Electric motor for prop

[Southern Star]

 

Is that as reliable as your stance on Honda 12v generator charger output

As well as myself, both Bottle and NB Innisfree tried to explain to you the difference between output and input, using ever increasingly simple terms but if you couldn't understand it yesterday then it's highly unlikely that you will understand it today so I really don't see any point in debating it further.

[Ex- Member]

Explain the N/B's actually doing it then

[Southern Star]

As Richard says firstly the panels are not aligned with the sun so the output will be down on what you've predicted. Also the 15% efficiency figure is very high - sun 10% is more accurate. The power from the panels will been to be put through some form of power converter (MPPT controller) to match it to the batteries. A good one is about 90% efficient (slightly higher if you pay a lot more). Then you'll need to charge the batteries - there are losses there.

 

I do understand that- if anything my figures were skewed towards those arguing for solar power as a practical means of propulsion for a narrowboat. In realistic, everyday terms however, solar power can only provide about a tenth of the power of a diesel engine dating from the 1950s and so in everyday terms, I'd say it was a bit of a non-starter.

[Ex- Member]

I do understand that- if anything my figures were skewed towards those arguing for solar power as a practical means of propulsion for a narrowboat. In realistic, everyday terms however, solar power can only provide about a tenth of the power of a diesel engine dating from the 1950s and so in everyday terms, I'd say it was a bit of a non-starter.

 

So as I stated a boat can be run on solar power, what's the problem

 

If you bothered to read the thread you will also see I clearly stated it would have limitations.

 

You clearly didn't check the Honda website with regard to their generator charging ability either

Edited January 6, 2014 by Julynian

[Southern Star]

Just one little word of advice- putting at the end of every sentence doesn't make it an argument-winner.

[Ex- Member]

Just one little word of advice- putting at the end of every sentence doesn't make it an argument-winner.

 

I don't need to

 

You might also check back on the thread regarding Honda, where nb Innisfree agreed he was talking nonsense, and I qoute. You're right I don't know what I'm talking about or doing!

I'm out of here, time to move on.

 

 

let's try a you seem to want to argue Black is White, although we've found it amusing thus far, it's now becoming tedious and you're really boring me now

Edited January 6, 2014 by Julynian

[Tim Lewis]

there was an article in one of the canal magazines last summer about some boffin from Lancaster university (I think) who had converted a small GRP narrow boat to solar only and managed to cruise some way on the L&L in it. IRC he had used pretty much off the shelf components without too much difficulty.

 

I personally think at the moment the hybrid option using a conventional diesel plus DC 'lynch' motor/generator seems the best option. (but not cheap)

Saw a hybrid at a show recently, looked like an expensive way of getting some quiet boating, info at:

 

http://www.hybrid-marine.co.uk/9.html

 

Tim

there was an article in one of the canal magazines last summer about some boffin from Lancaster university (I think) who had converted a small GRP narrow boat to solar only and managed to cruise some way on the L&L in it. IRC he had used pretty much off the shelf components without too much difficulty.

 

I personally think at the moment the hybrid option using a conventional diesel plus DC 'lynch' motor/generator seems the best option. (but not cheap)

Saw a hybrid at a show recently, looked like an expensive way of getting some quiet boating, info at:

 

http://www.hybrid-marine.co.uk/9.html

 

Tim

Edited January 6, 2014 by Tim Lewis

[Southern Star]

 

 

 

You might also check back on the thread regarding Honda, where nb Innisfree agreed he was talking nonsense, and I qoute. You're right I don't know what I'm talking about or doing!

I'm out of here, time to move on.

 

 

 

Did the thought enter your mind that he might have been taking the Mickey out of you?

 

One more...

 

There! I win! Five lol faces!

[Ex- Member]

Did the thought enter your mind that he might have been taking the Mickey out of you?

 

One more...

 

There! I win! Five lol faces!

 

Deereo me how very tragic

 

[Chalky]

If you want an interesting motor instead of the Lynch motor have a look at the switched reluctance motors from SR drives in Harrogate. Lots of advantages compared to PM and induction motors e.g. increased speed range so you don't need a gearbox and no H bridges in the inverter so no chance of inverter shoot through.

[RLWP]

Yes, I do realise that energy could be stored, although on the maths it would seem that a boat would need to harvest energy for several bright and cloudless days to travel for one day. This would be a battery-powered boat rather than a solar powered boat though, and while I know battery-powered boats exist (a friend of mine used to operate the one at the Black Country Living Museum), I don't think solar power could be described as a realistic means of propulsion for anything other than a niche, experimental boat.

I was pitching in a bunch of additional factors that support and expand your post.

 

And, a niche, experimental boat describes this kind of project very nicely. It may change in the future due to development pressures around energy storage and renewable energy sources, but today...

 

Chalky is your man. He has spent the 10,000 hours to become an expert. I'm doing back of an envelope guesses here

 

Richard

[Dalslandia]

Interesting tread, I want a hybrid so I read all I can find, this make me an expert, well not :-) but humble for those that have knowlege and those that have experiance. (of the topic)

 

What I found so far, electric drive is best at slow speeds, can be don for a long period.

going faster on lakes or rivers the diesel is hard to beat

The parallell hybrid is better then serie hybrid

Serie hybrid or pure electric cars is popular with politicians, this is pure energy (where will we store the used batterys? China don't accept them anymore.)

A diesel is 35% efficient as best.

a electric drive with batteries, 90% * 95% * 95% = 80% out

charging with a diesel gen, 35% * 70% * 95% * 90% = 21% in

Total serie hybrid efficiency ~16-17%

A diesel going slow maybe 5%, fast ~30% at the prop shaft

solar panels is getting better but 10% - 15% but we don't have to pay for the sun, when the panels is payed for, they also getting cheeper.

 

A big battery bank is better! but charge time and rate play with us also, there are some with smaller batteries and sun panels. ligther and less energy to drive.

 

on a steel boat NB or WB barlast can be changed for batteries.

 

going slow as in canals takes little power, not counting the suction from canal bottom and sides.

say top speed, 100% power, 8 knots, at 4 knots it takes 12,5% power and at 2 knots 1,6%

If the boat have a ? 35HP engine, we might get 28-30hp max at the prop shaft, a 10kW motor will produce 10kW but draw 12-13kW electric power from battery.

 

A NB seems to use 1 liter an hour at tickover, going 2-2,5 kts, an WB maybe 1,5 liter. say half of that is to drive the engine itself and alternator load, we have 0,5 - 0,75 liter of diesel energy, producing 2,3 -3,4 HP into rotating power. thats 1,7 - 2,5 kW

Thats 2,1-3,1 kW needed from batteries, or sun panels

 

Sun panels seems to produce 1/3 of its rated power per hour, AVERAGE from spring to autumn, and naturally peak at noon in June/July

 

If we can have "2 kW" of sun panels on the boat, and have 10 hours of sun light in a day, we can get 2 * 1/3 *10 = 6,7 kWh in a good day, give or take some depending on month and shaddows.

 

If we cruise 5-6 hours a day, we use 10,5 - 18,5 kWh, but motor maybe is used only half that time if there is many locks or stops, so 5-9 kWh.

 

If it is far between the locks we can cruise with diesel engine, and go little faster, say 3-3,5 mph average if 4 is max. and recharge in the same time. that increase the efficiency of the diesel, doing two jobs in the same time, with higher load, then if just driving the propeller or just charging.

 

When cruising the propeller only need to rotate when going, when moored or waiting, in locks, the electric motor don't use any energy, the diesel engine might be running all the time for safety, using diesel, making noise and exhaust

 

A diesel for bulk charge and solar for top of or float charge the last 10% seems good, if we cruise the parallell hybrid will do the bulk charge on faster kanal parts or rivers,

 

Moored a coconed gen set "sounds" good to me, if there is no main shore charging point.

 

Economical it is hard to beat the diesel, the sun panels hardly pay for them self in there life time, but that is getting better and better, with more efficient panels that is cheaper. but it make us independent

 

Batteries have a life span of 3-10 years, depeending on how we use them and TLC. discharge them to 20% every time and they last 200-400 times, going to 50% is more economical, both time and use takes the life out of them. so, to big bank is as uneconomical as a too small bank. discharge rate is also one factor, they need to be able to leave full power to the motor without getting to hot, on the other side they need to be charged hard enough to do the bulk charge.

 

As someone said we can buy alot of diesel for those money the batteries and panels cost, a shore line is more economical then sun panels, so if not for beeing economical, there is other reasons going electric, silence, now we can hear our better half in the bow complaning on our driving :-) we can glide along nice parts of our canals and see wildlife beeing asleep, the seals, the hippos and crocks on the canal bank.

 

AND we tend to buy batteries and sun panels anyway, maybe not the roof and keel full, but half way there, and we use more and more electricity, despite we buy more and more low energy stuff.

 

but the fact is even if the electric is more energy efficient then the diesel going dead slow, the diesel using 1 liter in an hour.

Its like travel to thailand, barging about the price of the cap or shirt, saving 50% that is £1 thinking we made a good deal.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Dalslandia

[Alastair]

on a steel boat NB or WB barlast can be changed for batteries.

 

good luck with doing that.

 

Where will you put the batteries? Most narrowboats struggle to provide decent headroom, with flooring laid on the steel crossmembers. That leaves you with a 4"-high space for your batteries.

[bizzard]

Use flat batteries in shallow spaces.

[Dalslandia]

good luck with doing that.

 

Where will you put the batteries? Most narrowboats struggle to provide decent headroom, with flooring laid on the steel crossmembers. That leaves you with a 4"-high space for your batteries.

 

I know how NB is designed, I don't mean we change all barlast for batteries, and there are electric NB's and I am sure they use batteries, so does "non" electric boats, having 2-6 batteries for domestic use.

The odessey 1800 is 5" thick and can be laid on the side, standing up they is still 5" thick.

How many is needed, ? say you want to cruise for 2 days no shore charging or using engine, going to C 50%.

say using 2,5 kW 3 hours a day for 2 days, (or 6 hours in one day sometimes)

we need 2,5 * 3 * 2 = 15kWh from the batteries, (the losses is included)

say 6,5 kWh from sun panels, 15-6,5=8,5 at 50% so the bank need to be 17 kWh

in 10 hour rate the Odessy leves ~202 ah or 2340Wh so we need 7-8 batteries a 60 kg = 420-480 kg

How much barlast is there in a NB?

we can subtract the normal domstic batteries also.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Dalslandia

[Robbo]

There's a Tjalk called Sara that's electrically propelled. I think the specs were... 13Kw diesel generator, 4 48v motors, a number of batteries and a number of victron kit to connect it all. I think the spend was around £20K in total and could get around 3 hours using the batteries alone.

 

If I had the choice it would be something I would look at.

 

Edit to add this link that should be of interest; http://www.electric-boat-association.org.uk/

Edited January 7, 2014 by Robbo

[Dalslandia]

Nice barge you have there Robbo!

[Alastair]

I'm a bit familiar with 'Sara'; I sold her (<sniff, I loved that boat>) to the people who installed the electric system. One of them was an engineer and they didn't want any gas onboard, so were going to be installing a gennie for an electric cooker anyway.

 

£20k is a lot, didn't know they'd spent that much. That's more than half the purchase price of the boat!

 

Sara used to have a 90Hp merc diesel (very noisy and lots of vibration) that would do 9 knots over water or 6knots cruising (we were moored on a river). I'd bought a boat with such a big engine after struggling on a narrowboat when the river current picked up. 90Hp was enough for me to tow some other boats against the current, confidently motor along the coast and go anywhere. I'm not sure I'd try that with the electric system.

[Chalky]

Use flat batteries in shallow spaces.

 

Use lithium pouch cells. http://www.a123systems.com/prismatic-cell-amp20.htm

 

For

 

They're flat so would package easily.

 

Against

 

Connections between cells

implementing a battery management system with all of its interconnects

cooling

What happens under fault conditions ...

 

 

 

The parallell hybrid is better then serie hybrid

 

Depends what you're trying to do.

 

Parallel hybrid lets you connect the engine directly to the wheels and you get a reduction in system losses. Engine speed varies considerably and can't be kept at an emissions / efficiency optimised point.

 

Series hybrid removes the direct connection between the engine and the wheels. the engine powers a generator which supplies power to an electric motor which drives the wheels. Engine performance can be optimised for economy and emissions. Potential for a very good economy, emissions and performance.

 

Series hybrids have appeared in a number of places:- SS Canberra and Jaguar CX75 to name two.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Chalky

[Dalslandia]

Correct, In a boat I meant. was not clear enough.

In a car the serial hybrid seems to gain in popularity, and that thanks to regenerating, and surprisingly? free wheeling ala SAAB 92, with no braking from regenerating. I don't remember if that was BMW or Mercedes?

 

I guess it is a smart thing to have a 48V generator to a 48V battery bank, as in Sara,

Biggles is doing something similar with his gen set. even if it not a electric propelled boat, in every conversions of energy there is losses. minimum 5-10% losses.

 

The diesel engine have ~70% losses, but we can use some of that to heat the boat and warm water.

 

One thing not mentioned is propeller efficiency, an electric boat can have a larger, higher pitched propeller, giving higher overall efficiency.

(But sure we can have that on a diesel too, with a higher gear ratio) but with more prop walk.

 

A parallell hybrid add safety in the redundency of having two ways to drive the propeller. best with clutches to both motor/generator and engine, then each by its self can be most efficient.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Dalslandia

[Robbo]

I'm a bit familiar with 'Sara'; I sold her (<sniff, I loved that boat>) to the people who installed the electric system. One of them was an engineer and they didn't want any gas onboard, so were going to be installing a gennie for an electric cooker anyway.

 

£20k is a lot, didn't know they'd spent that much. That's more than half the purchase price of the boat!

 

Sara used to have a 90Hp merc diesel (very noisy and lots of vibration) that would do 9 knots over water or 6knots cruising (we were moored on a river). I'd bought a boat with such a big engine after struggling on a narrowboat when the river current picked up. 90Hp was enough for me to tow some other boats against the current, confidently motor along the coast and go anywhere. I'm not sure I'd try that with the electric system.

 

Very nice looking boat!

 

Found the post they did in 2008 regarding... http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=17733&p=290644

 

 

We've just completed conversion of Sara to electric drive and did a week of 'sea trials' in October, these details may help:

 

Sara is an Ijselaak, with a 'proper' boat shape, not a flat bottom and blunt ends. She is 14.1 metres long and 3.5 metres beam.

Calculated hull speed is about 8mph.

 

Propulsion system is:

Four 10Kw 48v DC Lynch motors, mounted in a frame with reduction kevlar belt drives onto a single shaft.

Four 300amp 48volt 4QD motor controllers paralleled up to one joystick controller.

Traction battery bank giving 825 AH at 48 volts.

13KW 48 volt DC Fischer Panda cocooned generator.

Two paralleled Victron Combi inverter chargers giving 70amps charging at 48 volts and 6KW of 240v AC for domestic use.

 

Much to my relief the sea trials confirmed my design calcs almost spot on:

Cruising at 3mph takes about 60amps, i.e. around 3KW.

Cruising at around 4.5mph (Aire and Calder - so that is allowed!) consumes about 110 amps, ie around 5KW.

Going up to 6mph increased the consumption to about 350 amps, ie 17.5KW.

Bursts of 'full throttle' take consumption up to over 600 amps.

 

So at normal cruising speed our battery bank will support about 6 hours cruising before we have to either start the generator or return to a shore line. At higher speeds, e.g. for river work, we would start the generator straight away.

At 6mph, assuming full batteries, with the generator running, we have about 5 hours before we have to reduce speed.

I wouldn't want much less generator capacity than the 13KW otherwise the ability to do, say, the tidal Trent would be compromised.

 

Cruising without the generator running, particularly as Sara produces very litle wash, is very quiet - we have a stealth barge!

 

HTH

 

John

MV Sara.

Nice barge you have there Robbo!

thank you

[ditchcrawler]

Bit more info here http://www.waterwayroutes.co.uk/wr/faq-electric-propulsion.html

[jonathanA]

 

Why?

 

I can see exactly why hybrids work on cars - reclaiming energy from braking being the most significant feature. I can't see any advantage for a boat

 

Richard

 

I think you and chalky have missed the point a bit.

 

regenerative braking is relatively new on hybrid cars and clearly not applicable to boats (although no doubt someone will think of a way of doing it) BUT its not the main driver for hybrid cars nor is it the main source of charge, isn't regenerative charging on cars more about extending the range/time between charges and reclaiming energy (charging batteries rather than warming brakes) improving overall efficency ?

 

I think the advantages of electric drive in terms of acceleration and control at low speeds are just as applicable to boats (more so in fact). typically hybrid cars start off on electric and switch to petrol/diesel either when more oomph is needed or when the batts need charging or/and to increase top speed and range again all applicable to a boat surely.

 

Whether the cost is worthwhile or not is always going to be subjective and a matter of personal opinion or taste.

[RLWP]

 

I think you and chalky have missed the point a bit.

 

 

I may not understand it well, it's Chalky's day job

 

Richard

[Dalslandia]

Bit more info here http://www.waterwayroutes.co.uk/wr/faq-electric-propulsion.html

 

Interesting, conferms what we say here,

They could used the Lynch/Agni? motor ar generator too, to get another 50 AMPs and shorten the charge time