The best battery chemistry is the one that lets you go where you want to go, and get you back again safely. If that's lead acid, that's fine. Converting from wet lead to AGM a few years down the line is easy. Converting to lithium is a bit more involved (and expensive) but not difficult. At least with electric propulsion, you can start small and extend. And you can swap out system components as you can afford or desire.
Nothing wrong with wet lead, as long as the skipper is aware of capacity and limitations. In most cases, battery range will be "one day's worth" regardless of battery chemistry so the skipper should already be very aware of his/her bank's limitations.
Cheers,
/Jason
On May 26, 2014, at 11:58, "Carter Quillen twowheelinguy@yahoo.com [electricboats]" <electricboats@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Alex,Glad I could provide some insight for you. I'm gonna kick the hornet's nest here next to try and to help you a little more.Despite many "OPINIONS" to the contrary on this site, LEAD IS NOT DEAD! Not by a long shot in my opinion. So I would encourage you to consider using it.The key, and one of the many shortcoming, of using lead acid chemistry is that you have to design your system so that you're only "sipping" off the batteries, not gulping. This requires much more weight and space but if you can arrange it in your application, it works very well.Personally I prefer flooded lead acid over AGMs but that's because I'm a cheap skate with a miniscule budget, not because it's any better, it's not. You have to deal with outgassing and maintenance issues but if you accept this going into it, it's not that big a deal. And FLA chemistry is much more robust and forgiving so if you make a mistake, you're a lot less likely to cook your batteries to death. And even if you do, there's not nearly as much money on the table so it's good technology to experiment with. But a lot of people prefer AGMs and have had very good luck applying them to marine propulsion systems. They also have slightly better performance characteristics and are a lot safer to work with so I would not discourage their use at all. Just be careful with them, they cook a lot easier.Having said all that, I will concede that the performance characteristics of LiIon chemistry is something to envy and hopefully the economics of them will come down out of the stratosphere someday soon. And admittedly, for many high performance application, it is about the only thing that will work. But for everyday boating, lead is still the most "cost effective" way to go, imo.And for all you LiIon lovers out there, please spare me the rigorous life cycle economics lesson about the superiority of LiIon technology. It may look great on paper and may actually be true in a very limited number of situation but in most real world, "get your boat down the river at the lowest cost", applications, I'm not buying it.Capt. CarterOn Monday, May 26, 2014 10:55 AM, "alexander jones 73foster@live.com [electricboats]" <electricboats@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Thank you Capt. Carter,That's a great explanation of the Torqueedo 1003's systems that was easy for me to understand.I was looking at the Cruise 2.0 system first and I would like to use it. The weight of the outboard is not bad at 17.5 kg and at £2125 I could justify it. Even the 26-104 lithium battery at 25 kg is acceptable although maybe not the price at £1785.Does anybody know of other makes of cheaper lithium battery that I can use instead?I know it won't have the built in GPS system built it but I should be able to navigate my speed over ground and enterpalate my speed/distance with local knowledge and experience.Maybe I could use a 12v lead or agm battery but I would prefer to use a lithium. But any suggestion are very welcome.You are all very helpful advising me on this project in South India as we are using this system for the Kerala Auxiliary Maritime Service also to provide a safety boat on the backwater's to assist the emergancy services in maritime emergancy and saftey patrol.If you ever visit for a holiday please look us up and we can take you out for a spin on the water.Thank you so much for all the comments so far, it is much appreciated.Very kind regards,Alex.
Sent from my iPhone
On 26 May 2014, at 13:38, "Carter Quillen twowheelinguy@yahoo.com [electricboats]" <electricboats@yahoogroups.com> wrote:I am building an electric dinghy for the Arc and have a T-1003 that I am also trying to adapt with more solar. While Eric is right that the Torqueedo charge controller will not let you put more than 45W into the battery, however there is a way to extend your range with more solar. It's a bit cumbersome and not ideal but it will extend your range with the T-1003, (sort of).You can get a 12Volt charger from epowermarine.com for the T-1003 that can be plugged into a standard battery bank. You can then charge the auxilary 12V battery bank with the larger solar array and use the 12V charger to continuously recharge the T-1003. Like I said, it's a bit cumbersome and less than a great solution but it's the best you're going to be able to do with that particular model.It's too bad that Troqueedo designed the system this way because the T-1003 will push a small dingy pretty good at 250W which can easily be obtained with a lightweight solar canopy over your dink that also serves to keep you in the shade and/or out of the rain. But they did this to protect their battery and you're stuck with this limitation if you want to use this motor.A better, albeit more expensive, solution would be to step up to the Cruise 2.0 which will let you run off an external battery so you can have as much solar on as big a battery that you can fit on your boat.Capt. CarterOn Monday, May 26, 2014 7:53 AM, "73foster@live.com [electricboats]" <electricboats@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Here is the link to a torqueedo shop in Australia where the guy experiments and uses the electric outboards for his own personal use. A discussion about extending the range is carrying on here. http://thetorqeedoshop.com.au/range-extension-options-for-torqeedo-1003-and-ultralight/#more-1648
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Posted by: Jason Taylor <jt.yahoo@jtaylor.ca>
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