Anyone agree there should be a top level category on here for canal boat electrical conversion?

[Rivelin]

There are lots of folks considering / calculating / installing electrical propulsion for their boats. It would be great to have an area devoted to this so we can all share ideas.

 

[Guest]

Paging @DHutch

1 minute ago, Rivelin said:

There are lots of folks considering / calculating / installing electrical propulsion for their boats. It would be great to have an area devoted to this so we can all share ideas.

 

 

 

Yes I do. In the words of Peter Kay 'its the future'.

[peterboat]

3 hours ago, Rivelin said:

There are lots of folks considering / calculating / installing electrical propulsion for their boats. It would be great to have an area devoted to this so we can all share ideas.

 

I did mine years ago first on a broads cruiser, then on my widebeam. There are threads on it but in reality it would make a good section to help others not make our mistakes! I am helping a friend do his boat so fingers crossed that this one works right first time 

[cuthound]

Until there is a network wide system of charging points, pure electric boats are not really viable.

 

Diesel electric hybrids are practical, but of course will still use fossil fuels.

 

[TheBiscuits]

I don't see that we need a dedicated section for it.

 

There's only really one dedicated thread for electric boats at the moment, although it does come up in discussion on other threads.

 

Do we even have one single thread on converting a boat to electric drive yet?  We do have TLNI who keeps talking about fitting electric drive because he thinks a BMC 1.5 is too powerful for canal use, but he talks about a lot of other things that don't seem to make sense too.

[zenataomm]

Don't bother on my behalf.

[IanD]

2 hours ago, cuthound said:

Until there is a network wide system of charging points, pure electric boats are not really viable.

 

Diesel electric hybrids are practical, but of course will still use fossil fuels.

 

 

Agreed, but quite a lot less of them 😉

 

Still, if you're just concerned about CO2 emissions, the best thing to do today is to keep your existing diesel and run it on HVO, not convert the boat to electric (well, series hybrid) given the CO2 burden of battery manufacture.

 

If you're having a new boat built then electric makes more emissions sense when you consider how long a boat lasts and emissions (including battery manufacture) over lifetime, but nothing like as compelling a case as for cars (about 3x reduction) because boat fuel usage per year is so much lower. And it still doesn't make economic sense, especially when you add on the cost of a generator.

 

Just like EVs on the road, pure electric boats need charging points to really make sense, then you don't need an expensive onboard diesel generator (hopefully, burning HVO). This will happen eventually, but there doesn't seen to be any worked-out plan from CART right now on when this might be or how it could be paid for... 😞

Edited March 21, 2022 by IanD

[alias]

Do many people view the forum by "category" rather than by new content (with whatever categories that they don't want filtered out), or using a search for a specific query?   

[Nightwatch]

What sort of battery and how many do you need to power a CC boat? I have not the slightest idea thereforeI ask.

[IanD]

31 minutes ago, Nightwatch said:

What sort of battery and how many do you need to power a CC boat? I have not the slightest idea thereforeI ask.

That's a bit of a "how long is a piece of string?" question, it depends on the use you want to put the boat to.

 

To give you an idea, for a "go-anywhere" boat (meaning, one with enough power and battery capacity to cope with rivers like the Trent, or the Ribble Passage) you might need a motor around 15kW, a battery bank with about 20kWh usable capacity (e.g. 400Ah at 48V), and a 10kVA onboard generator and 10kVA inverter/charger. If you're willing to accept restrictions on where you can travel, all these numbers can be reduced to save money.

 

Most installations nowadays use LiFePO4 batteries, like this...

 

https://shop.gwl.eu/Winston-12V-sets/

 

A complete installation like this (motor, controller, charger, batteries, generator) built with new components will cost something around £30,000. Cheaper DIY solutions exist (or secondhand components) if this is too rich for you...

Edited March 21, 2022 by IanD

[reg]

A problem with having a dedicated category for  electric propulsion is that all of the generic build info, which will inevitably be included in the threads and discussions, will be missed by those not interested in electric propulsion.

 

A possible simple working solution would be to use EP as the first 2 chars of any appropriste new thread e,g

 

EP Best electric propulsion motors....

EP Battery bank sizeing 

EP Motor cable sizeing

 

 

Etc, etc.

[Nightwatch]

Now that’s an investment.

 

Ithink it’s more suited to a new build rather than a conversion. In my opinion. But someone thinking of replacing a defective engine might well consider it.

 

 

[doratheexplorer]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Both in terms of the forum topic areas, and in terms of how boats are propelled.

[IanD]

2 hours ago, Nightwatch said:

Now that’s an investment.

 

Ithink it’s more suited to a new build rather than a conversion. In my opinion. But someone thinking of replacing a defective engine might well consider it.

 

 

New builds is where most of them are going, for exactly that reason -- and even then deep pockets are needed. But if you look at it as increasing the total cost of a new boat by less than 20% it all seems more affordable, there are bigger price differences than this between different builders for nominally similar boats (yes I know, some will be BMWs and some will be Fords...).

 

Someone with a defective engine is likely to be in a relatively old cheaper boat, and dropping in even a brand new diesel will cost a fraction of the cost of converting to electric -- replacing something dead with something similar is always a lot cheaper than ripping it out in favour of something completely different. I'm sure Peter will come in and say "but I did it all for much less than that using secondhand bits!" which is true -- but then a cheap recon diesel is much cheaper still 😉

2 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

 

Both in terms of the forum topic areas, and in terms of how boats are propelled.

Agreed. It makes little financial/emissions sense to replace a working (or even broken...) diesel with electric, and is marginal (and expensive) even in a new build.

 

But that's not why people are doing it, as I think you're perfectly well aware... 😉

[George and Dragon]

8 minutes ago, IanD said:

New builds is where most of them are going, for exactly that reason -- and even then deep pockets are needed. But if you look at it as increasing the total cost of a new boat by less than 20% it all seems more affordable, there are bigger price differences than this between different builders for nominally similar boats (yes I know, some will be BMWs and some will be Fords...).

 

In my household there is both a BMW and a Ford (similar ages). The Ford is much more usable as a daily driver, and thus gets more use than the BMW. I would not say the build quality is significantly different.

[IanD]

13 minutes ago, George and Dragon said:

In my household there is both a BMW and a Ford (similar ages). The Ford is much more usable as a daily driver, and thus gets more use than the BMW. I would not say the build quality is significantly different.

I think you know perfectly well what I meant (price difference, not value...), but if I'd said "Tyler Wilson" and "Springer" the OP probably wouldn't have had a clue what I was talking about 😉

 

The BMW I had suffered from more problems than any other car I've ever had -- unless I go back to the 1970s Vauxhall Chevette whose big ends went when we were on honeymoon in the Dales...

Edited March 21, 2022 by IanD

[RichM]

4 hours ago, alias said:

Do many people view the forum by "category" rather than by new content (with whatever categories that they don't want filtered out), or using a search for a specific query?   

 

Looking at stats it would suggest the vast majority use site search + VNC and there's also a lot of traffic from search engines such as Google.

 

We need to be careful not to risk going overboard with the number of forums/sub-forums. Too many and we risk cluttering the site which isn't great from a usability perspective particularly for users using mobile devices/tablets etc. It can also be intimidating for newer users who may not know where to post. Personally it seems appropriate to keep things simple. 

 

Also, the software we use to power VNC (ElasticSearch) is very powerful. We have invested a lot in this and it's currently running on its own server so that we can ensure it's fast & reliable without impacting the rest of the site. Finding content irrespective of where it's posted is now much easier in comparison to the old site search 3+ years ago.

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, RichM said:

 

Looking at stats it would suggest the vast majority use site search + VNC and there's also a lot of traffic from search engines such as Google.

 

We need to be careful not to risk going overboard with the number of forums/sub-forums. Too many and we risk cluttering the site which isn't great from a usability perspective particularly for users using mobile devices/tablets etc. It can also be intimidating for newer users who may not know where to post. Personally it seems appropriate to keep things simple. 

 

Also, the software we use to power VNC (ElasticSearch) is very powerful. We have invested a lot in this and it's currently running on its own server so that we can ensure it's fast & reliable without impacting the rest of the site. Finding content irrespective of where it's posted is now much easier in comparison to the old site search 3+ years ago.

 

Search also finds useful posts in threads which have drifted from their original subject, or even original sub-forum -- and there's a *huge* amount of useful information in here, if only people look...

 

Not that this *ever* happens on CWDF... 😉

[alias]

12 minutes ago, RichM said:

Finding content irrespective of where it's posted is now much easier in comparison to the old site search 3+ years ago.

 

Yes, I've noticed the performance improvements and appreciate them. Thank you, and anyone else involved in delivering this.

Edited March 21, 2022 by alias

[reg]

Deleted

Edited March 21, 2022 by reg

[peterboat]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

 

New builds is where most of them are going, for exactly that reason -- and even then deep pockets are needed. But if you look at it as increasing the total cost of a new boat by less than 20% it all seems more affordable, there are bigger price differences than this between different builders for nominally similar boats (yes I know, some will be BMWs and some will be Fords...).

 

Someone with a defective engine is likely to be in a relatively old cheaper boat, and dropping in even a brand new diesel will cost a fraction of the cost of converting to electric -- replacing something dead with something similar is always a lot cheaper than ripping it out in favour of something completely different. I'm sure Peter will come in and say "but I did it all for much less than that using secondhand bits!" which is true -- but then a cheap recon diesel is much cheaper still 😉

Agreed. It makes little financial/emissions sense to replace a working (or even broken...) diesel with electric, and is marginal (and expensive) even in a new build.

 

But that's not why people are doing it, as I think you're perfectly well aware... 😉

I did do it cheap Ian and so have others, it's not hard to either find the kit to do it, or indeed do the conversion. The other plus is the reduction in license fee.

My conversion was made easier by having the solar to start with, yes I had to add more but solar was as cheap as chips maybe not so cheap at the moment. 

I don't regret going electric at all, in some ways its made my boat better to  live on, the extra solar heats water in late spring to early autumn, in winter it makes me mostly independent of plugin power. As for silent cruising its awesome such a nice experience creeping up on nature because it doesn't hear you. 

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

16 minutes ago, peterboat said:

As for silent cruising its awesome such a nice experience creeping up on nature because it doesn't hear you. 

I have to switch the engine off and drift to experience that, it really is lovely.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Goliath

[TheBiscuits]

Just now, Goliath said:

I have to switch the engine off and drift to experience that, it’s really is lovely.

 

It's what the Poncywotsit Aqueduct is for ...

[IanD]

1 hour ago, peterboat said:

I did do it cheap Ian and so have others, it's not hard to either find the kit to do it, or indeed do the conversion. The other plus is the reduction in license fee.

My conversion was made easier by having the solar to start with, yes I had to add more but solar was as cheap as chips maybe not so cheap at the moment. 

I don't regret going electric at all, in some ways its made my boat better to  live on, the extra solar heats water in late spring to early autumn, in winter it makes me mostly independent of plugin power. As for silent cruising its awesome such a nice experience creeping up on nature because it doesn't hear you. 

 

Like I said, it can be done on the cheap using secondhand gear, like you and others have done. But to do this safely with DIY you need to know what you're doing, which you and Nick and others do but anyone coming in and asking basic questions about electric boats certainly won't do -- remember, not everybody is you (on a wideboat with >5kW of solar, for example). And it's still more expensive than dropping in a reconditioned diesel in place of a knackered one.

 

About the advantages, absolutely agreed, otherwise I wouldn't be getting one built. But the question I was answering was about costs... 😉

Edited March 21, 2022 by IanD

[cuthound]

17 hours ago, IanD said:

I think you know perfectly well what I meant (price difference, not value...), but if I'd said "Tyler Wilson" and "Springer" the OP probably wouldn't have had a clue what I was talking about 😉

 

The BMW I had suffered from more problems than any other car I've ever had -- unless I go back to the 1970s Vauxhall Chevette whose big ends went when we were on honeymoon in the Dales...

 

The least reliable car I ever owned was a Vauxhall.Chevette. in the 3 years I owned it it went through two recon gearboxes and a recon engine.