The Mighty CanDoAlot!

[s/v Jedi]

I am sorry but it is you comparing apples to oranges. When you load both units equally, say 5hp, then they consume the same amount of diesel fuel. It doesn't matter that the Northern Lights unit is bigger and heavier, which is relevant for it's longer lifespan, not for fuel consumption.

If you load the Northern Lights to it's 10hp maximum then yes it consumes much more than another unit doing 5hp; but that 5hp unit needs to run twice as long to deliver the same job and that equals things again except for the bigger unit winning because less run-time = win always.

I can understand why people like that small unit with it's nifty attachments, but keep things straight as that should be good enough. A belt driving a RO pump is just as inefficient as an electric motor doing that. If you want to take a closer look then the belt may well lose the comparison.


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[ShaktisBoy]

Um I don't have both units Jedi. I burn what I burn and it's less now. I agreed with you about thermal dynamics and all things being equal which they are not, the fuel burn would be the same. This machine produces less hp than the old 1 therefore burns less fuel but does more things. You seem to be saying It doesn't and that cracks me up. By the way price out an air conditioner a water maker and a generator then find space to put all of that and the CanDoAlot becomes a very attractive piece of equipment. The air conditioning capacity is a little less than the 2 shore power supplied 16000 btu cruiseairs provide but at 28000 BTUs the 850CFM evaporator unit puts so much cold air out and at a faster rate it is more than adequate, in fact the unit chilled the main salon and hulls from 93 degrees to 71 degrees in 30 minutes. All on 5HP!


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[minaret]

Originally Posted by ShaktisBoy

Um I don't have both units Jedi. I burn what I burn and it's less now. I agreed with you about thermal dynamics and all things being equal which they are not, the fuel burn would be the same. This machine produces less hp than the old 1 therefore burns less fuel but does more things. You seem to be saying It doesn't and that cracks me up. By the way price out an air conditioner a water maker and a generator then find space to put all of that and the CanDoAlot becomes a very attractive piece of equipment. The air conditioning capacity is a little less than the 2 shore power supplied 16000 btu cruiseairs provide but at 28000 BTUs the 850CFM evaporator unit puts so much cold air out and at a faster rate it is more than adequate, in fact the unit chilled the main salon and hulls from 93 degrees to 71 degrees in 30 minutes. All on 5HP!


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I certainly see the logic. So your 15k got you all components for the entire system, watermaker and AC parts included? If so, that's a stellar deal.

[ShaktisBoy]

Yes Minaret. That's what it cost plus 2 1/2 months of weekends and evenings busting knuckles and sweating.


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[DotDun]

So, if you want AC at a marina dock you have to run the Mighty CanDoAlot?

[ShaktisBoy]

No still have the cruiseairs



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[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by ShaktisBoy

Um I don't have both units Jedi. I burn what I burn and it's less now. I agreed with you about thermal dynamics and all things being equal which they are not, the fuel burn would be the same. This machine produces less hp than the old 1 therefore burns less fuel but does more things. You seem to be saying It doesn't and that cracks me up. By the way price out an air conditioner a water maker and a generator then find space to put all of that and the CanDoAlot becomes a very attractive piece of equipment. The air conditioning capacity is a little less than the 2 shore power supplied 16000 btu cruiseairs provide but at 28000 BTUs the 850CFM evaporator unit puts so much cold air out and at a faster rate it is more than adequate, in fact the unit chilled the main salon and hulls from 93 degrees to 71 degrees in 30 minutes. All on 5HP!


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You seem to think a diesel engine produces it's rated hp when you run it and so the 5hp uses less fuel than the 10hp. This is what you write above and it is wrong.

The hp output (and the fuel consumption) is related to the load on the engine. It means that a 10hp engine can deliver only 3hp and a 5hp engine can deliver only 3hp with both using the same amount of fuel. You better believe it.

If you use less avg fuel per day now then you produce less, it is that simple.

Then you say it is cheaper... but I never said it wasn't. Then you say the A/C is less but still adequate and I say aha! That is where you produce less now. If you set the Cruiseairs thermostat higher then you would have the same effect on avg. fuel consumption per day.

When I paid $7,500 for the 6kW NL it's listprice was 10,990.- so it has become more expensive but still you should always ask for discount and find better priced sources. You may still be better off moneywise but it seems you have doubled A/C systems, taking up more room en expanding things that can break, just while you were so happy that the new unit was smaller and lighter.

I do see the appeal for these units but more for people who don't have the A/C, watermaker etc. yet so that they don't have to buy what they already have.

[ShaktisBoy]

You know what you are right thanks for setting me straight!


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[s/v Jedi]

I had hoped you realized I was trying to show you why; I'll throw a graph at it, shoing fuel consumption vs load, may be it will convince you. It shows the linear relation between the two, except for the nice sweet spot around 50% where efficiency is the highest:



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[ShaktisBoy]

Jedi:

Thank you once again for your comment. I agreed with you way back on post 3 that the laws of thermodynamics still apply even to CanDoAlot. You seem so focused on thermal dynamics that you completely missed my point which I will gladly take some of the blame for due to the verbiage I initially used. I know you don't know me or my background but I grew up around race cars and bikes and had the opportunity to crew for a few years on a Top fuel dragster Who's driver was ranked 9th in the world at the time in the sport. I have built and rebuilt all manner of machine since I was a teenager which is a long long time ago now. For a living I teach Pratt and Whitney PT6A-66 and PT6A-66B turbine engines as part of my Job description at FlightSafety international. Believe me when I tell you I understand the relationship between fuel burn and brake HP delivered. What I was simply trying to convey to the group in an intentionally simple way was that I am extremely pleased with the results as this project was in my opinion a huge upgrade that not only kills 3 birds with one stone but because it does it more efficiently especially where charging the house bank is concerned. I also think anybody on the fence contemplating a new generator might like some first hand perspective on the modular DC generator option because like so many things on this forum there are a ton of people who with ZERO 1st hand knowledge will tell others it won't work, I'm here telling them it will. It is ultimately for them to decide and it is for those people I offer the following. Because we are doing less work I.E. The AC unit does not require 10 HP to operate nor does the DC charger or watermaker we are burning less fuel than when we ran the NorthernLights at it's full load. With 32000 BTUs of air conditioning going the NorthernLights was pushing 23 to 24 amps of 110AC and had very little left for the other items attached to the inefficient inverter/charger like the microwave a laptop or small TV. At those kind of loads it burned almost exactly what the manufacturer claims at .59 gallons per hour and this new unit burns almost exactly what the manufacturer claims at just under 10 ounces of fuel per hour. No matter how I look at it we are burning less diesel period. Jedi was right that when the NorthernLights was only under half load I.E. Producing 5HP it had a very similar fuel burn to the new unit. Here's the rub. With the inverter charger it took an extremely long time "3 - 4 hours or more" to get to a 90ish% state of charge into our 900 AH house bank. With this machine never more than 90 minutes. There is no AC to DC conversion going on so there is an efficiency gain there. There is another downside in that the old unit turned a constant 1800 rpm automatically to produce the 60hz required to run the Air conditioner controllers. The new unit has a manual throttle which we have to set. Of course the constant 1800 rpm on the old unit often led to a lightly loaded diesel which coated the hull many times with soot from a poor burn and caked up the exhaust system. It is true that this new air conditioner puts out a mere 28000 BTUs compared to the 32000 BTUs the two cruiseairs do however those two units divide the boat between the two hulls and into 5 zones. This new unit also divides the boat into 5 zones so we do have a net loss of slightly less than 1k BTUs per section however it is not noticeable. The new unit puts out 850 CFM which at least to us feels a lot stronger than what the cruiseairs fans put out in volume of air moving. Bottom line is what we feel inside the different areas of the boat is still bloody cold if we so desire. It is also true that we added a bit of complexity to the boat with a 3rd AC and that is a disadvantage but consider this. The New unit I was able to put together myself with just a bit of research and can be charged with over the counter R134A, if you have AC gauges and a vacuum pump which I do. With R134A I can service it myself anywhere in the world if a leak should ever develop and not have to call out a service tech. That in and of itself should highlight another advantage of the CanDoAlot. The vessels forward port locker had the 6KW genset in it next to one of the ships two 100 gallon water tanks with room for a start battery and a few small items. Working on it for anything other than an oil change from the service side was a nightmare and the vessel rode a full 1 1/2 to 2 inches deeper in the water at the bow. This machines foot print is much smaller and I can access all sides easily and move it with not much effort should the need arise. I gained enough room to store not only the CanDoAlot but also 5 scuba tanks plus BCs plus related dive gear.

As a last note I'd like to put out there to the group that this forum is a great place to exchange ideas but beware of how much of a turnoff the "I know more than you attitude" sometimes found on this forum can be.


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[smj]

I'm guessing the Ac compressor is air cooled rather than water cooled?


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[brantleychuck]

IMO the" BS" comment was not friendly or constructive . It's a shame that this type of response makes others think twice before posting, I must admit I have been guilty of this behavior myself, I hope I am now reformed


. Your project is interesting, I and many others appreciate you taking the time to share

I would love to see more pics and learn more details on the air con part of the system. I am just about done rebuilding/renewing a old Phasor 6.0 kW generator. It's based on a kubota 2 cylinder ZB 600 engine. The generator head is belt driven. I have added a high pressure pump, also belt driven for a 50 gal per hour water maker.
As I am doing a complete rebuild on my Motor Sailor I am constantly thinking about systems, pros and cons of everything. I have given thought to using a automotive AC system driven off the generator engine. One big down side is not having AC at the dock without running the generator.
I would love to hear more details on the AC you installed, the more details the better.






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[packeteer]

sheesh, tough crowd!
thanks for sharing Shak

[ShaktisBoy]

The unit is modular based on the Kubota EA330 diesel. The kit comes from Aquamarine in Washington state but there are a few others around doing similar in things. We installed the Generator section about 2 years ago with the hope of running the existing Air Conditioners on a 5KW pure sine wave industrial inverter. Because we are a catamaran we had an extremely long 0000 wire run back to the house bank which subjected us to some realities of electricity in that over long distance we suffered enough line loss that the DC generator putting out a constant 150 amps was unable to keep up with the demand required by the inverter 2 air conditioners and limited other AC loads. Compounding the problem was drag caused by simultaneous starting of the 2 AC units if the thermostats happens to pick the same instant to start. Even with soft start capacitors installed the locked rotor amps would trip the inverter circuit breaker. We could run 1 of the units all day and night cool our cabin or the salon but sadly that just wasn't enough for a boat this size when there was no wind here in August and more than myself and my wife aboard. After realizing we weren't getting what we wanted yet contacted Dan Forest of Aquamarine and he said he had successfully installed a automotive based unit in a monohull not to long before we called inquiring. He took our boat info and specced out the major components and sent them down to us. The rest was up to me to figure out like hose low and high pressure hose length, refrigerant and oil charge and routing of the ducting wiring and believe it or not the hardest part was getting a simple digital thermostat that runs on 12 volts that also incorporated a relay to stat the compressor. The system is raw water cooled before the heat exchanger which on a 95 plus degree day raises my normal operating temperature from 175 to almost 190 but that's still well within limits for the Kubota. I also need to correct a typo I made that states the Evaporator fan moves 850 CFM it's 650 CFM but still plenty to chill the boat right down. Some asked if I have to run CanDoAlot to cool the boat at the dock and the answer is no. We left the cruiseairs in place for shore power dockside cooling.

The Major components are as follows.
Compressor. Sanden SD73H13 model 7312 with v belt magnetic clutch
Evaporator. DanHard model 00942
High pressure pump not sure about the model but al out identical to the ones offered by many manufacturers including CruiseRoWater's pump who's system I really like by the way
Membrane is a WaveCyber 1000 psi vessel
The water maker control panel is custom made by Aquamarine inc. here are a few more pics of the project.




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[s/v Jedi]

Gee you guys are shining examples of pleasantry in your comments: you really should whack me a bit more as I must deserve it.

I don't call BS often nor quick. In this case, the OP claimed that his new generator/CanDoAlot, only consumes 1/3rd of the fuel per kW compared to his old Northern Lights, in post #4. This is BS and me writing so has nothing to do with being rude. If challenging a statement is not wanted even if the statement is wrong, then the statement should be posted on a blog with comments disabled, not on a discussion forum. In this case, I believe the OP knows it was BS but for some reason doesn't want to acknowledge it except in a negative, snarky tone. Sorry for not being impressed with that.

OP then continued claiming the NL is 10hp where the FrankenGen is only 5hp and thus consumes less fuel (post #17: "This machine produces less hp than the old 1 therefore burns less fuel but does more things.") When I reply to that showing that this is not valid (didn't even call it BS) then I get told he is a jet engine scientist and knows all that. Well, when you know it, why then write it so wrong?! Is it to lure me in or what?

The remark about being scared to post because somebody calling BS is also weird, don't you think? If BS isn't called then we end up with people believing things that are, in fact BS. What purpose does that serve? If I post BS then I love others calling it. I am here with all my mistakes and don't mind if people point them out. In the mean time, I try to help people and make sure that the info in threads like this one is correct. There are many readers who don't post, but I can assure you I get many pm's of those members to tell me that they appreciate my efforts to keep info as correct as I can.

Here is another example: the NL 6kW, at 110V can supply 50A of output (doing 120V * 50A = 6kW). A post in this thread says that at 23A it is getting pretty much at it's top while in fact it isn't even at a 50% load. Nobody corrects that info, but I do; not for me because I know it already, but for others who read it because I am a Jedi. If you hate that, then you must be a dark Sith lord