Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Re: [Electric Boats] Conversion kit

 

I think Eric summed it up.. gear ratio prop pitch being the first culprits I'd think too.
motors not geared to spin-n-breath.. like 80-85% of free spin RPM, are gonna cook!
(I'm a simple guy that likes to tinker, and its usually much smaller projects)
 
not taking sides but as a vendor I'd be frustrated hearing "this is junk!"
and as a customer I'd be just as frustrated with "this stuff dont work!"
as either one of em, yup, I'd likely get real pissy real quick.
 
personally, I'd be breaking out the calculator, prop pitch to motor RPM etc..
trying to find the ratios that are gonna let the motor spin-n-breath instead of smokin the windings and brushes, then trying the experiment again (differently and improved).
its making an assumption something IS drastically wrong mechanically.
it might be a good kit initially, but the motor is being badly lugged-loaded and cookin.
calculator, tachometer and thermometer time!
 
I'm not "majorly experienced", so its just somewhat educated guessing with no intent to insult anyone who really DOES know better... but, I'd guess tied off to a dock with full power applied, if the motor is able to reach 70-75% of free spin RPM, then underway it's likely to land close to a pretty safe ballpark range that can be fine tuned after if needed.
(watching the heat a pretty good indicator)
 
to a point, the easier it's spinning the less current its gonna draw too, with an R/C car gearing to that 80-85% of free RPM is gonna run much cooler and give you all kinds of nice responsive throttle control, accelerating and decelerating without having to use the "brakes", you get around a track a whole lot better-faster. overgeared will top out faster, run hotter, more sluggish acceleration-deceleration and have you leaning on the brakes a LOT.. and the runtime goes right down the drain. kinda similar theoretically anyhow. they're using brushed and brushless PM motors, PWM speed controllers, nicads, nimhs, lipos etc.. its all just smaller. same for small fast electric R/C boats with gearboxes in em for swinging larger props to get some speed..
but with models the batteries are usually dumped before motors are gonna get cooked.
-not always tho! a 7 cell outrigger hydro toy NEEDED both air and water cooling for its fast as hell ridiculously hard working 3-1/2 minute runs.. passing up glow-engines etc.. FUN,
but with models you can get away with things approaching murder suicide too no doubt.
 
other thoughts.. free spin motor RPM is one consideration, but chained up to the propshaft with its bearings seals and whatever losses are imposed by the mechanical reduction..
how does motor free RPM compare to spinning it all up without any load at all? its kinda "incidental", but it can possibly change the kind of gearing ratio you might want in place.
if it means going from 3:1 to a 3.5:1 for the sake of safety and reliability, oh well..
depends on the motor too, some might be as happy-cool at 70-75% of free spin RPM under full load, for a good long time (couple hours!)
 
it all gets more complex with prop pitch theoretical distance (88 fpm per mph)
vs prop pitch with prop slip inclusive and actual speed, can sometimes get into stuff that'll keep ya awake at night swapping hands tryin to scratch head rump and eyeballs simultaneously on top of juggling the calculator pencil and notepad.. oh boy!
 
anyhowz, enuf boring babble-rantz, hope ya get the project together successfully!
(maybe the babble helped?)
 
 


--- On Tue, 4/24/12, Carter Quillen <twowheelinguy@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Carter Quillen <twowheelinguy@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Electric Boats] Conversion kit
To: "electricboats@yahoogroups.com" <electricboats@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 10:37 AM

 
Why have you gone thru 4 motors? Where they all bad from the factory? Has Electric Motor Sports made good and given you 4 new motors under warrantee? Because if they have it sounds like you don't have a whole lot to complain about from them.  
 
An electric conversion is NOT for novices no matter what the online ad might make it sound like. Even with a background in working on boats all my life, a mechanical engineering degree, and 20 years of industrial maintenance and construction experience it was one of the most challenging projects I've ever undertaken. It can save you a ton of money if you can pull it off from one of the many "kits" available on line but it is a "Do it Yourself" deal so you can't expect much more than a few answers to specific questions from your vendor.  They owe you that but not much more and you can't expect them to walk you thru it step by step, they're just not making enough money to do that. That is why the retailers charge 3 times as much for the same hardware you can buy wholesale online. And you can pretty much count on the fact that your "kit" is not going to have everything you need, those are some of the blanks you pay the retailer to fill for you.
 
My advice would be to find someone who has extensive experience with your particualar hardware, bite the bullet and hire them to help you. Hopefully you will come out spending less than if you'd hired a retailer to do it for you to begin with.
 
Good luck. 
 
 

From: robert <bobnichols55@yahoo.com>
To: electricboats@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 8:08 PM
Subject: [Electric Boats] Conversion kit

I recently purchased a Pma motor sailboat drive kit from Electric Motor Sport . I have have had nothing but trouble from this kit . I do not know what Todd Kollin was on when he buil his kit . It was a plug and play kit. This kit contains a Mars M1012 pma motor and a Sevcon Gen4 Controller . After 4 months of this Plug and Play kit , I am on the 4th motor rom Motengery . Todd Kollin would not talk to me after the second motor . I received no paper work or any instruction from Electric Motor Sports.  Now I am getting realy desprite About getting this thig going . Could anyone please give me some advice on what to do next . This kit is made up of great products but nothing works and now I have to much in it to go back to Deisel. This is my first post of any form.



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