John,
Please don't take offense. This forum is the only place that I've found where real-world data about electric boats, good or bad, can be found without the spin of somebody trying to sell you something.
I'm pretty sure that many of the people in this group come here looking for un-biased data and information about this niche market. Plenty of people here suggest concepts without knowing the details, hoping that they can get key bits of info from those who have experience in specific areas.
Unfortunately, I find that much of the information is either promotional data (that may or may not be accurate) or anecdotal experiences of the people in the group. While the subjective opinion that "I'm happy with my conversion" says something, it doesn't provide much information to a prospective boat owner to set realistic expectations.
I know that I've got strong opinions about our conversions, but I can supply the data, experience or reasoning behind every one of my posts. I believe that talking up electric conversions without mentioning the compromises is disengenuous and potentially harmful to the industry. One dissatisfied owner can erase the progress of a dozen successful conversions. I think that letting people understand what their getting into will set clearer expectations and result in more satisfied electric boat owners. I want to see all of our vendors succeed, because as they succeed, better gear may become available for all of us.
So I apologize if I came across too strong, I believe that everyone here can benefit from the combined experiences of the entire group. I see this group is kind of an "open source" respository of electric conversion information, when anyone holds back their "proprietary" data, it slows down our industry's development in general.
Fair winds,
Eric
Marina del Rey, CA
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, John Raynes <johncraynes@...> wrote:
>
> Eric,
>
> I share my own experiences of my own electric boat conversion and choose the
> content of what I write on this forum. I was going to publish my sea trials
> here but now I am not sure if that is a good idea.
>
> Please do not to be disrespectful.
>
> John
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Eric <ewdysar@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > John,
> >
> > There are big, heavy, expensive reasons that a fast electric boat won't go
> > far. But you know this. You converted a power boat and used $4000 and 250
> > pounds of batteries to drive it. What was the top speed? What was cruising
> > speed? What was the range at either speed?
> >
> > The people that are asking about these conversions could use some honest
> > real-world information about how well the concept works. The fact that you
> > won't provide any specifics about performance tells me a lot about how the
> > experiment turned out.
> >
> > A power boat that cruises at 3 gallons per hour, is using about 33hp or
> > more than 30kW for a 80% efficient driveline. To cruise at that speed for 1
> > hour would require a 100V x 400Ah battery bank. In Lithium, that translates
> > to 1000 pounds and $17000. So it could be done, but why would anybody do it?
> >
> > I've got a Warp9 motor and a 156V (300A continuous, 750A peak) controller
> > sitting in my garage that could actually drive a good size power boat like I
> > described. But I still can't figure out any good reason to bother. I've got
> > these components slated for another car conversion, this time with Lithium
> > instead of flooded cells like I had to 15 years ago.
> >
> > Fair winds,
> > Eric
> >
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