Electric Propulsion

[carlt]

Soundproofing does wonders, just consider range rovers. No character but they are dead quiet.

 

After driving Series land rovers for many many years I no longer need sound proofing...Eh?

 

Back on topic though the trains get their leccy direct from the grid so it is produced more efficiently than our gennies. If the batteries on the electric boat are charged using shore power then it would be more green, like electric cars. Still not perfect though and I don't know anyone with an electric powered narrowboat who doesn't use a back up genny.

[magnetman]

After driving Series land rovers for many many years I no longer need sound proofing...Eh?

 

Back on topic though the trains get their leccy direct from the grid so it is produced more efficiently than our gennies. If the batteries on the electric boat are charged using shore power then it would be more green, like electric cars. Still not perfect though and I don't know anyone with an electric powered narrowboat who doesn't use a back up genny.

 

'Sounds' quite likely, its all those moving parts, 'air conditioning' and nobbly Avon tyres.

I don't mean to be an anorak here, I don't actually like trains much, but I am sure there are direct diesel-electric trains which don't run on grid power but use an electric motor direct driven from a diesel, or maybe thats gas turbine. probably too big for a narrowboat.

[Supermalc]

Yes a sat nav incorporates a GPS. My point was that a GPS can often give you speed to 0.1 kph, wheras most sat navs only give speed to 1 mph or 1kph, i.e. integer only.

 

Ah! Mine showed 0.1 etc. In fact I was quite impressed, as walking along it showed you the exact speed. It also did in the car, and in fact saved me getting 'flashed' once.

 

Thanks.

[DHutch]

Back on topic though the trains get their leccy direct from the grid so it is produced more efficiently than our gennies...

Not if its a diesal electric!

[NB Alnwick]

It was much easier when they had seperate compartments.

 

And a neat little clip to put over the ash trays so that the doors could not be slid open from the outside.

 

Ah! - those were the days - bring back the compartments, doors with ashtrays and 'blackout blinds' on the windows - yes they were still fitting them in the 1960s . . .

[Andy Bell]

You're using second hand power. My modern diesel generator uses more diesel per hour than my vintage boat engine. You are then using that mechanical engine to generate electricity to charge batteries to power an electric engine to drive your prop. There is a power loss at each stage and you need the same power at the end to drive the prop. The more stages , the less efficiency. Coupled with the inefficiency of affordable battery technology, and the need to regularly replace such hard worked batteries (Battery manufacture consumes energy) then the enviromental debt just keeps mounting.

 

Forgive my ignorance on this but is it not possible to power the propulsion motor directly from the generator through an electronic speed controller/voltage regulator, rather than charging batteries to then power the motor.

Of course you would still need batteries for lighting and power etc.

[Theo]

You're using second hand power. My modern diesel generator uses more diesel per hour than my vintage boat engine. You are then using that mechanical engine to generate electricity to charge batteries to power an electric engine to drive your prop. There is a power loss at each stage and you need the same power at the end to drive the prop. The more stages , the less efficiency. Coupled with the inefficiency of affordable battery technology, and the need to regularly replace such hard worked batteries (Battery manufacture consumes energy) then the enviromental debt just keeps mounting.

 

 

But you are not charging the batteries and then using the batteries to drive the propulsion (unless you charge when stationary and then stop the enginge while you are moving!). You are running the engine at its most scomonical speed and using any excess electricity to charge the batteries. I would have thought that this is liley to be at least as efficient in total as the straight mechanical gearbox arrnagement. I will confess that my opinion is not based on any measurement, though.

 

Nick

[Sir Nibble]

Between my engine and prop is a mechanical gearbox. You could just as easily use hydraulic, or a generator/ motor set up; but all you are doing is choosing a different transmission. The boat would still be diesel propelled and using an electric transmission would not allow you to legally use red. Hybrid cars are technically less efficient due to the losses in each stage of power conversion but more than make up for it by byepassing the most inefficient component in the drive train, the driver.

[John Orentas]

Yes this topic comes very regularly. You are really thinking in terms of a diesel/ electric set-up. What if won't do is save you any money, quite the reverse such projects will invariably leave you with a very large hole in your pocket, as has been said by several others fuel costs too will be high, every time you change the power medium along the drive chain, losses will be in the region of 20% with every change and unless it is outstandingly successful and it won't be you will struggle to sell it.

 

A couple of avenues have appealed to me over the years however just for the fun of it, and if you are that type of person. Buy a old Milk Float for a few hundred pounds doubtless you would need at least another £1000 for a new or rebuilt battery. You will then have all the components you need for a very decent and technically risk-free electric boat (you did remember to make sure the charger was thrown in). If there is one thing a narrowboat has got going for it, it is carrying capacity, you could even fit the charger on the boat too. Use a conventional propeller, shaft and stern tube system the drive to that and gearing should be simple enough. That lot would work and as I said as risk free as you will get, given that a 2 tonne milk float will run a 10 hour shift without problems range would be quite acceptable.

 

And another one, again just for the fun of it. A true diesel/ electric narrowboat.

 

It is generally accepted that a boat needs only 2 - 4 horsepower to easily push it along at canal speeds, that extra reserve of power is only needed now and again for messing about stopping, starting and other daft things. So it follows that if you had an engine producing a constant six or seven horsepower and some means of storing most most of the power you are not actually using that is all you need. A diesel electric can be designed for doing just that.

 

Max 25 horsepower motor unit. (probably 48 volts DC)

7 horsepower diesel generator, constant speed high efficiency.

A few traction batteries

A fairly clever (though not revolutionary) control system to supply a chopped DC to the motor. Well known technology.

 

Again not very high risk, main problem to source a suitable industrial motor and speed controller, nothing new about either, I was using such equipment 20 years ago.

 

P.S. Can't see that there is any environmental issue here, you either burn your fuel in the boat or in the power station, the latter might just make some of us feel better though, a smug smile of the righteous.

Edited December 20, 2006 by John Orentas

[magnetman]

Yes this topic comes very regularly. You are really thinking in terms of a diesel/ electric set-up. What if won't do is save you any money, quite the reverse such projects will invariably leave you with a very large hole in your pocket, as has been said by several others fuel costs too will be high, every time you change the power medium along the drive chain, losses will be in the region of 20% with every change and unless it is outstandingly successful and it won't be you will struggle to sell it.

 

A couple of avenues have appealed to me over the years however just for the fun of it, and if you are that type of person. Buy a old Milk Float for a few hundred pounds doubtless you would need at least another £1000 for a new or rebuilt battery. You will then have all the components you need for a very decent and technically risk-free electric boat (you did remember to make sure the charger was thrown in). If there is one thing a narrowboat has got going for it, it is carrying capacity, you could even fit the charger on the boat too. Use a conventional propeller, shaft and stern tube system the drive to that and gearing should be simple enough. That lot would work and as I said as risk free as you will get, given that a 2 tonne milk float will run a 10 hour shift without problems range would be quite acceptable.

 

And another one, again just for the fun of it. A true diesel/ electric narrowboat.

 

It is generally accepted that a boat needs only 2 - 4 horsepower to easily push it along at canal speeds, that extra reserve of power is only needed now and again for messing about stopping, starting and other daft things. So it follows that if you had an engine producing a constant six or seven horsepower and some means of storing most most of the power you are not actually using that is all you need. A diesel electric can be designed for doing just that.

 

Max 25 horsepower motor unit. (probably 48 volts DC)

7 horsepower diesel generator, constant speed high efficiency.

A few traction batteries

A fairly clever (though not revolutionary) control system to supply a chopped DC to the motor. Well known technology.

 

Again not very high risk, main problem to source a suitable industrial motor and speed controller, nothing new about either, I was using such equipment 20 years ago.

 

My experience of this is seeing an electric boat go past when I was moored at Reading, it was so slow it was ridiculous.

Canals are for CALM!!! SLOW!!! and PEACEFUL!!! boating and this 1mph speed would just completely drive me mental as I rush along at 4mph missing all the historic scenery.

Slow is nice but not when you've got aggrevated queues behind you.

 

Edit: I'm talking about battery driven electric so I've gone and responded to the wrong bit...

Edited December 20, 2006 by magnetman

[aread2]

I hired one of the few remaining electric hire narrowboats on the system last year. Castle narrowboats on the Mon and Brec have two boats that use milkfloat/forklift technology exactly as described earlier in this thread. Range 18 miles. There are about 5 charging points on the 33 miles of the Mon and Brec, so you're tied to stopping at specific points every night. That said, it was wonderfully quiet in motion, with a faint electic motor whine. The loudest sound was the prop-wash behind the boat. The technology is tried and tested. There is even a modern after-market system from the Thames Electric Launch Company that you can add to an existing diesel powered boat. The technology is all there but there is no off the shelf diesel eletric propulsion system. There's no real advantage to installing such a system at the moment. Direct drive diesel is cheap and readily available. If you need to locate the engine in an odd place you can do it with an off the shelf hydraulic system more cheaply than a bespoke diesel electric solution.

[aread2]

'Sounds' quite likely, its all those moving parts, 'air conditioning' and nobbly Avon tyres.

I don't mean to be an anorak here, I don't actually like trains much, but I am sure there are direct diesel-electric trains which don't run on grid power but use an electric motor direct driven from a diesel, or maybe thats gas turbine. probably too big for a narrowboat.

The Rover car company had a gas turbine project in the sixties that never made it into production. I saw one of the P6 prototypes in the Gaydon motor museum and they have a P5 prototype in the National Science Museum in London. There were a substantial number of gas turbines produced for the cars which subsequently found their way onto navy ships as fire pumps (a firend of mine recounted lugging one around the bowels of one of HMs ships in the eighties). One of these would run on kerosene and would be in the power range required. All you'd need would be a means of reducing the output revs to the required level. Or maybe you could use the pump as a sort of water jet...

[carlt]

A friend of mine ran his JP2 on paraffin once (he was given a 45 gallon drum). Said it ran fine but I can't remember if he mixed anything to it or not.

[magnetman]

A friend of mine ran his JP2 on paraffin once (he was given a 45 gallon drum). Said it ran fine but I can't remember if he mixed anything to it or not.

injectors might seize up maybe 20:1 old engine oil like a seagull outboard might do it.