Cruisers Forum
 


Reply
  This discussion is proudly sponsored by:
Please support our sponsors and let them know you heard about their products on Cruisers Forums. Advertise Here
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Rate Thread Display Modes
Old 14-09-2021, 21:28   #1
Registered User

Join Date: May 2011
Location: Innisfail, Queensland
Boat: Roberts 57 Schooner
Posts: 128
Electric galley without genset

I just wanted some opinions from others who have gone the electric galley route to help me decide.

Currently, I have a 1120a/h @ 12v LiFePO4 bank charged by 1620w of solar. No genset. Engine battery and alternator do not contribute towards charging the house bank, but I may change this in future with a ~30A DC to DC charger.

We are a family of 5 aboard. With normal usage including around 1 tank of hot water each day, we seem to use maybe 300 a/h per day maximum and are charged back up to 100% by early afternoon at the latest. We are migrating north to the tropics soon, so solar performance should only improve and hot water usage diminish.

What are your thoughts on going to an all electric galley with such a setup? I'm thinking of a small gimballed induction hob with one of those fancy do it all inverter microwave/ovens.
pwillems is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14-09-2021, 23:16   #2
Registered User

Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 241
Re: Electric galley without genset

It's a little hard to comment without knowing exactly what you want to add or how much you are going to use them.

A 600w induction hotplate will use 50A per hour of use so I wouldn't see doubling your current 300ah per day as excessive. Again, depending on what you are adding. When in doubt, just crunch some indicative numbers.

My concern wouldn't be daily usage and recharge cycles but battery capacity to cope with cloudy days: in the above example no sun for 2 days and you would be concerned. I'm in Cairns and we get weeks of hot but cloudy days at the wrong time of the year.
GoneDiving is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14-09-2021, 23:40   #3
Registered User

Join Date: May 2011
Location: Innisfail, Queensland
Boat: Roberts 57 Schooner
Posts: 128
Re: Electric galley without genset

Quote:
Originally Posted by GoneDiving View Post
It's a little hard to comment without knowing exactly what you want to add or how much you are going to use them.

A 600w induction hotplate will use 50A per hour of use so I wouldn't see doubling your current 300ah per day as excessive. Again, depending on what you are adding. When in doubt, just crunch some indicative numbers.

My concern wouldn't be daily usage and recharge cycles but battery capacity to cope with cloudy days: in the above example no sun for 2 days and you would be concerned. I'm in Cairns and we get weeks of hot but cloudy days at the wrong time of the year.
That's the problem... I can crunch numbers and guestimate how many hours * how many amps etc... But that's just a cold calculation.

I was hoping to hear from people who have done something similar and hear positive or negative experiences.
pwillems is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 14-09-2021, 23:55   #4
Registered User

Join Date: Mar 2021
Location: Alboran Sea / Spain
Posts: 941
Re: Electric galley without genset

1 kg of gas is equivalent to roughly 14 kWh of energy. With the information how long a bottle of gas usually lasts, this should give you a good estimate on how much your family uses and how much additional electricity you'll need daily.
Joh.Ghurt is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 00:07   #5
Registered User

Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Live aboard in Simonstown (Cape Town) - now Grenada having crossed the Atlantic.
Boat: 1986 Bruce Roberts 45 raised saloon
Posts: 374
Re: Electric galley without genset

We have a full electric galley and can report that dinner (the only cooked meal) costs 1kWh on average (so about 80Ah at 12v).

We use induction hob, convection microwave oven, flat iron toaster (sandwich toaster), electric kettle.

Your mileage may vary.
markcouz is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 00:12   #6
Moderator
 
noelex 77's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Jul 2007
Boat: Bestevaer.
Posts: 14,678
Re: Electric galley without genset

We have just over 1000w of solar and can use induction cooking and electric water heating a significant portion of the time. Although you have five people to cook and heat water for (we have two) with 1600w you should be able to extend this to all the time in areas of good solar insolation.

The biggest stumbling block is if you have no propane and no generator your cruising area will be limited to those areas of good solar insolation, which may or may not be a problem depending on your plans. The alternative of retaining the ability to use either electricity or propane for these tasks (which is what we do) works well if you have doubts. As well as providing freedom from worrying about electricity consumption, this option removes any restrictions on cruising grounds and provides redundancy, which is always a valuable commodity to build into a long distance cruising boat.

Particularly if you elect to go with the all electric option, I would definitely look at the feasibility of adding a high output alternator.
noelex 77 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 00:37   #7
always in motion is the future
 
s/v Jedi's Avatar

Cruisers Forum Supporter

Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: in paradise
Boat: Sundeer 64
Posts: 18,858
Re: Electric galley without genset

We have 1,875W solar and a 10.5kWh LFP battery and it’s all we need for the two of us with all electric galley.

We do have a 6kW genset but only ran it for maintenance check. I do recommend to buy a Honda portable 2.2kW generator just in case you get days without sun or a failure of a system component.

On gimbals: I recommend a gimballed microwave rather than cooktop. For passaging cook meals before departure so they can be microwaved while underway.
With four people aboard it isn’t as big an issue but with just two it becomes hard to spend much time in the galley while underway.
__________________
“It’s a trap!” - Admiral Ackbar.

s/v Jedi is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 00:58   #8
Registered User
 
double u's Avatar

Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: forest city
Boat: no boat any more
Posts: 2,510
Re: Electric galley without genset

Quote:
Originally Posted by GoneDiving View Post
... will use 50A per hour of use ...
experts talking...
__________________
...not all who wander are lost!
double u is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 01:07   #9
Registered User

Join Date: Jan 2020
Posts: 241
Re: Electric galley without genset

Quote:
Originally Posted by double u View Post
experts talking...
True. My bad. I'm happy you have never had a typo. 😁

I stand by my original statement that it's best to do ones own calcs as every boat and usage is different. If the OPs calcs show that his bank etc is over size I'd be comfortable. If it's line ball, I'd add more.

Others' info is useful but at the end of the day it's comparing apples to oranges.

Cheers
GoneDiving is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 09:34   #10
Registered User

Join Date: Nov 2017
Location: Portland, Oregon USA
Boat: Island Packet, Packet Cat 35
Posts: 953
Re: Electric galley without genset

I converted to all electric but haven't added the solar yet. All in good time. I did a lot of research on those do all microwaves and they don't look that great. I bought a nice cuisanart toaster oven, 2 plate induction stove top and a 3 qt mini Instant pot. The instant pot is fantastic. Want to reheat something? Toss it in. Doesn't dry out. Cooking underway or fish stew? It's awesome. Vent it outside and no smell inside. Even tho I have a genset I still have a little backpacker stove that I could cook on if eveything died. Runs on any fuel.
Cpt Mark is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 09:41   #11
Registered User

Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Maine to Bahamas
Boat: Leopard 48
Posts: 47
Re: Electric galley without genset

I would not suggest it without some fossil fuel power source. There are a lot of days the sun doesn't shine (enough) and it is really obvious when you are reliant on solar for cooking and can cause discord on board. We have a family of 6 onboard with 1800w solar and 1260ah lithium and an all electric galley. We run the genset frequently, sometimes twice a week but if it is 3 or 4 days without sun it is daily. Also, your cruising grounds may change. We have been in Maine for 5 weeks. We run the genset a lot more up here than in the Bahamas. We are looking at ditching the genset but would only do so if we went with high amp alternators on the yanmars and an additional 600ah on the bank. Just a rough estimate of what I think it would take for us to part ways with the genny given we cook at least tice a day on the induction and in the electric oven. When they are both on we pull all of 3500w on our 12v system and it will soak some battery quickly. Not to mention there is a huge project time and material cost investment in supporting that level of demand. We added a second set of 4/0 main battery cables, inverter size increase, increased size DC cabling between inverter > breakout panel > main house panel, AC wiring increase to the galley, breaker size increases on the three breakers supporting the galley to name things off the top of my head, and there are more I have forgotten about. But we were very happy to leave the force10 in our wake so there's that. I would design the system on paper, remind yourself it can go days without 'enough' sun almost anywhere and make sure you are ready for not being able to use heat in your cooking.
wathey is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 09:42   #12
Registered User

Join Date: May 2018
Location: Urbanna, VA
Boat: Lagoon 380
Posts: 229
Re: Electric galley without genset

We are in the middle of converting our Lagoon to an electric galley. We have 21113 watt hours of Lithium and once we are done without solar upgrade we will be at 2500 watts of solar. Plus a wind generator and both engines have 120 amp Balmer alternators with Victron DC-DC chargers. Our generator is a Honda 2000w that we inherited with the boat that the previous owner used to run the Rainmaker. We have an single burner induction cook top. Small microwave and most important my wife's small rice cooker.
Cheyne is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 09:58   #13
Registered User
 
Cadence's Avatar

Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: SC
Boat: None,build the one shown of glass, had many from 6' to 48'.
Posts: 10,208
Re: Electric galley without genset

A family of 5 is going to require a lot of cooking so consider that in your calculations.
Cadence is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 15-09-2021, 15:15   #14
Registered User
 
Oceanride007's Avatar

Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Up Qld Coast, near Yeppoon.
Boat: Passport 41, Custom Perry in steel.
Posts: 625
Re: Electric galley without genset

I have 1000W of solar and 480Ahr 12V Lithium, I try to do as much as I can on 240V from a Au$500 2000W Powertech inverter. Next upgrade will be a dual bench top induction but my singlec Nuwave pic Flex has power control down to 800W and pretty good 5 Deg C temp control. But for those rain events of 3 days am glad I have my Force 10 on Gas, Thats my backup.


Would love a 3000W inverter @24V and change over to 24V. but i believe best solution for me evolves slowly.
__________________
Oceanrider.
"The floggings will continue until morale improves"
Oceanride007 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
electric, galley

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are Off
Pingbacks are Off
Refbacks are Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Moving from propane to genset powered galley. jas Construction, Maintenance & Refit 10 10-01-2020 12:33
Multihull Galley Up or Galley Down Cotemar Multihull Sailboats 37 05-01-2014 06:16
Want To Buy: 3 Burner Propane Galley Stove or Galley Maid parts Dougpad Classifieds Archive 1 26-02-2012 18:41
Galley Up - Galley Down shipofools Multihull Sailboats 32 27-07-2010 14:05

Advertise Here


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 07:30.


Google+
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Social Knowledge Networks
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.8 Beta 1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.

ShowCase vBulletin Plugins by Drive Thru Online, Inc.