep going is a good thing. thanks all of you for the fed back

 

A battery bank for a 20 KW electric motor is going to be huge. You can buy a dozen outboards or a few inboards for the cost of this electric installation.

 

it would be possible but your energy usage is so significantly higher on a marine application that the battery back would be entirely inadequate and you get into a scenario of diminishing returns on a pack that gives you much range. I've worked it out about ten times already doing my own daydreaming and your more likely as not to be looking at about 20+ deep cycle batteries

 

Mark

There is an electric boat forum at yahoo which could tell you a bit more about what is possible with your setup. Basically, One pound of gas = 100 pounds of lead batts.