Electric Ericson?

p.gazibara

p.gazibara

Member III
I am posting because I am curious if anyone else out there has given up on their petrol powerplants and gone electric. I was so fed up with my yanmar that I decided it would make a better anchor than engine and sold it. I have since put together an electric motor install that has not only freed me of engine maintenance, but also allowed me to rid myself of any future of oily bilges. I was also able to open up my cabin and now under way you can have a conversation below without raising your voice. It's brilliant!

-P
 
gadangit

gadangit

Member III
p.gazibara said:
I am posting because I am curious if anyone else out there has given up on their petrol powerplants and gone electric. I was so fed up with my yanmar that I decided it would make a better anchor than engine and sold it. I have since put together an electric motor install that has not only freed me of engine maintenance, but also allowed me to rid myself of any future of oily bilges. I was also able to open up my cabin and now under way you can have a conversation below without raising your voice. It's brilliant!

-P
Click to expand...

We too have defied all conventional wisdom and gone electric. Officially we are a hybrid, we installed a diesel generator matched in voltage and capacity to the motor. We don't talk about it much, the opinions are strong and varied.

What size boat do you have?
 
p.gazibara

p.gazibara

Member III
Cinderella is a 35-2 I have a 5Kw PM DC electric motor. I haven't done thorough sea trials yet, but I am hoping to spend most of my time sailing and I am interested in how much regen I may be able to put back into the battery bank. What kind of setup do you have?
 
gadangit

gadangit

Member III
p.gazibara said:
Cinderella is a 35-2 I have a 5Kw PM DC electric motor. I haven't done thorough sea trials yet, but I am hoping to spend most of my time sailing and I am interested in how much regen I may be able to put back into the battery bank. What kind of setup do you have?
Click to expand...

We have an 8kW, 48VDC motor. We found a bit of turbulence off the prop makes the rudder waggle a bit under regen, so we don't do that often. But it is nice to know it is available if needed. Our solar panel array does a pretty good job of recharging what we use getting out of the slip and out to the bay.

Chris
 
Mark F

Mark F

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
Hi P,

You have an E35-2, right? What motor did you use (sorry, I see you have a 5kw motor)? Controller? Batteries? Charger? Monitor? Prop? I'm interested in larger installs since someday my number on the 30' Santa Cruz South Harbor waiting list will come up and I plan on getting a larger boat (not that I don't love my current boat - Lotus Flower!). I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the power you get with the 5kw motor.

I agree with Chris regarding posting much about EP on a sailboat but here in the safe zone (EricsonYachts.Org) you don't get much push back :). For my tastes, I can't imagine owning a sailboat without EP.

My AGM batteries are getting a bit long in the tooth at 8 years so my range is definitely diminished from earlier but they still supply adequate power for most of my sailing. If I go any distance I usually bring a Honda 2000i with me for backup. I've only used it once.

Have you checked out my blog on repowering Lotus Flower with electric? Someday I'll update it. http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...ric-repower-of-Lotus-Flower-a-1976-Ericson-27
 
Mark F

Mark F

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
Hi Chris,

What motor system do you have? How do you set the throttle for regen?
 
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gadangit

gadangit

Member III
Mark F said:
Hi Chris,

What motor system do you have? How do you set the throttle for regen?
Click to expand...

Hi Mark-
We have a 3ph. Permanent magnetic motor on a 48VDC system with a Sevcon controller.

We have a three blade Max Prop, so you have to get the prop to lock into reverse by giving reverse throttle until you hear it clunk in. It will stay in that position due to the pressure on the blades moving through the water. When you put the throttle in neutral you will hear the prop beginning to spin. At that point no power is being generated, so you need to drive the field exciters by putting the throttle in forward. At this point it is a balance act with boat speed and finding the highest output by varying the throttle position. To get out, go full forward throttle to get the prop to flop back to it's forward driving position and then to neutral so the prop can fold to the neutral position.

I figure that costs a knot of boat speed and we wouldn't use it if we weren't already doing 6.5+kts. It's been a while, but I recall seeing 250W, so not nothing.

Chris
 
Mark F

Mark F

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
Thanks Chris.

It's a little different with the fixed three blade we have. Our prop is a pretty draggy prop (13x13) when not producing electricity. To get the regen going I slowly advance the throttle and watch the voltage rise until it starts to drop. Then I reduce the throttle until I am at the max voltage for that moment. The voltage will continue to rise as I sail.

I have wondered if that voltage rise was just a superficial rise in voltage and minimal rise in stored amp hours. This weekend we sailed to Monterey and back which gave me an opportunity to play around with regen and in a very unscientific process I would say we were getting a little less than 5 minutes of motoring for 35-40 minutes of regen. This is at a low amp draw of about 8-10 amps (400ish watts). It's fun to play around with the regen and in my case with the fixed prop I think I get less of a drag hit with regen engaged.
 
gadangit

gadangit

Member III
Mark F said:
Thanks Chris.

It's a little different with the fixed three blade we have. Our prop is a pretty draggy prop (13x13) when not producing electricity. To get the regen going I slowly advance the throttle and watch the voltage rise until it starts to drop. Then I reduce the throttle until I am at the max voltage for that moment. The voltage will continue to rise as I sail.

I have wondered if that voltage rise was just a superficial rise in voltage and minimal rise in stored amp hours. This weekend we sailed to Monterey and back which gave me an opportunity to play around with regen and in a very unscientific process I would say we were getting a little less than 5 minutes of motoring for 35-40 minutes of regen. This is at a low amp draw of about 8-10 amps (400ish watts). It's fun to play around with the regen and in my case with the fixed prop I think I get less of a drag hit with regen engaged.
Click to expand...

We started with a fixed three blade prop as well. The Max Prop has made a huge difference in how well we sail which was more important to us than any motoring efficiency gained in the fixed prop. And at this point after tinkering with the pitch, I'm not sure there is much lost. But we had to try both to figure that out.

In theory the amps generated at the increased voltage are contributing to replacing watts consumed.
 
p.gazibara

p.gazibara

Member III
Mark F said:
Hi P,

You have an E35-2, right? What motor did you use (sorry, I see you have a 5kw motor)? Controller? Batteries? Charger? Monitor? Prop? I'm interested in larger installs since someday my number on the 30' Santa Cruz South Harbor waiting list will come up and I plan on getting a larger boat (not that I don't love my current boat - Lotus Flower!). I'll be interested to hear your thoughts on the power you get with the 5kw motor.

I agree with Chris regarding posting much about EP on a sailboat but here in the safe zone (EricsonYachts.Org) you don't get much push back :). For my tastes, I can't imagine owning a sailboat without EP.

My AGM batteries are getting a bit long in the tooth at 8 years so my range is definitely diminished from earlier but they still supply adequate power for most of my sailing. If I go any distance I usually bring a Honda 2000i with me for backup. I've only used it once.

Have you checked out my blog on repowering Lotus Flower with electric? Someday I'll update it. http://www.ericsonyachts.org/infoex...ric-repower-of-Lotus-Flower-a-1976-Ericson-27
Click to expand...

I am doing a full write up on my conversion. My blog can be found here - www.cindyscircumnav.com its an annoying domain, soon to change to www.sailingcinderella.com (not sure what I was thinking). I have done a full write up on what components I used and the total cost.

In short, the motor is the Manta 2 motor off ebay. I have a kelly 4 QM PM motor controller, a kelly 48v charger, I bought my monitors off amazon, and the batteries are cheap lead acids. The motor works great, up until this past weekend, I have only taken it out around Lake Union here in Seattle. This weekend I sailed out to Poulsbo and Kingston through the locks. We were becalmed Friday night, so we slowly motored (2kts) until the batteries gave up. We eventually dropped anchor and waited until the wind picked back up. In the morning we sailed to windward in 15 or so kts, and I tried the regen for the first time. Fortunately I read this thread as I too have a folding prop. It wasn't until I threw it in reverse for a second that the prop really started spinning and regening power. I fortunately did not experience and vibrations from the propeller on my rudder. I did slow down about a half a kt though. I was sailing along at about 7kts, and when I turned on the regen I slowed to about 6.5 kts. Not too bad considering.

I am not sure how many amps I was putting back into the batteries as my regen amp display decided not to work, but I was able to charge my batteries up enough to motor around the dock in Kingston (to be fair I pretty much sailed onto the dock with only a touch of the motor to stop the boat alongside the dock). We stayed in Kingston for a few hrs and charged back up before going back through the locks and under the bridges in Seattle.

I still have never had Cinderella out of the water, but I plan to soon so that I can see what I have going on down below.

Not bad for a $1600 system, batteries included.

-P
 
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B

Becca

Junior Member
Electric in Seattle

Yes, I completely dumped a rusted incomplete Atomic 4 and got an Elco 9.9 hp outboard. Living aboard and loving it!
Becca
 
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