Hi jostalli7,
I'm not sure what you are calling a huge markup. None of the vendor supplied drive solutions are a motor and controller in a box leaving you to figure out how to adapt everything else to your boat.
When I looked at what I pay for the bare components that were included in my drive system, the price that I paid Propulsion Marine was only 25% more. With that came a great deal of advise and recommendations that ranged from my propeller to the appropriate amount fo reduction to clear wiring diagrams to battery options. As a result, I installed my system once, it worked beautifully and outperformed my estimates based on the reported performance of similar boats (you can see my observed performance data if you search some of my previous posts).
Given my consideable experience in getting different electric car conversions operational, I found the vendor "premium" well worth my time and money. But your experience may be differnt, and we all get to spend our money in our own ways.
I believe that if I had tried to wing it on my own, my installation would have taken significantly longer and I probably would have had to do various parts of the installation over. If I was lucky, I wouldn't have to buy more of the same parts as I gained experience and tuned my system. Other DIY'ers have reported damaging some components through their inexperience increasing their startup costs.
With the experience that I gained in doing this conversion, I could probably put together my own drive from scratch with a high chance of success. However, I would probably still buy a complete system, to save time, support our fledgling industry and to encourage further advancements. Since our vendors install many systems in differnet boats, they have more opportunity to try new things and work out the kinks before making them accessable to anyone with a cordless drill, some wrenches , and little practical experience in coverting boats to electric drive.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think that buying a complete drive system from a reputable vendor is moeny well spent.
Fair winds,
Eric
Marina del Rey, CA
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "jostalli7" <jstallings@...> wrote:
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> I'm in agreement that a complete DIY is ill-advised. However, what is confusing to me is the huge markup of the the motors and controllers from these vendors you mention. Two of them use the Lynch motor, which can be purchased for a little over $1000. The controllers they use are around $600.
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