electric jet propelled surfboard

is it possible for me to build a solar powered jet propelled surfboard? i wanted a cheap fun watercraft because of petrol prices.
i was thinking of using a stand up paddle board with solar panels under a clear plastic sheet at the front where i wouldn't be standing the put a lithium ion battery towards the middle the use a high powered angle grinder with over 6000 rpm for an engine to drive an impeller . i dont know if i need more power or what i need to make this work? any ideas as i am only 16 and need help but would love it as a project

 

No Aaron.Melvin, your chances of success are zero.
Your "solar panels under a clear plastic sheet" cannot provide the power, the lithium battery cannot supply the voltage and the angle grinder will either suffocate if sealed in, or drown.

 

As CDK rightly says, it can't be done.

Here's an example:

I have a solar powered boat. It has four 50 W solar panels fitted to a sun awning. They measure (in total) around 2.28 m long by 0.78 m wide.

My boat needs around 120 W to run at about 4 mph on a canal or slow moving river.

My solar panels can just about supply enough power in bright sunshine to run the boat, but I have to rely on a big (80 Ah) battery to buffer the panel output to cope with periods of cloud cover. Because I don't motor the boat all the time this works OK; every time I stop the battery gets recharged.

Jet systems are highly inefficient. An acquaintance has built a jet powered electric surfboard, using big model jet units and lithium batteries. It takes around 6,000 W to run at a fairly slow speed (maybe 10 kts at best). If it were solar powered then it would need a solar panel area around 50 times bigger than mine, in other words a set of panels around 24 m long by 3 m wide, which would be wholly impractical on such a small craft.

 

thank you for the advice but is there anyway i could do it using existing components on the market for a relatively cheap price?

 

No, I'm afraid not. As CDK and I have tried to explain, it isn't physically possible to get enough power from solar panels to drive something like a small water jet unit fitted to a surfboard.

It's down to the laws of physics, I'm afraid. You need a lot more power to drive a water jet powered surfboard than is available from the power of the sun shining on the area of a surfboard, by a very large factor.

 

Now, if you were to get a large parachute type wing and outfit it's entire surface with light weight solar cells you might get enough lift and power to make it go... maybe... but you probably wouldn't want to get it wet... and it wouldn't be cheap...

 

but but if i scraped the idea of solar panels , i asked if there was any possible cheap way to do it , preferably a renewable source of energy , for example if you can charge this device form your car it must not be very power hungry but i want a cheaper faster version of it just need help with components like an electric engine the i could seal in and would not overheat or some system to cool it and i need to be pointed in the right direction for batteries , clearly this is possible to be done but i want to incorporate a longer battery life faster speed and maybe a renewable source to charge it on-board to extend travel time

http://wavejet.com/how-it-works/technology/the-wavejet-pod.html

 

How about kite surfing?

The wind is solar powered.

 

battery weight is the problem

1959 Gas Powered Surfboard "Surf Skimmer"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU98yxAcWRQ

2002 "The Jetboard is a combination surfboard/JetSki incorporating a 25 x 43 x 16 cm high, two-stroke, water-cooled, 45hp engine and an axial flow jet pump into a (slightly larger than average) surfboard form-factor to deliver a stand-up ride over flat water at speeds up to 65kmh"
http://www.gizmag.com/go/2526/

 

All current electrical storage batteries are more expensive than gas and several to 100 times heavier. It's not the cheap way to go even if you can recharge for free because the replacement cost of batteries is high, and they don't last too long. Any battery you might use on the board that can deliver the equivalent energy to a gallon of gas over it's lifetime will cost more than a gallon of gas. Small craft are at a disadvantage power wise and gas outboards are the cheapest option by far for little boats. Learn to fix up little outboards. I haven't paid more than $100 for any of my last half dozen. Most less than $50. Sell one or two to pay for your hobby.

 

Just to give you an idea, Aaron.Melvin, of the sort of power/performance you can expect from using electrically powered jet drives on a vessel quite like a surfboard, look at this sit-on-top powered by two electric jet drives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6qM2dVFUt0&feature=player_embedded

It uses 6,000 W and honestly isn't at all impressive in terms of performance. The builder of this abandoned the idea of using jet drives and has switched to a conventional propeller drive, which will be much more efficient, as well as much cheaper.

If you want to build a cheap electric boat then the very cheapest way to do it is to use an electric trolling motor and leisure battery (the type often used as caravan and small motor home supplementary batteries). A simple and easily built hull that's easily driven, like this one: http://www.bateau2.com/free/cheapcanoe.htm made from just two sheets of plywood would be a good start. You can modify the trolling motor to get better performance, take a look at the work that MCDenny did here: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/efficient-electric-boat-27996-17.html#post305142 and here: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/efficient-electric-boat-27996-28.html#post381261

Something like this would give you some experience of building stuff, plus you would end up with a boat that would give you a fair bit of fun, for not too much money. If you shop around you can often buy electric trolling motors quite cheaply, and modifying one for better performance is also pretty cheap, too.

 

How about this one. http://www.gizmag.com/wavejet-motorized-tow-in-surfboard/22055/pictures

 

Aaron, do you call you car a "renewable source of energy"?

 

Well i suppose depends on what the car runs on and what its made from . And yes ive seen the gas powered surfboards such as the "powerski","powersurf"and the wave jet electric surf boat but just for the wave jet it is 2000-3000 dollars and thats the cheapest option the others are in the teen thousands.... So if i was to construct a gas powered engine for a surfboat could i tune it to run on bio fuel or chip oil ?

 

If you want to be "green" why don't you paddle your board. I, for one, would be grateful not to have to hear or smell the engine in your board. There is a new generation of surfers that use PWCs to tow them in and they destroy the peace we used to have waiting for a wave.