Just because you made me curious, I looked up the specs on a $400 60" Hunter ceiling fan. It draws 87 watts on its highest setting, that works out to be 1/9hp at 100% efficiency. Add in the cost and inefficiency of turning DC to AC and one can see that turning common household items into electric marine drives is rarely a viable alternative.
The other thing I would like to mention is that electric drives are rarely cheaper than their fuel powered alternatives when you look at the costs holistically. Beyond the motor, reduction system and controller; there are the batteries, charger(s), wiring and various smaller electrical components. In your case, if you figure that a new 4-6hp outboard is around $1200 and would be operational in 15 minutes, you've got a real challenge finding a complete electrical drive system that will be operational for less.
If you're planning on using salvaged parts to cobble a system together, it's really not a valid premise to compare the price to a new engine that comes with a warranty. In that case, I would use the price of a used outboard, probably less than the cost of 3 decent sized deep-cycle batteries.
My 30' sailboat drive conversion has topped $8000, and I'm not operational yet. But I have tried to choose quality over cost in an effort to put together a boat that acts like a production boat, not an ongoing experiment in green technology.
Fair winds,
Eric
Marina del Rey, CA
--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, roland nilsson <atlasmaster@...> wrote:
>
> That's what I was afraid of... it just seemed too easy. It would be nice to build something out of scratch ( if possible) rather than forking out too much...
> Thanx guys
> Roland
>
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