Shamrock Electric Sailboat Conversion Part 4 - Installing a Massive Solar Array
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ต.ค. 2024
- Part1: • Intro to Shamrock, Jus...
Part2: • Shamrock Electric Sail...
Part3: • Shamrock Electric Sail...
Part4: WHAT YOU ARE WATCHING
Part5: • Shamrock Electric Sail...
This 4th video goes over the design, assembly, and installation of a large solar array that will let us charge the 72V lithium battery pack both while underway and at anchor. All told we put 1300 watts of Sunpower flexible solar panels around the boat, 400 on each side and 500 on the back. The side panels can fold up and down both to aim at the sun or be out of the way, while the rear panel can angle forwards and back as well.
It's a lot more solar than you normally see on a sailboat, but when all your propulsion is electric and our plan is summer coastal cruising in frequently low winds, then every watt is worth it to harvest!
We used a mixture of 3D printed fittings and aluminum tubing to make the panel support structure and attachment anchors to the boat, and it all came together in about 1 week's time before a planned mid-August sail trip.
Please read this forum thread for more detailed technical information on this project:
endless-sphere...
Next... catamaran 😉
So good! I love that Justin calls it touring instead of cruising. I do the same thing 😜
Why does this guy remind me of Todd Howard?
What would be the cost of this particular solar array?
These panels retail for about $3 USD / watt, so would be like $3900 for the panels themselves. The aluminum tubing was ~$400, the various stainless fasteners added up to like $150, and about 3kg of 3D printer filament was used too at $50/kg. Then the electrical hookup involved another couple hundred dollars of 14g and 16g marine hookup wire and connectors, plus the 7 MPPT charge controllers at $75 each.
On an average sunny day it generates about 6kWhr, and to add 6kWhr of lithium battery to the boat instead is roughly comparable in cost but a lot less work!
@@GrinTechnologies thanks, I'll keep an eye out for you in Howe Sound 👍
Don't forget the expertise and labour......
Outstanding work man. It's really amazing.
how about a "solar raft " you could drag behind the boat , you could use this method to surround the boat when it is at rest to rapid charge or get a a large amount of electricity when you need it
It's actually a good idea that we've brainstormed too. I'm not so sure about dragging a raft but certainly when you're at anchor you could have a bunch of panels on like 1/2" styrofoam backing that you tether together and float around the boat to get a substantial power input. The proximity to the water will help keep the cells cool which really improves their output.
This is beautiful design and fabrication work, although if this was my boat I'd be concerned about taking a wave on deck while the side panels are so lightly mounted. Monohull sailboats are pretty accepting of weight so you may want to consider a more robust construction before heading offshore. Great proof of concept, but beef it up before getting serious about blue water sailing. What charge controllers are you using that can run up to 72V from individual panels? Very custom, I assume?
Yeah we've never been in water rough enough for waves to get on deck and are strictly into coastal trips with
@@GrinTechnologies
Hi whats the mechanical tolerance like of these 3D printed parts at high and low environmental temps degC please? Thinking NW.Europe.
BTW You can Triangulate brace panel frames with tensioned Dynema cord...light strong no corrosion.
i sized a system for a Grinde 27, using one of the newer axial flux motors and got the pack down to 24V ( 25.6Vnom ).....that's the gold, because the system can still be electrically floating..
On Salt, anything over 25.6Vnom ( up to 51.2V Max nominal Li-Ion ), you really need the center tap sea ground, to center reference the pack;
but as soon as you put in a sea ground, you need faraday cages, and a way to rote lightning current to sidarcs..
there may be some provisions, in the emerging code, having to do with connections; which may allow for higher voltages than 51.2Vnom.
but i think that center tap sea ground may have to be there, at some point; for packs over 25.6Vnom
omg ur outdoing sailing uma
Hi Justin, what is the model of your 3D printer, and what software do you recommend for drawing parts up?
... ditto the above questions
Also wondering about the printer you used that allowed that material type and build quality.
Hey guys, the printer we're using is one of the first production units from Pantheon Design:
www.pantheondesign.com/high-speed-3d-printing
It's our first time with a commercial grade FDM printer and it sure delivers with both consistency and build speed. For modeling software we have a Solidworks license at Grin so that's my go-to which was used in all the parts here, but some of the co-op students here swear by autodesk inventor.
@@GrinTechnologies Thanks for the info, glad you are finding some really good solutions for directly usable parts! Nice work on this build!
Nice job. Thanks for sharing. I hope those Flexi panels work out for you. My experience is that they indeed fail prematurely if allowed to vibrate too much in the wind.
Nice to hear of other's experience. After 1.5 year on their output seems unaffected, but they haven't seen many windy sailing days since this video series was filmed. The metal frame does a good job of holding them quite flat.
Nice, realy great project...
Great series, your data points are very insightful of EV conversions for sailboats. Also, where are you sailing? It looks beautiful there
Vancouver , BC to Gulf Islands on east coast of Vancouver Island, close to Victoria, BC.
Для охолодження двигуна можна використати водяну помпу з склоочистників автомобіля для розбризкування води просто на двигун для охолодження🤔🧐👍👏
Great solution -- one question. Do the panels generate any power when they are folded? I am curious if any reflection off the water produces an power. Thanks!
They do when the sun is on the same side as the panel. Reflection effects from the sea are negligible but I imagine in the right cirucmstances (smooth as glass water, with the sun quite low on the horizon for a low angle of incidence) it could be measurable.
make the sail out of solar panels, either a wing or an actual sail fabric that consists of Pv cells, Also you might consider using solar paint or embed solar cells into the deck surface of the boat.
Solar paint sure sounds interesting. Show us the link for that!
Now your almost ready for a sailboat desigh suited for photovoltaics .....junk sails would be appropriate with nice flat bottom for beaching , kick up rudder and keel.....large enought to live aboard
Fantastic innovation and application! I really hope this works out, it's a neat idea. Thanks for sharing.
👍😏👏🤔
ETFE panels?
Are you going to have galvanic coupling problem between the graphite resin and the aluminum?
The amount of carbon fiber fill in the PETG print filament (About 15%) is so low that there isn't any measurable conductivity in the 3D printed parts. So I doubt it will be prone to this but we'll report back if that assumption is wrong.
Now get back to work and design a solar tracker 🤔😁👍👍🇺🇸 also the booms crying for some solar panels
That's scheduled part 12 of the series, next summer!
Awesome project! I'm enjoying seeing it evolve. 😁
You might try experimenting with doubling up and having panels below that capture light reflected off the water. I know it'd double the cost and be much less efficient, but it seems you're usually limited more by surface area more than any other metric. I believe they're more niche, but some companies are producing double sided panels these days.
We've seen boats with solar mounted to the sides of the hull too which presumably is going for a similar effect of capturing not just the sun toward the horizon but also reflected light off the surface of the water. There's no downside to having that as well, as it doesn't increase the windage at all and the cells could be extremely lightweight as the thick hull itself would be the structural backing. The underside of our own wing panels is pointing right down most of the time and so would get very little reflected light.
Great job on the printing of the mounts
Check out the solar panel mounts that Beau and Brandy are using. - th-cam.com/video/qyj49OAXRz4/w-d-xo.html
Oh awesome, thanks so much for sharing that link and yes they did a really wonderful job on the tilting to any axis with full 360 degree swivels, I love it. I was considering ways of having left/right tilting too but nothing came to mind for a good mechanism.
It was nice too hearing their experiences on extra capture from being able to tilt. It's way more in the morning and evening, but most of your total kWhr capture happens from the middle of the day where the benefit isn't as large, and the total improvement is like 20%. It's not nothing, but it's not a big enough improvement to be worth the additional effort for most people.
Excellent work,concerned about windage on the side panels, however this is proof of concept so crack on 👍
Definitely noticed the windage when the panels were folded down on the side and we were going upwind. It's especially pronounced when motoring, but probably affected the upwind sailing speed a bit too.
While I think the carbon fiber reinforced PETG is a good choice, PETG is actually not particularly tough when receiving shock loads. When load levels increase abruptly, PETG tends to shatter - almost like glass. This is really strange given that it will elongate when a load is increased gradually. I'm not sure if the carbon fiber reinforcement will make it tougher or if it will make it more brittle given that it increases stiffness.
th-cam.com/video/ycGDR752fT0/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/ycGDR752fT0/w-d-xo.html
We found this out the hard way too! There were a few parts that got subject to unexpected forces and cracked so just before our trip we replaced the key structural links with an all metal connection, see:
endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=108411&start=50#p1674846
Next batch of parts we'll switch to the CF or Nylon with carbon reinforcement.
Justin, The stern panel doesnt really need to tilt. While sailing, at anchor, a horizontal panel will be changing orientation and reorienting the panel would be problematic. Love the concept though!
Our output would go from about about 100 watts up to 350-400 watts in the morning or evening sun when we were at anchor and had the opportunity to tilt it correctly, so there is quite a bit extra to be gained at those moments. But yeah it wasn't always easy to predict at night which way the boat would be facing in the morning in order to catch the rising sun. Sometimes I guessed wrong and made things worse.
Under sail we had a few cases going direct dowwind when we flipped the stern panel vertical increase our windage at the back which was fun too! Not as helpful as a spinnaker but definitely gave a little boost
LOL and here I was thinking my 100W flexible panel off the back of my Macgregor 26M was state of the art…… keep it coming!
hey man.. id just sent email yesterday about Ezee hub wit Cycle Analyst.. can you reply ?