Oceanvolt Hybrid Motor

[BigBeakie]

It's very refreshing to have an experienced OV user here on CF., at long last. Welcome! 👍Thanks for your comments regarding your experience with Electrical Propulsion and Oceanvolt.

A warning to you though that some here will think you are crazy for using EP, because it just "doesn't have enough power". Your experience seems to indicate otherwise, since your SD15's (22 HP) at half power had very similar propulsive thrust as the Lavezzi ( a smaller, lighter boat) with twice the HP and at full power!

I have been trying to make that case for quite some time on this forum, if you look at previous posts, so it is good to have some more data like that. What headwind would you say you could motor into now with the SD15's at full power?

We are building a 50 foot performance cat with OV Sd15 Servoprops, a 16kW DC genset, 24kW Valence LFP bank, and 4.5kW of solar. I was pleased to read your blog about OV coming to repair the saildrive, because I think their 5 year worldwide warranty and monitoring service is nice peace of mind.

Enjoy your silence😉


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[yvest]

Originally Posted by BigBeakie

I was pleased to read your blog about OV coming to repair the saildrive, because I think their 5 year worldwide warranty and monitoring service is nice peace of mind.

Which blog ? I didn't see anything about the propulsion system on jajapami.com, another one ?

[Mark424]

Originally Posted by JaJapami

Hi all,
I would like to share our experience with our 50 foot catamaran with Oceanvolt SD15s and a 25kWh SuperB battery bank if anybody is interested.

I'd love to hear more about your teething pain and whether it was specific to your configuration or whether the were learnings that anyone using OV or diesel-electric configurations could learn from. I've long dreamed of a setup with a single generator and twin electric drives.

Thanks!

[yvest]

Ah I have found the message o the blog :

https://jajapami.tumblr.com/post/166...maomore-11-uhr

"Den Mann von Oceanvolt war absolut pünktlich. Er traf in den Moment ein, als der Kran sich wieder auf den Rückweg machte und hat sofort angefangen den Propeller zu demontieren. Der Defekt war sehr überraschend und auch für den Laien mehr als deutlich: das Faustgroße Zahnrad (oder Ritzel, oder wie man das nennt) im Saildrive war total zerstört. Die ganzen Zähnchen waren einfach weggebröselt! Wie das passieren konnte (vielleicht ein Fertigungsfehler bei der Aushärtung des Metalls?) weiß man noch nicht. Auf jeden Fall sind die Teile bei beiden Motoren ausgetauscht worden und wir hoffen, dass das nicht wieder passiert!"

(note : I don't speak German, use gg translate to read it)

[BigBeakie]

Ummm, you read the blog with Google translate.

They had a gear problem in one saildrive and phoned OV. An OV engineer flew down to meet the boat to replace parts under warranty.


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[svReality]

Here is the first photo of my Oceanvolt SD15 installation into my 2007 Leopard 46.
So all of your questions should be answered in the next couple of months.

[BigBeakie]

Congrats👍👍

Very keen to hear your regen numbers on a beam reach. Wiring terminations for the controller look good! How big a propulsion bank did you go for?


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[svReality]

Two times 14xValenceU27-24XP so about 24.5KWh per motor. They should be installed next week but I am travelling from 7-17 Aug so I might miss some of the installation process but will post photos when I am back mid August

[BigBeakie]

Wow! I'm envious, we've got half that.

We've also decided to run a 24v house bank with the same Valence batts in parallel so we can have 2 for the EP tender when needed. Also gives good redundancy on the charging side of things too.


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[rabbi]

Originally Posted by BigBeakie

Ummm, you read the blog with Google translate.

They had a gear problem in one saildrive and phoned OV. An OV engineer flew down to meet the boat to replace parts under warranty.

According to their blog a pinion lost all it's teeth so the SD was dead. OV replaced both under warranty.
Just weeks later they were looking to lift again to replace a motor... why thru hag to lift for this is beyond my understanding.

Also two fatal defects in a short time does not sound like high quality to me.

[BigBeakie]

Originally Posted by rabbi

According to their blog a pinion lost all it's teeth so the SD was dead. OV replaced both under warranty.
Just weeks later they were looking to lift again to replace a motor... why thru hag to lift for this is beyond my understanding.

Also two fatal defects in a short time does not sound like high quality to me.

Rabbi,

I think you are mistaken, claiming there were two instances of failure. I reread their blog looking for your claimed instance and did not find it. They had a gear problem in their Starboard drive & it was replaced in Portimao in Aug 2017 under warranty, as well as the port drive at the same time.

What is their post date where you think there was another problem?

As far as I can see the boat was last reported in the Carrib in June 2018, their last post.

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by BigBeakie

Rabbi,

I think you are mistaken, claiming there were two instances of failure. I reread their blog looking for your claimed instance and did not find it. They had a gear problem in their Starboard drive & it was replaced in Portimao in Aug 2017 under warranty, as well as the port drive at the same time.

What is their post date where you think there was another problem?

As far as I can see the boat was last reported in the Carrib in June 2018, their last post.

They mention it here :
September 13th which is about three weeks after the lift for replacing the saildrives.

While talking about the harbour master who knows where to lift out this big cat he / she states:

Das muss ja vor dem Sprung auf die Cap Verden noch mal sein, um die Motoren (zumindest einen) zu tauschen. Beim letzten Kranen waren es die sail-drives, die getauscht wurden, nicht die Motoren selbst.

Translation:

Lifting out is required before leaving for the Cape Verde Islands to change the motors (at least one). On the last lift out the saildrives were replaced, now its the motors.

I haven't found a more detailed info in their blog specifying the problem, or what exactly was done to fix it (if something was done at all).
However its only a three weeks after being hauled out that he (she?) talks about lifting again.

[BigBeakie]

Rabbi,

Apologies, I stand corrected, I misread that paragraph.

I'll see what I can find out. There would be no need to lift the boat to change the motor, you were right to wonder about that.

[BigBeakie]

OK, the reason for the change in motor is that the fault was in the linkage between the transmission gearing shaft and the motor drive system.

In the first instance the saildrive was changed on the starboard side and the suspected part that caused the failure was also replaced in the the port saildrive as a proactive, precautionary measure.

Oceanvolt monitor the system remotely and saw something in the motor stats later they did not like & thought the original damage in the SD may affect the motor. Since the client was heading across the Atlantic, they replaced the motor /saildrive for a new unit, under warranty.

As I understand it, both motors have performed to spec since then.

So yes, there was a failed part originally, but their customer service ethic cannot be faulted IMO.

[rabbi]

Originally Posted by BigBeakie

So yes, there was a failed part originally, but their customer service ethic cannot be faulted IMO.

Their customer service seems to be excellent, at least for users with blogs and a following.
But they were/are still ironing out the quirks and the system is/ was not yet ready for someone who doesn't want to lift out every few weeks.
Failure rate with just this particular boat is IMO bad.