I'm no expert but I'm going with a 10 KW on my 28' Sabre that displaces 8000# not because I want to "motor" but if I need to, I want to. I guess it all depends on where you live & what kind of tide you may need to buck...
Bob
On Wednesday, August 6, 2014 11:42 AM, king_of_neworleans <no_reply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
At 11k lbs the typical 5kw motor will likely be disappointing in your boat. You might find something like the Motenergy ME0913, at twice the power, to be more suitable, if you are concerned with the price. To go cheap, a certain amount of DIY will be necessary. In other words, no drop-in unit that you simply hook up the battery and shaft and go zooming down the channel. There are packages available with controller, Harness, etc that vary in completeness. Some come with motor, some not. You will need a charger. Some kits have them. Some not. You may want a dc-dc converter, to power existing 12v stuff like navigation lights and emergency battery for vhf etc. You will likely want an inverter. And of course all this stuff using 48v or whatever voltage you decide on. Kits generally don't come with reduction gear. There are belt drive and gearbox units available though. Up to you to couple it all up and make it play nice. And you have to mount it to your boat so that the shaft is transferring it's thrust to the hull. Then, there are the batteries and I won't even go into your options. If you like to tinker, get a kit or get the components separately after doing your research. If you prefer a more turnkey solution, you are gonna pay out some extra cash, but it will still be way less than a new diesel, even including batteries and charger and stuff. There are mechanics who do these conversions, too, and that's still more money, but less fiddling and worrying if everything is gonna work ok. My own setup will total well under 3k, including batteries and charger. Waiting for my reduction gearbox, which finally shipped yesterday. But this is going pretty much rock bottom basic stuff, and at half the power you should have in your boat. I could have gone cheaper with a salvaged golf cart motor and controller but I wanted brushless, and regen capability. The real wild card is batteries. Depending on your needs a decent bank can cost less than $1k or go 4x that much. Flooded cell lead acid is cheapest. Also heaviest. Good dependable old school technology. Some guys don't like old school, don't like the weight, want more installation flexibility, deeper discharge capability, stuff like that. You might be okay with a 48v 230ah bank, or maybe you want 400ah at 72 or 96 or 120v. For really huge banks, the temptation to go high tech is strong because then the weight factor starts to be troublesome. Could you spend as much as 10k on batteries? Sure you could! Bigger bank calls for bigger charger and bigger supply current for it. Smaller banks are much easier to manage. If you only need to motor in and out of your slip, my setup of 8 6v golf cart batteries in series would probably satisfy. Or 4 4D 12v batts. Maybe even group 31s. Google for the Bianka blog. Lots of good reading there. This guy does a lot of electric cruising using solar and a 2k Honda gas generator to extend his range. If you jump right into this without a lot of thought and study, you may be disappointed in the final result, so don't get in a hurry. I researched for 2 years before I whipped out the credit cards and started ordering stuff, changing my mind several times as my knowledge base grew. No doubt I will run into unforeseen problems that will make me think that if I had to do it all over again, I would make still more changes. If you read old posts and keep up with the new ones here, you will learn a lot. Google is your friend. Talk to guys with electric boats. Don't get in a big hurry to get it together, unless you are willing to let a pro with considerable experience use his judgment and install and set up what he knows will work for you. Essentially, electric propulsion is quite simple. The devil is in the details.
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Posted by: bob jennings <sabre281@yahoo.com>
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