Roland,
Welcome. There are many little details that all fit together to make a happy electric boat. Like car motors, if the parts are designed to work together, it is a good car.
Your boat was designed to go great, but a little slower than you occasionally need. Mostly fine, but sometimes, for a few minutes, too slow.
If you want to play with pulleys and motors and controllers and batteries and cables and propellers and throttles, it will probably be expensive, but you might have a lot of fun.
If you want to boat, to go out on the water, just add a 50 to 100 pound thrust trolling motor, like the kind that fishing boats use to go slow. It could drink electrons from the same batteries you already have. Or the German Torqeedo: more expensive, but it would help you go faster through the narrow sections in the river than a trolling motor (fishing motor) might. Borrow a strong trolling motor and try it.
Motor controllers: right now, your motor controller is just an on/off switch. There are electronic controllers like this, that switch the power on and off hundreds or even thousands of times per second. These are great, but expensive, and the most popular technique is called Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). They send high voltage and amperage (speed and number of electrons) pulses to the motor.
A cheaper kind of controller gives the motor less voltage for less speed. It is easy to waste energy with this technique, since higher voltages make more efficient systems. Most European nations use 220volts AC for houses, while the generally more wasteful and less efficient USA uses 120volt AC.
If you are willing to play with the parts, and try some mix and match, and maybe ruin a few parts, Chris S. has a great suggestion about 750watt motors. You would have great fun. They are on the big side for the scooter market, but the pricing is still much better than larger motors, and the motor controller are much much cheaper too.
Another option: electric golf cart guts. You would need more batteries (whatever the golf cart voltage), but you would certainly go fast enough.
Good luck,
Mark Stafford
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "hardy71uk" <p0054107@...> wrote:
>
> I think a 750w motor would be ideal . 1KW maximum as larger is more expensive and would need a more expensive controller.
>
> Chris S
>
> --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Roland Kruijer" <martine_roland@> wrote:
> >
> > Hello Group,
> >
> > My name is Roland Kruijer and I'm from The Netherlands.
> >
> > I'm just entering the electric community as I bought an electric boat just a couple of weeks ago. http://www.electraboat.com/
> >
> > Maybe some of you know this boat or have one. I'm having a little problem with the speed of the boat. I allready changed the pulleys but as a result, the motor becomes hot, so I'm figuring that is not the way to do it. It now has a 300 Watt, 24 V electric motor which would be sufficient in a pond, but I live by a slow streaming river, there for the motor is too weak. Oh, and the batteries are 2 x 12 V 200 amp in series.
> > Now, I'm searching for a replacement (bigger) motor to use. Also I read there's need for a controller?? and I'm also looking for a throttle of some kind, because the boat now only has on/off switch.
> >
> > I saw on the net that there are lots of electric scootermotors for sale, can these be used?
> > What kind of motor should I use? The boat doesn't have to be a speedboat.
> > Is it possible to use an ordinary electric motor, but instead of the 300w one with 600 or 900 watt?
> > I'm a bit concerned about the power of the batteries going straight to the motor. The orriginal set-up got the motor handwarm, but since I changed the pulley, its becomming, well, hotter.
> >
> >
> > As I said, I'm just entering this electric world and do not have experience in electronics. I'm more an automotive guy, so any advice would be great!
> >
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> > Roland Kruijer
> >
>
