Diferent type of stove

[exfishnz]

Originally Posted by Latitude9.5

We have propane stove, oven and hotwater heater, we definitely don't conserve, we cook and bake a lot as well as take long showers (when we're on the dock) and we still only manage to empty one 20lb cylinder every 5 weeks, give or take, we used far less when we lived on the mooring ball.

5 weeks??? Our consumption for 4 guy's fishing with just the lpg stove/oven was a full 9kg lpg cylinder about every 10 days. We later installed 2 instant lpg hotwater units (bypass eng heat ex) & that took us down to about 8 days.

Edit: I can't even get 5 weeks on my home bbq.

[Little Otter]

mabye theyre over charged =)

[exfishnz]

Originally Posted by Little Otter

mabye theyre over charged =)

Could be

With pressure cooking you can get 2-3 times extra usage - but 5 weeks??? Maybe I'm just very inefficient with my lpg usage???

Another idea is with the electric wok's the other bloke wrote about above. If you could design them & kettles to run off the excess energy then I'd certainly buy one. You don't have to manufacture them, just have a proven design & then license it.

[Little Otter]

You wouldn't be alone =)

[exfishnz]

I'm wrong in post # 16. We were using the larger 22kg (48lbs) lpg cylinder's. Am keen to hear how a small group can do it for 5 weeks on a 20lbs cylinder. Maybe we were doing something wrong with our usage???

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by exfishnz

G'day young fella,

Your idea is not as crazy as it may sound. As you may be aware, some manufacturers of marine wind generators also sell hot water heating element's to use the excess energy from the turbine during a decent blow. There's no reason why similar principle's couldn't be applied to a very small oven. But like others say, you need to do the physic's/math etc, also a lot of trial & error (innovation). Btw: if you do come up with something viable, then don't discuss it here or anywhere, go straight to a patent lawyer.

I'm going to ramble on a bit here. You kinda remind me of me (I'm twice your age) when I was young (I was fishing full time at 15). I come up with crazy idea's all the time (mostly in software engineering). Some of them don't work & some of them do, but they force you to expand your mind "outside the box". The key is to always record your idea's to paper (or electronic file) - even if you think they're stupid, why? Because at a later date another idea will come into your head & may be relevant to a previously recorded idea.

Btw: never go to sleep before you've recorded your idea's to paper, you may not remember them again in the morning.

Edit: just to add, forget the critic's, they're not paying your bills

I knew I liked this ExFishNZ guy for some reason... similar lives we've lead.

I did the same as a child and then was in tech. Also had to work since I was 15 or so, but thankfully not full time. Went to school/college. That's hard working full time at that age. My hat's off to ya.

[senormechanico]

3.2Kw @ 120 volts = 26.6 amps. Let's assume running this stove from an inverter at 100% efficiency from a 12 volt battery bank. Never mind the expense of an inverter big enough to run it!

3.2Kw @ 12 volts = 266 amps! How long can your bank last with that onslaught?
Unless you have a ton of sun, solar panels, wind and wind generators, Google for the Peukert effect on batteries and weep!

Steve B.

[Little Otter]

aw pooh that stinks oh well

[exfishnz]

Originally Posted by ssullivan

I knew I liked this ExFishNZ guy for some reason... similar lives we've lead.

I did the same as a child and then was in tech. Also had to work since I was 15 or so, but thankfully not full time. Went to school/college. That's hard working full time at that age. My hat's off to ya.

Was a bit of a small nerd at school at 14 (first year of high school) & was kinda roughed up for being so. One day I fought back - but because I did - I was black listed from the school system. Things got very stressful at home, had to leave home & find work (at 14), at 15 I got a job as a freezer boy[1] on the hoki trawlers in the Cook Strait. Continued buying laptops & books on programming & math, always maintained those roots. However, my life story is luxury compared to millions of unfortunate others in this world.

Originally Posted by Little Otter

aw pooh that stinks oh well

Winners never quit, how else would innovation happen?

[1] at times, the ship's boy is treated like a dog.

[Latitude9.5]

Originally Posted by senormechanico

3.2Kw @ 120 volts = 26.6 amps. Let's assume running this stove from an inverter at 100% efficiency from a 12 volt battery bank. Never mind the expense of an inverter big enough to run it!

3.2Kw @ 12 volts = 266 amps! How long can your bank last with that onslaught?
Unless you have a ton of sun, solar panels, wind and wind generators, Google for the Peukert effect on batteries and weep!

Steve B.

Yea sorry I only broke that down into 120 ac. Inverting it would draw even more than 266 as inverting isn't 100% efficient.

As far as lpg consumption I dunno, i'd be curious to see what others are doing here, we only have two adults on the boat, the hot water heater uses very little propane, most of it is used up in the stove. I dunno what to tell you, bigger stove? If I went through one in 8 days I'd be throwing bilge fans on cause I would assume that's where it went

Here's a topic that discusses use and it doesn't look like i am in the minority http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...nks-16363.html

[sandy daugherty]

Propane is my choice for cooking and baking. I could run my generator to power an electric hot plate, but it would cost way too much. With the proper precautions, Propane is safe, reliable, easy to obtain, easy to carry and store, and least expensive.

Propane works at night, and when the wind dies down to less than 12 knots, otherwise I would have to wait till noon for my first cup of coffee, and a hot meal. Not good.

Besides, Otter, I think you should become a chemist and invent the world's best cheap fuel cell!

[Hud3]

We have a microwave oven on our boat. It draws about 90 amps from the batteries, through the inverter. Heat food for 3 minutes. (90A x 3 min)/(60 min/hr) = 4.5 Amp-Hours. That would be 0.75% of our 600 Amp-Hour house bank's capacity. Used for short-duration heating of certain foods (like POPCORN!!!), it's a great adjunct to our propane range/oven. Nothing like popcorn and a movie (DVD on the laptop) while swinging at anchor in a blow!

[ssullivan]

Good point, Hud.

Our micro is all the same numbers you quote there, and our batter bank the same as yours.

We especially like it on chilly mornings when you don't want to open the boat up to cook. You can microwave up oatmeal or muffins or something with just a few AH of energy. Nothing the sun can't replace in an hour.

[ssullivan]

Originally Posted by exfishnz

Was a bit of a small nerd at school at 14 (first year of high school) & was kinda roughed up for being so. One day I fought back - but because I did - I was black listed from the school system. Things got very stressful at home, had to leave home & find work (at 14), at 15 I got a job as a freezer boy[1] on the hoki trawlers in the Cook Strait. Continued buying laptops & books on programming & math, always maintained those roots. However, my life story is luxury compared to millions of unfortunate others in this world.

I know what you mean. Excellent point about all of our lives (probably everyone on the site who has access to a boat) are quite good in comparison to unfortunate others struggling with daily needs (food, etc...)

Still, your story is very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I was curious. I could here the logical thinking behind the posts and was wondering...

[Factor]

Originally Posted by exfishnz

I'm wrong in post # 16. We were using the larger 22kg (48lbs) lpg cylinder's. Am keen to hear how a small group can do it for 5 weeks on a 20lbs cylinder. Maybe we were doing something wrong with our usage???

I would think there could be.

At our house we run the stove top on bottled barbie type gas (9 kilo bottles) (its a long story - basically we wanted gas, there was no mains gas at our new house, and the natural bottled gas required big bottles, minimum usage charges etc, so we bought a stove top that could use LPG - installed two bottles and a swap over valve so when you run out you flip to the new one and then do the bottle swap thing at your convenience) we get about 2-3 months doing all our cooking on it - there is two of us and we entertain a bit. Thats all out cooking everyday of the week.