Monday, June 13, 2011

[Electric Boats] Incremental Options

 

Hi everyone,

So, as I'm continuing my scan to the horizon of the Internet (you know what, that thing is HUGE! :) it occurred to me that one can build an e-drive system in a very incremental way. My basic need is to get in and out of my slip (and, if the wind is typical, really only on the way back in) to/from the harbor channel, which is less than 100 yards. If I can find the right direct-drive motor (my calculations are suggesting I need around 500 RPM, but, my napkin has become quite illegible :) then I can add:

- batteries (not sure if I can get away with one, or have to start with two, based on what the controller wants as a minimum voltage for reliable operation - obviously, two batteries would provide highly-desirable redundancy, especially if the controller can run on 12 volts)

- chargers on a per-battery basis (not clear whether multiple individual chargers would work, or one of the multi-charger units is needed)

- wiring (for power, display, and control)

I'm pretty sure that I'll need to either put in a controller that will have large enough capacity for the heaviest load I can foresee, or I'll have to upgrade a lower-capacity unit, as I'm almost certain that it's not possible to feed one motor with output from a bank of batteries via more than one controller (i.e., in parallel), as there would be contention between the controllers' output (and "contention" doesn't even _begin_ to describe the ensuing chaos! ): Based on what I've seen from others' experiences, having controller redundancy would probably be a Really Good Idea, which the upgrade path would automatically satisfy.

It would be very difficult to incrementally upgrade an ICE! Score another advantage for e-drives :D

Back to the drawing board while coordinating seeing some local e-boats.

All the Best,
Jim

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