This is the easiest to understand explanation of installing an electric motor in a sailboat that I have seen. Thank you very much for all of your efforts, and I look forward to watching the rest of your videos to learn more.
If you decide to go electric and have questions, I would be pleased to try to answer. I will also mention that thunderstruck motors is a fantastic resource if you go with them but understand that their systems are more of at a hobbyist/ tinkerer level. Which is of course quite fun if you enjoy that sort of thing.
@@sailingaccidentalgybe we are going electric also. Our boat is in Mexico and we won't be back for about 6 months to do the switch. I'm also using thunderstruck products.
I too thought about using a Thunderstruck motor in my sailboat, but after seeing what you did I'm not sure that I would be able to learn what I need to know to be able to install it myself. It seems like I would need a course in electrical engineering or something. I'm putting an outboard on it for now, and will try to sail most of the time. Thanks for the video. Wish I understood it better.
Honestly, I believe you would be able to figure it out. Best way to do it it's just to take one step at a time. I was a little nervous about building this out and felt I couldn't do it but I slowly worked on it on the coffee table down in the basement, piece by piece. If you take your time, anything is possible. I know that looking at this setup may appear daunting but in reality, I learned each piece one at a time. The supported thunderstruck is pretty amazing too.
@@sailingaccidentalgybe Thank you so much for your response and encouragement. Maybe I will give it a try. It definitely looks like an interesting project. Have a great New Year!
You've really done a fantastic job, and the depth of expertise you've gained in every aspect of it is very commendable! As you plan further videos, I'd love to see a walkthrough of cost. Keep up the great work!
Good eye! The manual for the charger was written in an English that is far from anything that could constitute any variant of English. Without further inspiration from thunderstruck, who really had no clue either, I decided that the random flashing lights meant nothing and so the self-destruct button was born. Ultimately, I did it begin to understand the sequence of lights through observation and trial, but the self-destruct button remains!
I love the depth you went into in this and the previous video on the electric motor setup. It confirmed for me that the DIY route is definitely going to be the way to go for me. I also have a background in software engineering and already built a 48v lithium bank with solar and shore power charging all controlled over CANBUS and ve.direct. I look forward to seeing more of your adventures and future technical endeavours.
Awesome to hear and so glad the overview was helpful! Right now we are just having fun exploring the east coast by sail (and breaking things along the way....which is part of the fun). We'll plan to wrap this all up with another technical discussion (rises, buds and thorns) when we get back to New Hampshire. If you have any technical questions along your own journey, feel free to post!
@@sailingaccidentalgybe Heart attack pictures, fatty foods is animaIs cIogged arteries, hard arteries, PH 5, no fibre🧟♂️🦠🍔🥓🥩🍗🍳🧀... 🤮. Vegans don’t stink. PH 7 , plants have fibre ✅😉, vegans are peaceful, Peer review science. Actual pictures of the heart. th-cam.com/video/15wgYsToORM/w-d-xo.html !!! th-cam.com/video/pFPFnhfuLrE/w-d-xo.html Vegans don’t have this problem because that is the animals. Vegans don’t get clogged arteries, 4% cancer if you’re vegan. Meat based diet 51% death rate. That is extremely high for a frigging burger etc. Gorillas in the wild, have 1 percent cancer. And they never ever eat animals !!! Peer review science !!!! TH-cam delicious vegan food. Time to change ✅❤️😉
@@sailingaccidentalgybe . ‘Smells baaad’. 6 hours !!!! 🔴🦌. 5 days or more sitting inside your stomach puuuu-trifying !!! No fibre if you eat animals in their secretions !!! Timelapse. th-cam.com/video/lmSrUvgWiqE/w-d-xo.html .... 🤢🤮.. That’s why I am vegan !!!! Your teeth are flat 😬. And your stomach is very very long, “combined length of the small and large intestines is at least 15 ft in length”. We are herbivores. The ape family. ✅❤️😬💪🦍 GorilIas never ever eat animals, they are huge !!! 98.6% the same as us !!! And I’ve gotten bigger and stronger and fitter on a plant based diet. Scientific fact !!!! Fat deposits clog the arteries, eating animals and their secretions. Deodorant mask the symptoms but the shoes and socks and armpits.. 🍳🍖🍔...🦠🧟♂️👕🧦🥾🤮.
You hurt innocent animals for a 5 minute burger etc ??. Cutting down the rainforest for cows and chicken etc, over a freaking burger etc. 10 times as much grains 🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾 for one steak 🥩 !!!! That is Eviiil !!!! “Since 1978, over 289,000 square Miles, of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed” th-cam.com/video/daeB4XMvZSM/w-d-xo.html . You can have vegan hamburgers and vegan chicken and vegan pizza and vegan curry and vegan burritos etc. TH-cam delicious vegan food. Which side of history are you on ?? Time to change ✅😉
When we bought the boat, we didn't realize that the engine was in such bad shape and the more money we put into it, the more we realized we were just sinking money into a losing investment. We were going to scrap the boat and donate it and then covid-19 hit and we needed a project. Well, this seemed to work and it kept me busy at home setting it up in a test bed. I think the stars just all aligned for us to complete this project
Awesome! We are looking at doing something very similar. A video on range vs speed and typical recharge times from solar could be interesting. love your work
@@hodadyou We are looking at several options, including Oceanvolt. We would like to try her out in the water first in order to assess our baseline statistics on the 4108 Perkins Diesel. Then we will have some numbers to move forward.
One of the biggest problems with running directly from solar panels would be varying voltage and amperage based upon solar input. The battery acts as a gatekeeper if you will, to store an inconsistent power supply in order to allow it to be extracted consistently.
Next is to implement hydro Regen. Straightforward with your 3 phase induction motor. I'm surprised that someone who assembled such system so accurately can mess up with the units on that board so bad!! ;-) Great job!
Life is a learning experience and an adventure. But don't get me going because just yesterday I was channeling a scene from "Back to the Future" and thinking to myself, "if I could just obtain some plutonium from the Libyans..."
Good review of your system.... but really want usage numbers now for motor consumption, range, boat displacement to Amp usage, or perhaps even the % of power to range numbers... maybe in upcoming video?
Very impressive configuration and discussion. Pls be careful with lithium batteries and water intrusion, they can be quite dangerous. Even small lithium batteries in portable devoces can be extremely dangerous when wet.
Thanks for the tip! These batteries came out of Detroit and were used in autonomous, self-drive vehicles that were subject to all sorts of weather conditions. The vehicle company worked with the manufacturer of the batteries to create a weather resistant product. We've taken additional steps to ensure that these batteries stay dry. The battery is also used a proprietary system to prevent thermal runaway and self-containment of any thermal release. That's what's been touted anyway. electricity and water definitely do not mix and we're going to do our best to try to keep the two separate.
Excellent video following on from your last one, which has me pondering the following. How are the separate battery banks of the 48V propulsion system switched over? How are the separate BMS of the two banks switched over between the Victron safety relay? What kind of issue would the BMS throw up with the battery bank (ie. over voltage, over current, under voltage, under current) that would facilitate the relay to be switched that the Victron unit wouldn't have picked up on? Thanks Al.
Been looking at those engines for a while now, thinking of doing the switch (sick of diesel engine maintenance). Should we choose this engine, we hope that our install looks as good as yours. Thanks for the informative video.
Thunderstruck motors provides a very reliable system at a very reasonable cost as compared to, let's say Ocean Volt. The difference in price however, is made up for in the investment required to learn how to integrate all of the components together. It's a great learning experience, don't get me wrong, but it does require some ramp up time. Once everything is working, it seems to take care of itself and is very reliable. Even I found this very surprising. If you need to go with a larger motor, I would recommend a water cooled one. With the 5 kW motor, we're just able to keep it cool enough with a fan system built into the engine well. I can't imagine the heat dissipation required on a larger motor. Certainly, it would be manageable with a water cooled motor and I believe that they do provide one in their larger sizes
@@sailingaccidentalgybe I think 5kW would suit our needs, our boat is 33ft, and not too heavy. I'm okay with investing some time, it's not like I can afford the alternative anyway ;). Now that you've had some time with your Thunderstruck, would you prefer a larger engine or is the 5kW adequate?
As you said in E39 you would include a parts list under this chapter ;) could you still provide it? Especially the charger and BMS which are also connected to the can bus of the sevcon. Thanks in advance
We sourced everything from thunderstruck. I will link you to the exact kit we purchased. www.thunderstruck-ev.com/sevcon-brushless-sailboat-kit-5kw.html www.thunderstruck-ev.com/bms-controller.html www.thunderstruck-ev.com/tsm2500-and-charge-controller.html Hope this helps!
One of my backgrounds is in computer engineering but I will state for the record that it, in very few ways, readied me for tackling this unique challenge. It was a "bit" daunting. Some nights I would wake up our of the blue in the middle of the night with a solution to a circuit or logic problem. Hopefully I can make it a little easier for the next person who tries this!
@@sailingaccidentalgybe Could you make a video on how to set up the ipad interface for the OBD2 data? I tried unsuccessfully following instructions from Thunderstruck. Thanks.
Hello Nice job and well thought out design!! I may have missed it in the video but how are you charging your 12v house power? I am about to set up my conversion on the bench finally just got the last few parts in and have been going back and forth but settled on a separate charger that I can use the existing perco switch to move the shore power or generator to the 48v charger or the 12v charger. Thanks for all the great information
That is a really good question and I was so excited about the electric motor setup that I never went over the basic 12 volt system. It's a very basic 200-W solar running to an MPPT controller to deep cycle lead acid batteries. We never went with lithium for the house batteries because it was never our intention to hang on to this boat as our last boat. In fact, we have dibs on a new 44-ft ketch that will end up, ultimately, with a lithium set up for the 12-volt system. The controller is an EPever MPPT 12 volt and the two 100 watt panels are connected in parallel. It is more than sufficient to power the basic house needs and the electronics for the Thunderstruck System. I hope that helps. I can do a segment on it in an upcoming video but I grant you that it would not be very exciting!
I should also mention that thunderstruck actually recommended that the power system that supplies the BMS and the EVCC be separate from the drive battery system.
The system held up great! We really had no maintenance issues. We also didn't make too many changes and upgrades because we were going to be selling the boat anyway. Now we are taking possession of a larger, blue water boat. All in all, going electric was a breeze.
Absolutely! This was a great testbed platform to field test the setup. I would add two more batteries and wire each set of two in parallel to give 300 amp hours each. I would also upgrade the motor to a 10 kilowatt motor. We went with a smaller motor design because our intent has been to sail and only use the motor when needed. what we are finding is that the motor is actually very helpful when sailing to the wind and allows us to point more closely when we motorsail when conditions warrant. The five kilowatt motor was well balanced to the number of solar panels and number of batteries we had in place. We are planning to move up to another boat in the future and so did not put has robust a system in as we could have. Still, it has been working very well, actually exceeding our expectations, and we can motor along all day at about two and a half knots on a sunny day without a net drain on the batteries. one of the other things I would change would be to have a physical link for the onboard diagnostics. Using Bluetooth is not reliable and of course it always needs to be attended to at the least opportune time. Quite annoying. All in all though, I am quite impressed with what we ended up with.
I'm still watching and trying to decide. 10 kw motor minimum, I was thinking 2/48v 100 amp batteries. These would be for total electricity. Dorm frig,air fryer,inductive stove top,lapstop.DcLoads Bildge pumps running lights. 27ft sailboat so solar minimum needs determined what I have space for. Thank you enjoy mike
That was great!!! Thank you… When you compared the solar to generator… for charging time?was the solar 18 hrs for both batteries? Because I thought you said generator was 8 hrs for both batteries?
5kW motor on 7.5kWh battery equals around 1.5 hours run time? Without charging. Not bad at all. Is it capable of charging while the screw is being spun by drag while on sail power? Thanks for sharing.
This propellor will not do regen. As for funtime, we hope to run at an average of 2Kw which would, with solar input of .4Kw (max), greatly increase our runtime!
Thanks for sharing your build. I have a land based build with Tesla batteries and I have used Thunderstruck's BMS and I am trying to figure out how to wire in and program the CAN Bus to work some relays for High and Low voltage shut offs as well as temp shut off. Any words of advice for a guy that has limited computer skills?
Since I aired the episode on TH-cam, I found a way to utilize one of the pins on the BMS at 12 volts to be able to power a relay that switches the 48 volt side. If you look at the end of the manual for the BMS you will see there is a small reference to "loopoc". The BMS has the ability to, based upon the high voltage condition or low voltage condition, HVCC or LVCC occurring, to power a circuit at low current. I used this feature to power a relay in order to be able to handle a higher voltage system. If this is what you are considering, let me know. I have some emails from thunderstruck that I can forward to this forum on TH-cam. If not, it may be worthwhile to contact thunderstruck and request their advice. If you do, let them know that Kristen sent you! Trust me. You'll get a little extra response in so doing!
Great to see your system installed and gaining an understanding of how you have set it up. I recently watched a video from Sailing Uma th-cam.com/video/jpAnGJpcnQU/w-d-xo.html on a new Salona Yacht where the electric drive system uses hydro regen when under sail. Having the ability to efficiently clean charge whilst under sail is a bit of a game changer in my opinion. I look forward to your next video. All the very best from Scotland.
We've been following Uma as well. The Salina yacht has an Oceanvolt System. Excellent drive system and way more polished than Thunderstruck's (they label theirs as "hobbyist"). Price tag is far, far more than what we could afford. The bonus with Thunderstruck was learning from scratch!
Thank you for sharing your video! I'd love to know more about how you mounted the motor. Did you use the 2:1 gear reduction from Thunderstruck? How did you mount it? Did you use engine mounts? Just two? How did you do the alignment? I'm thinking it would be optimal to use four motor mounts oriented vertically and four more oriented horizontally, in order to really precisely align the motor to the propeller shaft. Did you use the chain coupling that comes with the gear reducer? I'm told they can be a bit noisy compared to a CV (constant velocity) coupling. I follow your posts on facebook too, where it might be easier to post pictures. Many thanks once again!!
We did use thunderstruck's 2 to 1 reduction transmission. Gary also fabricated a mounting system using angle iron. Alignment was done on a trial and error basis and seems to have been effective.
Yes! We did. Gary was the fiberglass and construction specialist for the boat as a whole and my background was the electrical systems. It was a good team effort!
Kool, where you guy out of, where do you plan on going? We are converting 5 boats to take the great american loop, hopefully this year. 5 boats might take some time to convert.
Gary and I are based out of New Hampshire where we also keep our 26-ft McGregor, a beautiful sailing vessel for inland waters and especially canals and rivers. This boat will be heading down to the keys around Florida and back up the coast to New Hampshire ultimately. We do hope to sell the boat at some point and procure a larger vessel in the neighborhood of 40 to 45 ft for ocean crossings.
So many questions. What were your concerns with all the electric going under the cock pit? Are those battery cases sealed? Was that cover on the motor to prevent water from getting in the motor? That's good for starters. Thank you
@@sailingaccidentalgybe do you have a location I can go look at your,old house loads. I'm at that stage of my project. I was thinking 300ah lip04. Not sure if I could do a refrig and small induction cook top. I'm looking foward to your new system.
These batteries were procured used from a private company producing autonomous drive vehicles in the Detroit area. I can tell you that they originated from a company by the name of Allcell. they have, however, been completely unresponsive to any queries I have made to them. Perhaps you might have better luck. www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.allcelltech.com/pdf/kwh.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiVgeDhv7juAhVQmVkKHYv7AQIQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw2Mcp5oGMC5VX-HALTVjfEs
We're not doing regen on this boat. Generally, you need to hit four knots anyway in order to be able to generate electricity. We don't have the right prop on this boat to begin with and we are going to be ultimately selling this boat and moving into a larger one. We'll look into regen on that next boat where our hull speed will be higher.
Wait. Stop. Watts per hour? WATTS PER HOUR? What the heck are you measuring? You probably mean Wh/h but you have to get this stuff right. Messing up units means you don't really understand what you're doing. Back to freshman physics.
Ah units! The nemesis of many. We've had such good success with this setup that we are building a hybrid drive on our next boat which is looking to be a 44-ft ketch. We shall have a plethora of 150Ah batteries and many more Wh/h. And yes, I understand completely what I am doing, how I am doing it and what I can expect as a result. Being human means that we occasionally make mistakes (nah that doesn't happen, but when it does we should project that a person is incompetent). I will admit I am dangerous enough to build large tesla coils and fire off lightning in my spare time. Zeus would be pleased.
@@sailingaccidentalgybe - I've been reasonably impressed with your approach, including two battery banks - usually not a great idea but your point of redundancy and rippling that through the battery controllers was valid. Unfortunately you said "watts per hour" about six times. Accelerating coulumbs? It's just wrong.
@@deislanddave if I had to do it again, I would not build in the redundancy. I was extremely concerned about failure, mostly of the batteries since they are used. Amazingly, when charging, the BMS puts them within .003 volts or less per battery block, and they discharge evenly. The thermistors register temperatures within 2°C of each other (and a lot of that variance could simply be my installation point of the thermistors on the battery pack itself).
@@sailingaccidentalgybe I think your choice was a good one, based on what you knew at the time. It's easy now to gang them together which given your additional experience is more consistent with best practice. I probably would have made one bank (assuming I went electric propulsion, which I wouldn't today - but good on you) from the beginning but splitting them and describing the redundancy factor due to lack of knowledge and demonstrated performance impressed me as good engineering. Since you've kept your house bank separate (which I laud), have you tracked consumption? My experience on cruising boats is 2.5 kWh/day +/- 0.5 kWh/day for house loads (fridge, freezer, autopilot, nav, lights, personal electronics, comms). Is that what you see? Can you separate loads from charging? Spreadsheets? Share? Your house bank looks like about 400 Ah at 12VDC - is that right? That seems light for most cruisers. Thoughts? What are you doing for domestic hot water? From an engineering point of view I ALWAYS worry about failure. FMEA for everything. Have you checked the thermister readings with a calibrated IR thermometer? That would be interesting data. Have you looked at battery temperature as a function of load and charging? That would be interesting also. Most of the curves I see easily are for FLA not LiPO4. Have you had to push hard yet? Heavy worthy or badly foul currents? Would you be interested in a peer-reviewed journal article with SNAME or ASNE? I haven't yet forgiven you for watts/hour *grin* but your engineering seems solid.
This is the easiest to understand explanation of installing an electric motor in a sailboat that I have seen. Thank you very much for all of your efforts, and I look forward to watching the rest of your videos to learn more.
Thank you very much. We oscillate between fixing boats and travel adventures. There's a lot of variance in what our episodes cover....much like life!
Multi billion dollar companies haven’t figured out what y’all have done here… Absolutely phenomenal build…
Love how you are both fully involved with the system..
It has been a lot of fun since we complement each other's abilities, with some crossover!
Wow!! This system is awesome. Haven't decided yet to go electric, but.. this looks just fantastic.
If you decide to go electric and have questions, I would be pleased to try to answer. I will also mention that thunderstruck motors is a fantastic resource if you go with them but understand that their systems are more of at a hobbyist/ tinkerer level. Which is of course quite fun if you enjoy that sort of thing.
Finally a video that I can learn from. Thanks!
Thank You. We are trying to produce videos that are informative for the sailing community and others! Our niche is technical. No bikini shots!
@@sailingaccidentalgybe we are going electric also. Our boat is in Mexico and we won't be back for about 6 months to do the switch. I'm also using thunderstruck products.
@@jtlathe Whenever you talk to John at Thunderstruck, tell him you know me and Gary.
@@sailingaccidentalgybe I will, thanks.
Prop re-gen is all in the controller programming.... it's like a speed /power bubble, you get it set up to follow the peak....like manual MPPT.
I too thought about using a Thunderstruck motor in my sailboat, but after seeing what you did I'm not sure that I would be able to learn what I need to know to be able to install it myself. It seems like I would need a course in electrical engineering or something. I'm putting an outboard on it for now, and will try to sail most of the time.
Thanks for the video. Wish I understood it better.
Honestly, I believe you would be able to figure it out. Best way to do it it's just to take one step at a time. I was a little nervous about building this out and felt I couldn't do it but I slowly worked on it on the coffee table down in the basement, piece by piece. If you take your time, anything is possible. I know that looking at this setup may appear daunting but in reality, I learned each piece one at a time. The supported thunderstruck is pretty amazing too.
@@sailingaccidentalgybe Thank you so much for your response and encouragement. Maybe I will give it a try. It definitely looks like an interesting project. Have a great New Year!
That’s a great video! Thanks so much for the info! This is something i really want to do in my own boat
You've really done a fantastic job, and the depth of expertise you've gained in every aspect of it is very commendable! As you plan further videos, I'd love to see a walkthrough of cost. Keep up the great work!
I noticed the self destruct button. Nice.
Good eye! The manual for the charger was written in an English that is far from anything that could constitute any variant of English. Without further inspiration from thunderstruck, who really had no clue either, I decided that the random flashing lights meant nothing and so the self-destruct button was born. Ultimately, I did it begin to understand the sequence of lights through observation and trial, but the self-destruct button remains!
I love the depth you went into in this and the previous video on the electric motor setup. It confirmed for me that the DIY route is definitely going to be the way to go for me. I also have a background in software engineering and already built a 48v lithium bank with solar and shore power charging all controlled over CANBUS and ve.direct. I look forward to seeing more of your adventures and future technical endeavours.
Awesome to hear and so glad the overview was helpful! Right now we are just having fun exploring the east coast by sail (and breaking things along the way....which is part of the fun). We'll plan to wrap this all up with another technical discussion (rises, buds and thorns) when we get back to New Hampshire. If you have any technical questions along your own journey, feel free to post!
@@sailingaccidentalgybe Heart attack pictures, fatty foods is animaIs cIogged arteries, hard arteries, PH 5, no fibre🧟♂️🦠🍔🥓🥩🍗🍳🧀... 🤮. Vegans don’t stink. PH 7 , plants have fibre ✅😉, vegans are peaceful, Peer review science. Actual pictures of the heart. th-cam.com/video/15wgYsToORM/w-d-xo.html !!! th-cam.com/video/pFPFnhfuLrE/w-d-xo.html Vegans don’t have this problem because that is the animals. Vegans don’t get clogged arteries, 4% cancer if you’re vegan. Meat based diet 51% death rate. That is extremely high for a frigging burger etc. Gorillas in the wild, have 1 percent cancer. And they never ever eat animals !!! Peer review science !!!!
TH-cam delicious vegan food. Time to change ✅❤️😉
@@sailingaccidentalgybe . ‘Smells baaad’. 6 hours !!!! 🔴🦌. 5 days or more sitting inside your stomach puuuu-trifying !!! No fibre if you eat animals in their secretions !!! Timelapse. th-cam.com/video/lmSrUvgWiqE/w-d-xo.html .... 🤢🤮.. That’s why I am vegan !!!! Your teeth are flat 😬. And your stomach is very very long, “combined length of the small and large intestines is at least 15 ft in length”. We are herbivores. The ape family. ✅❤️😬💪🦍 GorilIas never ever eat animals, they are huge !!! 98.6% the same as us !!! And I’ve gotten bigger and stronger and fitter on a plant based diet. Scientific fact !!!! Fat deposits clog the arteries, eating animals and their secretions. Deodorant mask the symptoms but the shoes and socks and armpits.. 🍳🍖🍔...🦠🧟♂️👕🧦🥾🤮.
You hurt innocent animals for a 5 minute burger etc ??.
Cutting down the rainforest for cows and chicken etc, over a freaking burger etc. 10 times as much grains 🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾 for one steak 🥩 !!!! That is Eviiil !!!! “Since 1978, over 289,000 square Miles, of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed” th-cam.com/video/daeB4XMvZSM/w-d-xo.html . You can have vegan hamburgers and vegan chicken and vegan pizza and vegan curry and vegan burritos etc. TH-cam delicious vegan food. Which side of history are you on ?? Time to change ✅😉
th-cam.com/video/DjydnllTe8E/w-d-xo.html Pufferfish, Fish ⭕️🐟🐡🤓 hoop. 2 minutes. That’s why I’m vegan ✅❤️😉....
Nice Job guys!
That's a very nice setup.
I'd love to do this to repower my Hunter 340 in Boston, wow awesome work!
When we bought the boat, we didn't realize that the engine was in such bad shape and the more money we put into it, the more we realized we were just sinking money into a losing investment. We were going to scrap the boat and donate it and then covid-19 hit and we needed a project. Well, this seemed to work and it kept me busy at home setting it up in a test bed. I think the stars just all aligned for us to complete this project
If you do decide to repower and have any questions, be sure to ask. Our home base is in New Hampshire, just up the road about an hour
Impressive system!
Awesome! We are looking at doing something very similar. A video on range vs speed and typical recharge times from solar could be interesting. love your work
As you may know from our videos, we have sold the boat and working on outfitting a 44' with plans for electric drive.
@@sailingaccidentalgybe What electric motors are you researching for the 44?
@@hodadyou We are looking at several options, including Oceanvolt. We would like to try her out in the water first in order to assess our baseline statistics on the 4108 Perkins Diesel. Then we will have some numbers to move forward.
Nice explaining. I wonder if there is a system where the solar panels can drive the motors without batteries.
One of the biggest problems with running directly from solar panels would be varying voltage and amperage based upon solar input. The battery acts as a gatekeeper if you will, to store an inconsistent power supply in order to allow it to be extracted consistently.
Next is to implement hydro Regen. Straightforward with your 3 phase induction motor.
I'm surprised that someone who assembled such system so accurately can mess up with the units on that board so bad!! ;-)
Great job!
Life is a learning experience and an adventure. But don't get me going because just yesterday I was channeling a scene from "Back to the Future" and thinking to myself, "if I could just obtain some plutonium from the Libyans..."
Good review of your system.... but really want usage numbers now for motor consumption, range, boat displacement to Amp usage, or perhaps even the % of power to range numbers... maybe in upcoming video?
Wow!!!!! Quite the system.
You get to see it first hand soon enough.
@@sailingaccidentalgybe I am really looking forward to our adventure!!!
Very impressive configuration and discussion. Pls be careful with lithium batteries and water intrusion, they can be quite dangerous. Even small lithium batteries in portable devoces can be extremely dangerous when wet.
Thanks for the tip! These batteries came out of Detroit and were used in autonomous, self-drive vehicles that were subject to all sorts of weather conditions. The vehicle company worked with the manufacturer of the batteries to create a weather resistant product. We've taken additional steps to ensure that these batteries stay dry.
The battery is also used a proprietary system to prevent thermal runaway and self-containment of any thermal release. That's what's been touted anyway.
electricity and water definitely do not mix and we're going to do our best to try to keep the two separate.
www.sta-eletronica.com.br/artigos/baterias-recarregaveis/baterias-de-litio/vantagens-e-desvantagens-da-bateria-de-litio-ferro-life-ou-lifepo4-
Awesome!
Excellent video following on from your last one, which has me pondering the following. How are the separate battery banks of the 48V propulsion system switched over? How are the separate BMS of the two banks switched over between the Victron safety relay? What kind of issue would the BMS throw up with the battery bank (ie. over voltage, over current, under voltage, under current) that would facilitate the relay to be switched that the Victron unit wouldn't have picked up on? Thanks Al.
Been looking at those engines for a while now, thinking of doing the switch (sick of diesel engine maintenance). Should we choose this engine, we hope that our install looks as good as yours. Thanks for the informative video.
Thunderstruck motors provides a very reliable system at a very reasonable cost as compared to, let's say Ocean Volt. The difference in price however, is made up for in the investment required to learn how to integrate all of the components together. It's a great learning experience, don't get me wrong, but it does require some ramp up time. Once everything is working, it seems to take care of itself and is very reliable. Even I found this very surprising. If you need to go with a larger motor, I would recommend a water cooled one. With the 5 kW motor, we're just able to keep it cool enough with a fan system built into the engine well. I can't imagine the heat dissipation required on a larger motor. Certainly, it would be manageable with a water cooled motor and I believe that they do provide one in their larger sizes
@@sailingaccidentalgybe I think 5kW would suit our needs, our boat is 33ft, and not too heavy. I'm okay with investing some time, it's not like I can afford the alternative anyway ;).
Now that you've had some time with your Thunderstruck, would you prefer a larger engine or is the 5kW adequate?
As you said in E39 you would include a parts list under this chapter ;) could you still provide it? Especially the charger and BMS which are also connected to the can bus of the sevcon.
Thanks in advance
We sourced everything from thunderstruck. I will link you to the exact kit we purchased.
www.thunderstruck-ev.com/sevcon-brushless-sailboat-kit-5kw.html
www.thunderstruck-ev.com/bms-controller.html
www.thunderstruck-ev.com/tsm2500-and-charge-controller.html
Hope this helps!
OMG, I'm just a simple guy! You guys must be electrical engineers...
Reminds me of Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory 🤪🤪🤣
One of my backgrounds is in computer engineering but I will state for the record that it, in very few ways, readied me for tackling this unique challenge. It was a "bit" daunting. Some nights I would wake up our of the blue in the middle of the night with a solution to a circuit or logic problem. Hopefully I can make it a little easier for the next person who tries this!
Way too complex...
@@sailingaccidentalgybe Could you make a video on how to set up the ipad interface for the OBD2 data? I tried unsuccessfully following instructions from Thunderstruck. Thanks.
Hello Nice job and well thought out design!! I may have missed it in the video but how are you charging your 12v house power? I am about to set up my conversion on the bench finally just got the last few parts in and have been going back and forth but settled on a separate charger that I can use the existing perco switch to move the shore power or generator to the 48v charger or the 12v charger. Thanks for all the great information
That is a really good question and I was so excited about the electric motor setup that I never went over the basic 12 volt system. It's a very basic 200-W solar running to an MPPT controller to deep cycle lead acid batteries. We never went with lithium for the house batteries because it was never our intention to hang on to this boat as our last boat. In fact, we have dibs on a new 44-ft ketch that will end up, ultimately, with a lithium set up for the 12-volt system. The controller is an EPever MPPT 12 volt and the two 100 watt panels are connected in parallel. It is more than sufficient to power the basic house needs and the electronics for the Thunderstruck System. I hope that helps. I can do a segment on it in an upcoming video but I grant you that it would not be very exciting!
I should also mention that thunderstruck actually recommended that the power system that supplies the BMS and the EVCC be separate from the drive battery system.
How has the system been holding up since this video? Have you made any changes or updates to the system since then?
The system held up great! We really had no maintenance issues. We also didn't make too many changes and upgrades because we were going to be selling the boat anyway. Now we are taking possession of a larger, blue water boat. All in all, going electric was a breeze.
Anything you would change or do different next time. Thanks
Absolutely! This was a great testbed platform to field test the setup. I would add two more batteries and wire each set of two in parallel to give 300 amp hours each. I would also upgrade the motor to a 10 kilowatt motor. We went with a smaller motor design because our intent has been to sail and only use the motor when needed. what we are finding is that the motor is actually very helpful when sailing to the wind and allows us to point more closely when we motorsail when conditions warrant. The five kilowatt motor was well balanced to the number of solar panels and number of batteries we had in place. We are planning to move up to another boat in the future and so did not put has robust a system in as we could have. Still, it has been working very well, actually exceeding our expectations, and we can motor along all day at about two and a half knots on a sunny day without a net drain on the batteries. one of the other things I would change would be to have a physical link for the onboard diagnostics. Using Bluetooth is not reliable and of course it always needs to be attended to at the least opportune time. Quite annoying. All in all though, I am quite impressed with what we ended up with.
I'm still watching and trying to decide. 10 kw motor minimum, I was thinking 2/48v 100 amp batteries. These would be for total electricity. Dorm frig,air fryer,inductive stove top,lapstop.DcLoads Bildge pumps running lights. 27ft sailboat so solar minimum needs determined what I have space for. Thank you enjoy mike
That was great!!! Thank you…
When you compared the solar to generator… for charging time?was the solar 18 hrs for both batteries? Because I thought you said generator was 8 hrs for both batteries?
5kW motor on 7.5kWh battery equals around 1.5 hours run time? Without charging. Not bad at all.
Is it capable of charging while the screw is being spun by drag while on sail power? Thanks for sharing.
This propellor will not do regen. As for funtime, we hope to run at an average of 2Kw which would, with solar input of .4Kw (max), greatly increase our runtime!
👍👍👍👍👍
Thanks for sharing your build. I have a land based build with Tesla batteries and I have used Thunderstruck's BMS and I am trying to figure out how to wire in and program the CAN Bus to work some relays for High and Low voltage shut offs as well as temp shut off. Any words of advice for a guy that has limited computer skills?
Since I aired the episode on TH-cam, I found a way to utilize one of the pins on the BMS at 12 volts to be able to power a relay that switches the 48 volt side. If you look at the end of the manual for the BMS you will see there is a small reference to "loopoc". The BMS has the ability to, based upon the high voltage condition or low voltage condition, HVCC or LVCC occurring, to power a circuit at low current. I used this feature to power a relay in order to be able to handle a higher voltage system. If this is what you are considering, let me know. I have some emails from thunderstruck that I can forward to this forum on TH-cam. If not, it may be worthwhile to contact thunderstruck and request their advice. If you do, let them know that Kristen sent you! Trust me. You'll get a little extra response in so doing!
@@sailingaccidentalgybe Thanks so much, I will definitely look into that. Appreciate the information.
Great to see your system installed and gaining an understanding of how you have set it up. I recently watched a video from Sailing Uma th-cam.com/video/jpAnGJpcnQU/w-d-xo.html on a new Salona Yacht where the electric drive system uses hydro regen when under sail. Having the ability to efficiently clean charge whilst under sail is a bit of a game changer in my opinion. I look forward to your next video. All the very best from Scotland.
We've been following Uma as well. The Salina yacht has an Oceanvolt System. Excellent drive system and way more polished than Thunderstruck's (they label theirs as "hobbyist"). Price tag is far, far more than what we could afford. The bonus with Thunderstruck was learning from scratch!
Thank you for sharing your video!
I'd love to know more about how you mounted the motor. Did you use the 2:1 gear reduction from Thunderstruck? How did you mount it? Did you use engine mounts? Just two? How did you do the alignment? I'm thinking it would be optimal to use four motor mounts oriented vertically and four more oriented horizontally, in order to really precisely align the motor to the propeller shaft. Did you use the chain coupling that comes with the gear reducer? I'm told they can be a bit noisy compared to a CV (constant velocity) coupling. I follow your posts on facebook too, where it might be easier to post pictures.
Many thanks once again!!
We did use thunderstruck's 2 to 1 reduction transmission. Gary also fabricated a mounting system using angle iron. Alignment was done on a trial and error basis and seems to have been effective.
@@sailingaccidentalgybe Any pictures of the installation would be greatly appreciated!!
did you guys do the install? how long did it take for complete install?
Yes! We did. Gary was the fiberglass and construction specialist for the boat as a whole and my background was the electrical systems. It was a good team effort!
Kool, where you guy out of, where do you plan on going? We are converting 5 boats to take the great american loop, hopefully this year. 5 boats might take some time to convert.
Gary and I are based out of New Hampshire where we also keep our 26-ft McGregor, a beautiful sailing vessel for inland waters and especially canals and rivers. This boat will be heading down to the keys around Florida and back up the coast to New Hampshire ultimately. We do hope to sell the boat at some point and procure a larger vessel in the neighborhood of 40 to 45 ft for ocean crossings.
Exellent
So many questions. What were your concerns with all the electric going under the cock pit?
Are those battery cases sealed? Was that cover on the motor to prevent water from getting in the motor?
That's good for starters. Thank you
those are great questions. I'm going to be doing another episode shortly and I will include your questions in a part of our Q&A session!
@@sailingaccidentalgybe I will have more money m sure. Thanks
What will your new boats system look like compared to this? Lessons learned?
Great question! I'll be doing an overview of our new systems and answering this in an upcoming episode!
@@sailingaccidentalgybe do you have a location I can go look at your,old house loads. I'm at that stage of my project. I was thinking 300ah lip04. Not sure if I could do a refrig and small induction cook top.
I'm looking foward to your new system.
Do you have link for the 48v batts...I have a 10kw thunderstruck...using nissan leaf batteries with only a 132 ah
These batteries were procured used from a private company producing autonomous drive vehicles in the Detroit area. I can tell you that they originated from a company by the name of Allcell. they have, however, been completely unresponsive to any queries I have made to them. Perhaps you might have better luck.
www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.allcelltech.com/pdf/kwh.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiVgeDhv7juAhVQmVkKHYv7AQIQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw2Mcp5oGMC5VX-HALTVjfEs
I just didn't hear anything about propeller generating energy.
We're not doing regen on this boat. Generally, you need to hit four knots anyway in order to be able to generate electricity. We don't have the right prop on this boat to begin with and we are going to be ultimately selling this boat and moving into a larger one. We'll look into regen on that next boat where our hull speed will be higher.
Wait. Stop. Watts per hour? WATTS PER HOUR? What the heck are you measuring? You probably mean Wh/h but you have to get this stuff right. Messing up units means you don't really understand what you're doing. Back to freshman physics.
Ah units! The nemesis of many.
We've had such good success with this setup that we are building a hybrid drive on our next boat which is looking to be a 44-ft ketch. We shall have a plethora of 150Ah batteries and many more Wh/h. And yes, I understand completely what I am doing, how I am doing it and what I can expect as a result. Being human means that we occasionally make mistakes (nah that doesn't happen, but when it does we should project that a person is incompetent). I will admit I am dangerous enough to build large tesla coils and fire off lightning in my spare time. Zeus would be pleased.
@@sailingaccidentalgybe - I've been reasonably impressed with your approach, including two battery banks - usually not a great idea but your point of redundancy and rippling that through the battery controllers was valid. Unfortunately you said "watts per hour" about six times. Accelerating coulumbs? It's just wrong.
@@deislanddave if I had to do it again, I would not build in the redundancy. I was extremely concerned about failure, mostly of the batteries since they are used. Amazingly, when charging, the BMS puts them within .003 volts or less per battery block, and they discharge evenly. The thermistors register temperatures within 2°C of each other (and a lot of that variance could simply be my installation point of the thermistors on the battery pack itself).
@@sailingaccidentalgybe I think your choice was a good one, based on what you knew at the time. It's easy now to gang them together which given your additional experience is more consistent with best practice. I probably would have made one bank (assuming I went electric propulsion, which I wouldn't today - but good on you) from the beginning but splitting them and describing the redundancy factor due to lack of knowledge and demonstrated performance impressed me as good engineering.
Since you've kept your house bank separate (which I laud), have you tracked consumption? My experience on cruising boats is 2.5 kWh/day +/- 0.5 kWh/day for house loads (fridge, freezer, autopilot, nav, lights, personal electronics, comms). Is that what you see? Can you separate loads from charging? Spreadsheets? Share? Your house bank looks like about 400 Ah at 12VDC - is that right? That seems light for most cruisers. Thoughts? What are you doing for domestic hot water?
From an engineering point of view I ALWAYS worry about failure. FMEA for everything.
Have you checked the thermister readings with a calibrated IR thermometer? That would be interesting data. Have you looked at battery temperature as a function of load and charging? That would be interesting also. Most of the curves I see easily are for FLA not LiPO4. Have you had to push hard yet? Heavy worthy or badly foul currents?
Would you be interested in a peer-reviewed journal article with SNAME or ASNE? I haven't yet forgiven you for watts/hour *grin* but your engineering seems solid.