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Old 27-08-2014, 14:50   #76
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

Awesome Growley - I'm really enjoying your thread/updates - Good luck tomorrow!
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Old 27-08-2014, 15:17   #77
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

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I estimated my max range at 50% discharge, without generator or solar assist, to be about 85 miles. If you need more motoring range than that with a similar boat, you need internal combustion. Anybody else would do well to consider electric. Sorry for the evangelizing but I am really chuffed to have finally actually spun the prop for a few minutes.
I think you have a 11 kWh bank so at 50% DOD 5.5 kWh usable. My best educated guess (I've done this) is it will take around 1500 watts to push your 27' at 4 kt. That works out to 375 Wh per nm. 5500/375 = 14.6 nm. This assumes a clean bottom and calm conditions. 85 nm would be nice, but that would take a large investment in LiFePO4 cells.
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Old 27-08-2014, 19:51   #78
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

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I think you have a 11 kWh bank so at 50% DOD 5.5 kWh usable. My best educated guess (I've done this) is it will take around 1500 watts to push your 27' at 4 kt. That works out to 375 Wh per nm. 5500/375 = 14.6 nm. This assumes a clean bottom and calm conditions. 85 nm would be nice, but that would take a large investment in LiFePO4 cells.
Thanks, Bob. I was figuring 3kt and going by the heavier Bianka's figures. But 14.6 would still be like 10x my requirements. So basically no matter whut, I won't be disappointed.

I have been exiled to pier 5 from my berth at pier 3, due to my fingers pier steps falling down and waiting for repair. (The plus side, I am in a transient slip with free electricity) and I just motored over here to pier w where our community bar resides in a couple of dock boxes, and we celebrating my electrification right now. Wow I hope I'm sober enough to get back to my slip. But I know my Batts and my motor are up to the task. All in all, it has been a great day. I really didn't want to have to catch another ship without getting this project finished.
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Old 27-08-2014, 20:08   #79
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

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Thanks, Bob. I was figuring 3kt and going by the heavier Bianka's figures. But 14.6 would still be like 10x my requirements. So basically no matter whut, I won't be disappointed.

I have been exiled to pier 5 from my berth at pier 3, due to my fingers pier steps falling down and waiting for repair. (The plus side, I am in a transient slip with free electricity) and I just motored over here to pier w where our community bar resides in a couple of dock boxes, and we celebrating my electrification right now. Wow I hope I'm sober enough to get back to my slip. But I know my Batts and my motor are up to the task. All in all, it has been a great day. I really didn't want to have to catch another ship without getting this project finished.
OK, fudge factor up some on that range prediction. From what Mike has said, he is getting around 300 Whr per nm at his cruising speed. Maybe 20 ~ 25 nm. Keep us posted on your real world numbers like vessel speed, battery voltage to determine state of charge, etc.

Congrats, welcome to the electron club.
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Old 29-08-2014, 10:38   #80
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

Nice, looking forward to the video.
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Old 29-08-2014, 10:48   #81
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

If your taking all the steel stuff apart to paint, consider powder coating, looks great and I think lasts longer in a salt environment.
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Old 29-08-2014, 11:27   #82
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

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If your taking all the steel stuff apart to paint, consider powder coating, looks great and I think lasts longer in a salt environment.
I would consider it, but I am going low budget. I am actually looking for free paint.
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Old 29-08-2014, 11:33   #83
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

Call some local powder coating shops. If you're willing to take gloss black, or satin black, they usually have large jobs using that and they might be willing to slip your stuff in and shoot it/bake it for free alongside the big job. My neighbor down the street owns an offroad accessories mfg company, he powdercoats all of his products satin black. He has offered to powdercoat anything I need, up to race car chassis size, for free as long as satin black is acceptable.
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Old 29-08-2014, 11:45   #84
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

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OK, fudge factor up some on that range prediction. From what Mike has said, he is getting around 300 Whr per nm at his cruising speed. Maybe 20 ~ 25 nm. Keep us posted on your real world numbers like vessel speed, battery voltage to determine state of charge, etc.

Congrats, welcome to the electron club.
Thanks, Bob, I will. I still have to install meters, then I will do a quick speed run as it is, to compare to my recent final trial of my old A4, then off to my favorite beach to scrape prop and hull before the real testing begins. The hull and prop are pretty well fouled at present and it chops a good knot off my speed, and will affect my range considerably. Also I had to buy a digital laser tach. I think there is a way to get motor rpm off the CAN bus, but I don't know how to do that yet.

Haul out needed, but I don't have the money right now.

I got to say, though, I'm getting very nice torque out of this little motor. She jumps up pretty good when I twist the power pot. I was wondering if I should get a bigger motor but now I am glad I went for the cheap 5kw one.

Too bad the motor can't take an axial thrust. Both gearbox and motor have NEMA 56C output faces so mounting the motor directly without the gearbox would be simple. Maybe Motenergy should make a 5kw low speed high torque motor with a thrust bearing built in, like the Lynch motors.
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Old 29-08-2014, 12:24   #85
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

The torque at low rpm is where an electric motor shines. No internal combustion engine can even come close. I used to use (6) 5000 hp electric motors to hold position over the wellhead and the quick spool up under load could only be done with an electric motor.
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Old 31-08-2014, 12:58   #86
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

Another observation...

Finally got around to checking the shift alignment cause I had to tighten the stuffing box. Having an intermediate section of shift between gearbox or motor and the prop shift is a valuable alignment tool. If you can take each coupling off in turn and the shafts line up dead center to center, you are aligned. But if you can only break the shift at one place, you might or might not have perfectly aligned shafts even if the ends match up.

We'll we all know that, right? It's just common sense. But if you can't remove a coupling then you can't observe the two shaft ends. I did use a short central section, partly for ease of alignment, partly because the output shaft is too short. I had already bought a split coupling and to add the 6" jumper shaft I had to order one more coupling and found a 2 piece coupling. Well, I should have got two of them. Lesson is, get 2 part couplings, especially when you have to add another section of shaft.
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Old 06-09-2014, 06:57   #87
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

Still fussing with shaft alignment but I should have that finished today. I have to climb in and out of the lazarette to get to the couplings and aft mount bolts, and go in from the salon to get the forward bolts and I am getting tired of that.

Weather permitting, I will motor a couple miles tomorrow to a beach where I always clean my hull and prop, and give her a good scrape. There is a lot of growth down there, and test data would be meaningless the way it is.

I do not like the meter setup that Kelly provides. The current meter reads in percentage of a user configurable percentage of max rated current. I want it to read amps out of the battery. Correspondence with Kelly was pointless. They like doing it that way cause it is easy for them. Same with the charge meter. I tossed them both. Ordered a 100a ammeter (I don't anticipate ever running over 100a) and shunt, which I will install at the battery terminal. As for state of charge, I just measure the open circuit voltage with a digital voltmeter for now. I will figure out a more elegant solution later.

One thing I like about the Kelly controller is it is programmable by the user without an expensive doodad. You listening, Sevcon? One thing I don't like about the Kelly controller is, NOT SO. I don't use windows. I use Ubuntu. And the interface is RS232, not USB. The Kelly configuration program is a Windows executable. Asked them is they think maybe they should port the app into linux, their reply was WE don't use Linux here. So I bought a cheap windoze laptop for one use, programming the controller, and a serial to USB adapter. I don't mind spending the money so much as having a useless piece of crap taking up space until and if I ever want to change the configuration again. Not having a Linux version and not having a USB interface is most inconsiderate. They don't seem to care about the finer points of customer satisfaction. The customer is supposed to cater to them, instead, apparently. Documentation is a little sketchy, too. But the controller is nice and cheap, available in a kit with controller, contactor, and fuse mounted on a nice aluminum plate, and no extra equipment is needed for configuration. Except a windoze computer and serial to USB adapter. If Sevcon controllers could be configured with a proper Linux computer and no special dongles or doodads, I wouldn't mind paying the extra price to have a sine wave controller.

Anyway, things are going well, and I hope to have some test data to post within a week or so.
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Old 06-09-2014, 08:38   #88
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

Kelly giving you a percentage reading is just their way of not having to ante up for a shunt. Using a shunt is a safe and accurate way to determine amps by just reading the small voltage drop across a known resistance in line with the load.

Thanks for keeping us posted on your progress.
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Old 07-09-2014, 16:35   #89
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

Looking forward to your test data GM. It's been fun following your thread.
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Old 08-09-2014, 01:47   #90
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Re: It Begins: Converting Cal 2-27 to Electric Propulsion!

will you be using regen?
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