Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Re: [Electric Boats] Dufour 34 conversion, first sea trial

 

Skip, it is 11,000 lbs. as per manufacturer's specs, plus all the load for cruising (two water tanks, three group 31 house batteries, two inflatables, three anchors, one 6HP four stroke, air conditioner, etc, etc, etc).  I think the electric conversion resulted in a saving of 100 to 150 lbs. Alberto


On 6/1/2010 12:48 PM, Skip von Niederinghausen wrote:

 

Alberto,

What is the  displacement of your DUfour. I am putting an electric yacht 260i system in my  boat (Moody 43) in  the next week or so,.

Skip

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 11:29 AM, Alberto Cogut <Alberto.Cogut@verizon.net> wrote:
 

Over the weekend I finalized the system installation and yesterday we had the first sea trial.  The boat is a 1975 Dufour 34, about 14,000#.  The system's main components are: Mars ME0709 (Etek RT), Kelly PM72401 controller, QuickCharge multi-battery charger, 72V AGM battery pack, 400A solenoid, and Paktrkr monitor.  Gear is 2.4:1 ratio, high-torque synchronous.  The system started immediately.  The only problem was the AMP meter, which unfortunately did not work.

Conditions: wind was somewhat gusty, 10 knots, flat seas.  The boat has been in the water for a long time and there are quite a few barnacles on the bottom, and I would guess on the propeller too (unfortunately the Northern Chesapeake is getting murkier and it is very difficult to visually check more than 1 or 2 inches deep).  The prop is the same, inefficient two-blade 13x10 that was used with the diesel.

First impressions: unbelievably quite.  Up to 3.0/3.2 knots it was impossible to tell if the motor was running or not, at 4.0 a low hum, a little louder at 4.5 (the engine compartment is sound insulated and the motor/gear frame is mounted on the old diesel mounts).  The difference between motoring with and against the wind was less than ½ knot at around 3.0 knots.  We took the boat against the wind up to around 5.5 knots (which it would have been the limit with the diesel, given the hull/propeller condition) and I still had about ¼ of the throttle run left.  After a minute or so we lowered the speed to 3.0 knots and I checked the system, the controller was not even warm (it is mounted on a hefty heat sink), the motor was quite hot to the touch.  I would have liked to be able to read the amp-meter…  Besides the quite ride, the other great surprise was backing into the slip: for the first time I had good control and immediate response.  Once on shore power, the battery charger got really hot (more than the motor), to the point that I will relocate it to a better ventilated area.

Overall we were extremely happy.  Range with the smallish 105Ah bank will be the next item to determine, but I expect it to serve us well for the kind of sailing we do. 

For those using the ME0709, how hot does it normally get?

Alberto


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