Electric and Diesel comparison

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by Whimsical

The lagoon info is all sales hype with no real data.
Mike

Ha....You'll get a visit from the "Lagoon Gendarmerie" with comment's like that Mike

Dave

[northerncat]

i thought they were actually the lagoon foriegn legion
sean

[northerncat]

make that

Originally Posted by northerncat

goon foriegn legion
sean

sean

[ess105]

Things must be going slow in Australia for the Ozzie cat builders to get frothed up and throwing insults over comments made 4 weeks ago.

Chill out guys.

[cat man do]

How goes it ess, I was just seeing if anyone's still awake

Have fun

Dave

[ess105]

Just woken up and getting ready for the next days grind. Sleep well.

[Whimsical]

Originally Posted by ess105

Things must be going slow in Australia for the Ozzie cat builders to get frothed up and throwing insults over comments made 4 weeks ago.

Chill out guys.

No just the warped Ausie humour

4 weeks late, Its just that us Aussies are a bit slow

[ess105]

Well - it's all a good (albeit strange) education. I am very much looking forward to visiting your fine land again at some point in my future travels.

[TonyWest]

Hi, Mike:

I just posted an update on how things are going at the Miami show so far - see the Electric Leopards thread.

Yes, the speed/rpm/power graphs are exactly what we want to plot - with a selection of different propellers on the boat - after the Miami show.

Electric Leopard is a couple of hundred pounds lighter than production diesel leopards, which the brochure quotes as being 19,030 lbs/8,630 kg. I presume this is a "light" displacement number.

No propulsion battery bank, so we don't carry the 1,500-2,000 lb weight penalty for that.

The two 35HP motors on my boat weigh 162lb each, the production boats will have 2x20HP motors, which weigh 146 each. See here.

GB just replaced then gen before the show with a production model. (Mine was pre-production, developed a little less than the full 25kw, and was looking a little tired after a year of use). The few extra kw does, apparently, make a perceptible difference to boat speed - I'll see myself shortly.

25KW is max gen power and will drive the two motors at around 17HP each. The motors on my boat are over-sized (35HP max - prototype boat), so you can actually drive one motor at a time at 34HP if you want. The production run cats will have 20HP motors. Smaller, lighter, cheaper.

2x17HP is enough to get to 8-8.5 kn quite nicely, and enough to heat water, run air, charge house batteries, etc. too.

NB: It's a variable speed DC gen, so if you're not drawing full power, it slows down and burns less fuel, so there's no downside here. Nice power with you need it, less fuel burn when you don't, no ac:dc or voltage conversion energy losses, no wet-stacking to generate pollution and shorten oil/gen life...pretty cool gen this. And it weighs only 550lb and runs quiet at 65dba. See gen data here.

Cheers, Tony

Originally Posted by Whimsical

Tony
Great to see people taking the plunge with electric. I hope you will have time to compile a table of speed versus current draw for us.
I have quickly scaned your other posts but didn't find any info on the weight of your leopard.
25 kW seems pretty generous for electric propulsion at your size and is reflected in the speed of 8 knts. Is that maximum power ?

Mike

[Whimsical]

Originally Posted by TonyWest

Hi, Mike:

Electric Leopard is a couple of hundred pounds lighter than production diesel leopards, which the brochure quotes as being 19,030 lbs/8,630 kg. I presume this is a "light" displacement number.

No propulsion battery bank, so we don't carry the 1,500-2,000 lb weight penalty for that.

The few extra kw does, apparently, make a perceptible difference to boat speed - I'll see myself shortly.

2x17HP is enough to get to 8-8.5 kn quite nicely, and enough to heat water, run air, charge house batteries, etc. too.

NB: It's a variable speed DC gen, so if you're not drawing full power, it slows down and burns less fuel, so there's no downside here. Nice power with you need it, less fuel burn when you don't, no ac:dc or voltage conversion energy losses, no wet-stacking to generate pollution and shorten oil/gen life...pretty cool gen this. And it weighs only 550lb and runs quiet at 65dba. See gen data here.

Cheers, Tony

Thanks for the update
This fits very well to the Gato Verde example, post 37, if you can motor above 8 knts while charging batts and aircon operating with about 22 kW. Can't wait to see the graphs. Hopefully you monitor just the propulsion consumption.

Your 8.5 ton light, mine is 4.5. Add in 2 ton for payload and my equivalent power to weight comes out at 14 kW.

The generator is exactly along the lines of my thinking, just a little large. Can you get them to cut the old one in half for me. I need about 12 kW at less than 150kg, Gb/Ossa start at your size. There are some offerings that I have found on the web but emails remain unanswered. Solving this will be the critical point in my adoption of electric.

Mike

[jjtctaylor]

Last data I received from Glacier Bay was May 2006. They had a price list but did not yet have fully tested a complete lineup of gensets.

Last they sent to me in your range was:

13.5 kw OSSA Powerlite, Perkins L:29.5 W:24.5 H:30.5 weight 450lb price $18,620. The new perkins engines are NOT the common rail design supplied to E-leopard. Good engines still with 500 hrs between oil changes. This is actually a larger genset but derated for full time output at 13.5KW. That is currently tested a ready for ship. A 6 Kw was planned for test soon and a 9KW was somewhat on the backburner.

Yes they are remiss on returning e-mails. Have two into them but maybe they are still at the boat show. Good that Tony has a relationship. Too bad they are not as responsive to outside inquiries. Noted from the Asanagi log they have trouble with follow-up for their ancilliary high voltage modifications as well. Hopefully in larger production volumes they will grow with their customers. Any comment from Glacier Bay Reps would be welcome. Update on their website would be nice too !

Solomon Technologies has de-evolved their website while trying to paint a picture of automotive development...... all for the lawsuit I think. Their change in direction has resulted in the loss of their founder who developed that constant torque transmission and pushed for marine application. Let's all hope electric power technologies don't get redirected to higher volume opportunities, leaving us yachties behind. They were supposed to produce a higher power motor and that has seemed to disappear.

Like to see between the two suppliers who really has better stuff for the money cause neither are cheap. They both seem to lack public info, although Solomon has to inform the SEC on its financial postion as a publicly traded company. We'll be informed if it goes out business..... haha.

JT

[TonyWest]

I'll give 'em a polite kick at the show and ask them to get back to you.

FYI: The OSSA Powerlite 25KW gen weighs 546 lbs, is rated at 25KW continuous, and measures 33.7 x 33.1 x 26 (LWH). The motor is the Mercedes/GB 3-cylinder job I think I mentioned before. I don't know the unit pricing - I'll ask them to contact you. I hear you on the smaller units...it's a good Q - I'll go see.

Tony

[Whimsical]

Originally Posted by jjtctaylor

13.5 kw OSSA Powerlite, Perkins L:29.5 W:24.5 H:30.5 weight 450lb price $18,620.
JT

JT thanks I wasn't aware of that one BUT Heavy and ridiculously expensive comes to mind. Tonys 25 kW only wieghs 100 pounds more.
I know the price doubles for any marine version but this is silly, 3x a normal genset price for a marine electric propulsion version.

Don't want to give the impression that I want something for nothing. I am quite happy to spend enough money to get what I need but I do need to perceive that there is value in the price and I just don't see it here.

I suppose the obvious comparison is to the cost of the original propulsion system. How much does 2 x 20 hp diesels with saildrives cost in the states? About the same?

Polar Power has a very interesting generator head that solves most of the difficulties of using permanent magnets through a hybrid variant. Will see what responses I can get from them.
Alternator 3500 & 6200

Tony
I have filled in many email forms that pop up and don't leave a copy in the sent box so now I am at a loss as to wether I sent Ossa one. I suppose I will have to start over and keep better records this time. Will be most happy to hear anything you can find out.

Mike

[jjtctaylor]

Mike,

Just so you know....... the 13.5KW is really a normal 18KW power unit. Thus the weight. It is also normal diesel technology so matches the weight to output of similar units. I too don't know why the excessive cost, but some items like lift pump for cooling and their proprietary controls which make it easy to use do add to the expense. Good warranty, support and low purchase volumes are factors as well. Lack of competition in high voltage DC arena might also be considered. Glacier Bay does claim to provide a complete package system,....... no extras to buy.

Solomon has reported switching from high voltage DC to optional standard AC gensets to reduce costs somewhat. They too initially provided expensive DC units. I do know that voltage regulation was a problem from DC genset suppliers and Polarpower wasn't able to deliver clean voltage regulation. Glacier Bay had to work on that issue as well. Took them over a year to get it right.

Polarpower as an option had a whole lot of past problems with being a supplier of their chosen Lombardini engnes. They could not get exhaust systems and other parts thus frustrated their progress. The hybrid chiller components are interesting though. They are the worst at updating their website and not sure how they stay in business. Hope someone calls them and can provide an update on their capabilities.

[mikereed100]

There are some offerings that I have found on the web but emails remain unanswered.

Have you tried the folks at Ample Power? They were very good at getting back to me and answering questions. You might try Randy Leskovar at leskovar@amplepower.com. They offer a 48v 200amp genset powered by a Kubota. The price they quoted me was about 16k which included their $6k power management unit. The only other alternative I have found in this voltage range were the Fischer Pandas with similar pricing.

I find the discussion of the Ossalite system fascinating but I got a quote of about $60k for the 25kw genset and 2 20hp motors. For that I could get 2 new Yammies with saidrives and buy 4 more as spares!

Mike