As an old Electrical Engineer myself I like the idea of copper busbars but I wouldn't run them both in the same channel, the possibilities of moisture or even condensation inside the insulation on a boat is high and may lead to arcing ! 50kw is no joke even at 48v and must be given every consideration, if it was in a factory or distribution system it would have to have separate insulation and a good air gap ! I don't think you want the channel sealed either because you'll need to be able to inspect the connections so it may be necessary to leave some holes for drainage in case water gets in.
@@RJMSINCR Wiring for boats has to be up to certain standards which I'm sure Brian is fully aware of but this does seem to be a bit of an oversight on his part, I may be wrong because it is unfamiliar territory but I would err on the side of caution when dealing with so much power.
Regarding the Busbars: many electricians already said their concerns: - putting them in same enclosure - not using conductivity grease between plate connections - not using copper rivets / using brass instead of pure copper screws - calculating dimensions only for standard ambient temp instead of critical temp (you are in the warm regions often so calculate for 40°+ celsius - using only adhesive to close the glassfibre enclosure BUT ALSO - there is also a mechanical point : Please check with your Naval engineer what the maximal deflection of your boat will be . Calculate the work hardening of your copper bus bars after some years of deflection cycles. I think it will be under the aluminum values, but i am not sure. Even small deflections over millions of cycles will harden the copper and it will at least crack, this will lead to high resistance and if big enough to a fiery ending. That is why in most applications even with small possibility of cable (busbar) movement one would use fine-core flexible cables instead of wire. Possible mitigation: Install measuring cables between all 3 endings of the busbars, use an automatic logging device which can log volts amperes and resistance. You could measure between +and - ends of the bus bars, but you then would not know which one is the problem. That is why you need separate measuring cables.
The big thing I have is vibrations over time. I've worked in automotive and I've worked with this type of bar too and the reason automotive uses stranded copper wire is the vibrations. I know this is a boat but I think that either doesn't help or makes it worse.
One thing to note, all the consumers of this high current (motor controllers, inverters, etc...) will throw low voltage faults well before a crack in the busbar results in a fiery end. The devices are designed to work with batteries, so they monitor the voltage to prevent over draining the batteries. So if the bus bars develop high resistance, the motor controllers will shut off. Still a very big concern to lose propulsion when it's needed most, but Delos will still have the diesel. I can't comment on your mechanical concerns, but what a lot of EEs are doing here is applying their knowledge of high voltage, high duty cycle AC systems to low voltage, low duty cycle DC systems. There is no skin effect, there is no concern about coronal discharge, they are not taking into account the very low duty cycle of Delos' electrical propulsion. It will be physically impossible to pull 50KW for more than an hour because it's limited by the capacity of the batteries. In fact I suspect 50KW will never be pulled for more than a minute or two during maneuvering. The only way to get a decent range out of the electric propulsion is to run at low power, 10KW or less.
@@dacharyzoo Another concern I have is that I know there are distance requirements we had in place along with material thickness for proper insulation and air gaps. I don't know how much of that was a precaution but I do know that many of the things we did would be a more expensive way of doing things and I know know big corporations don't like to waste money if they can avoid it. Also I have personally seen a 5k amp bus cabinet ark fault and it is beyond nasty. Definitely the kind of thing that could sink a boat like this if it's anywhere even remotely sensitive to flooding.
@@skyknight6467 That's the thing. You have to understand why those requirements are there, to understand if they apply in this situation. I can counter your example. I have personally walked up and touched with my bare hands an uninsulated *live* conductor carrying half a million amps. I was invited to do so on a tour of an aluminum smelter because it was completely safe. The conductor was as thick as a dinner plate and the potential was only 3V. You have to understand the physics, and most of the engineers commenting on this post simply do not.
I‘m an EE since 40 years and I was working with bus bars. Please take the added contact resistance in account if you are using splices and especially on your stack‘s. We put always crease between the contacting areas. It’s not a yoke. Not to insulate but to enhance the conductivity between pressed conducting areas and not to get corrosion in between. Please look for specific literature . It is named conductiv grease
Just came to add the same information I used to install high voltage bus bars in hospitals. Wish I could remember the name of that conductive Grease we used at every connection. It was to promote conductivity and stop corrosion. The old rememory ain't what it used to be. Lmao 🤣
i was thinking the same thing. Plates are never 100% flat. So effectively reducing the surface area. Although the flat bit has much more area than then cross section (if that makes sense). The corrosion might create a serious issue.
I manage buildings that use busbars exclusively and you have to think of 3 things. The insulation between the busbars have to be extremely well made when you are running that high of a load. the connection points between 2 bars have to be milled as a bar will not be flat, and with that load you will have a lot of heat if you don't have a 100% good connection. And 3rd and last that i have not seen anyone talk about think of how much the bar will expand and shrink with heat. a long straight bar will expand much when it gets warm and that will compromise the connections.
@@jonathanwetherell3609 It's a long run in an unventilated space. Although copper does not have a huge coefficient of thermal expansion, the effect of a single run could see a few centimeters of expansion/contraction.
Yes thermal cycling from heat due to current flow, or even daily temperature swings will cause the bus bar to grow relative to the boat and the fiberglass. Make sure you only attach it at one end and allow the bar to slide and creep along the entire run. Make sure there are flexible attachments at the three main connections. You know this about boats, everything is always moving, and this bus bar will always be sliding and stretching and shrinking...
I love you guys, so this comes from the bottom of my heart. As an Electrical engineer within the offshore industry I watched the busbar installation with a high degree of concern. You need to consult a certified electrician/ engineer with specialty in marine installations and get professional advice. There are so many safety concerns, that you have not taken into account, that I do not know where to start 😅 Please stop and rethink this setup before continuing, as this could literally burn down your beautiful new catamaran/ home 🫶🏼 My warmest regards Jesper (Denmark)
I had a long list of concerns too and I just stopped typing it out. I've worked with big bus bar and fiberglass insulation very similar to this at 2 different large scale electrical cabinet manufacturers. My biggest concern is actually vibration. These systems weren't designed for the vibrations and shock loads in a boat.
Brian! STOP! BACK OFF! RETHINK! Not IF but WHEN salt water gets into that red water CANAL your building, DEAD SHORT CIRCUIT!!!!!!! KA-BOOM ! BUT IF YOU INSIST ON GOING THE BUS BAR ROUTE PUT THE NEG IN A SEPERATE ENCLOSURE!!! Insulate the bars, you can buy long lengths of heat shrink in a flat roll YOU ARE BUILDING A BOMB! Mark, 40yrs electrical professional, industrial & marine.
Another EE of 30 years here. I have some serious concerns - but I am not a Marine Electronics expert. Hopefully this has been reviewed by a qualified professional Marine Engineer. Moisture, flexing, the chosen insulation, etc - ingenious yes, but my little voice is taking to me.
Canadian Structural Engineer Here: Slicing additional area out of your support trusses absolutely does impact strength, and you've done it at the same spot all the way down the middle of the boat. It won't be a huge reduction, but it does create a weak plane right down the middle of the boat. I'd weld some stiffeners above and below each of the openings, where you have enlarged the openings, before the busway goes in.
Brian. Get some advice from a maritime electrical engineer, there are risks here (moisture ingress, shorting, method of jointing causing heat, movement, electrolysis). I’m an ex marine engineer and to be honest I’m not happy that this is a safe design for a marine environment, such high currents can be dangerous in the event of failure and your conduits are effectively inaccessible. I’m also not sure Insurers would accept this unless it was certified and tested.
Brian, Dave Mc, ex MarE 1 here. I’m adding a further comment because I am concerned. I know you’ve put time and cost into this and you yourself are an electrical engineer, however I really do think you need to get the advice of a marine electrical design engineer or company. I’ve looked back at UK DOE Marine Electrical Regs (which are basically the same as USA Regs) and I’m concerned that what you are doing doesn’t comply in terms of insulation, separation, jointing and integrity, also durability in the marine environment. It may even be a fire hazard, if not sooner, then later. Please take some advice before you proceed further. Sorry to be a downer, I love your channel and I’m concerned for you all.
They have used buss bars in the marine world for decades. As long as the connections are done properly and he has taken the added resistance into account, as well as expansion, there is no more danger here than cable.
@@Seansousa757. I understand your point but these are not bolted, braised or riveted connections, they are screwed, thus compromisable by age, vibration etc. Insulation by way of loose flat grp plate between bars is not integral, it’s incomplete and open to compromise by water, condensation and dust. Also thermal expansion/contraction is not accounted for. The entire conduit is also open to compromise by water, particularly in its bilge location. These are all regulated matters that would not comply.
Coming out of the power generation industry we used a hollow buss system because of the increased surface area and since curent flows on the surface of the buss there was less heat build up. Also, we used chilled air to remove the heat and keep the resistance from increasing. I sure hope this works well for you. Also I aggree that I would not run the + and - bus in the same channel since you could experience arcing when you start puching higher amount of current accross the buss. Good luck and God bless
Current tends to the surface of the conductor (skin effect) only on AC, on DC this doesnt happen, so it wil distribute evenly across the conductor cross-section.
@@alhamilton7261 Doesn't the sheer number of advisors amaze you? Nothing of this build got that much consideration, usefull or otherwise. I'm honest, I'm guilty too, but you gotta admit, he's got ways of his own.
As an electrician and a boater, the bus bars need to be installed with standoff insulators, and the bars should be in separate channels. I would also use coated bars, the danger of something conductive shorting them out is too great. Best of luck.
…just one thought - is negative line needed? This is a metal boat - Can the minus be extremely well terminated in battery compartment to dry massive body part. Like a car starter that takes hundreds of amps from the engine body which is terminated to car body.
another retired engineer. I calculated with CTE of 16.4 micron/meter/degree C for copper would yield an expansion of. .387 mm/degree C in a length of 23 meters, or about 15 mm with a delta C of 40 degrees. Need to have a flexible join somewhere.
A lot of really good comments here by electrical engineers - I'm sure Brian will take them seriously. I'm also a EE, also with ME & thermal experience. Might want to also consider that the fiberglass housing is a thermal insulator. If you have 3% loss in the bus bars and are transferring 50 kW, that means 1500W of heat being generated. With that inside a thermally isolated chamber things will get hot. Fortunately that's distributed over a long distance, but is it negligible?
@@stephenwilliams4722I'm an engineer working in DC power. 48V is much safer. You can touch live 48VDC (not that you should), and its probably fine. 400V is a different story
@@Ultrarc I'd assume this is the reason for 48V, its a balance between efficiency and safety. Though after reading all the electrical engineers responding on here I really hope he rethinks the design work here as it sounds like he at least needs separate channels and some more design work on join expansion and connections.
Brian, everyone who has ever watched any of your content knows you’re an extremely intelligent and talented Man. I’m not an electrical engineer, but I’d definitely run each bus bar separately as a rookie electrician. AC and DC. You’re well versed on how bad salt conditions and exposure kills everything. Also PLEASE use a respirator anytime you grind, cut or drill metal. Each time it creates microscopic metal dust that small shards get in your lungs and creates scar tissue. Definitely a serious no no. Best of luck moving forward. Nothing but love and positive wishes for you, your Family and this legendary build. Just want you to be safe. ❤
Your electrical backbone using buswork in a sailboat is certainly daring. Mixing both polarities in the same fiberglass channel with nothing more than a fiberglass spacer is INSANE! This is a catastrophe waiting to happen! The buswork should be at least in totally separate channels. Using bus in an environment that will make it shrink, stretch, and bind is the daring part. Doing this next to each other is an accident waiting to happen. Buswork used in industry and switchgear is in a relatively stable environment. The temperature doesn’t change much, there is no movement, and there is little chance that it will come in contact with liquids or other hazardous materials. There is lots of clearance between bus bar members. But what you have is the opposite where it is entirely possible for this to be immersed in sea water. On top of that, wrecks happen, and there is certainly a chance that part of the assembly could fail and become an out of control 50KW welder! This is a situation where your boat should FAIL certification! Do yourself a favor and have both a marine surveyor and an electrical engineer who is fully familiar with buswork assemblies inspect your design and handywork. Certainly, do this before you enclose it with a deck.
@@tgmct I’m a UPS engineer I would have run this in copper cable completely segregated from each other on batteries we use trilaminate cables specifically designed for DC high current this bus bar in a boat is very dangerous, imagine an arc flash out at sea 🙏🙏
It is amazing to watch you guys develop and build your custom new boat! While other channels are going to mainstream manufacturers and getting new catamarans or trimaran, and two of them are having serious issues, one caused by a runaway fishing boat that plowed into them at night at anchor at night, and then you have one channel that is taking their original small boat and completely gutting it and redoing it. It’s amazing that all this is happening in a relatively short period of time with so many different sailing channels. a lot of fun to watch you all, and very inspiring and uplifting to watch the story. Thank you so much for sharing your life with us!
This build is being done in Brisbane Australia. Does anyone know WHO might be best for Brian and the Delos team to consult? It seems clear from the comments an expert needs to be consulted and it seems that the quality and experience of the expert is going to be very very important. Also bear in mind that (I think) these videos are on delay so the build may actually be a fair bit ahead - which makes this even more urgent. Make Delos SAFE AGAIN!
The videos seem to have a 10 - 12-week lag at present. This is such a serios matter that it needs addressing. The consequences of a short, thermal expansion, fasteners becoming lose will generate a high resistance connection which will generate heat that could lead to a fire. Or a short to the hull could lead to accelerated electrolysis.
Looks awesome Brian. Are you worried about the chafing of the aluminum holes on the fiberglass channel? With all the movement that boat is gonna be doing, I'm worried about the aluminum chewing into that fiberglass and grounding that out. Food for thought.
Brian I am also a Master electrical engineer , I watch you from year and this is my first comment. What I wanted to inform you the buss bar are use in MCC room who do no move , MCC center on large boat are mounted on vibration support. also the bus bar should be separated and isolated by 12 inch’s or so. The fiber tray needs to be mounted solid with isolation for vibration . What fuse size and type do you use on this line? And what disconnect do you use ? Personally I will use rated cables for your application and will split the line in 2 different pass .Brian good lock .
I think you need to rethink your voltage. At 400v your whole system only needs 125 amps witch is much easier to deal with. No buss bar needed. This system you built will be impossible to inspect and repair. Since your new to electrical engineering using prebuilt parts will make the system much safer. Take a look at your blocks that you built to go from one tray to the other. Each connection you made adds resistance and a failure point, You just built a small heater, what you should have done is bent the buss bar to the shape you need. I am also very worried about the the bars being so close with no air gap. This is both a heat and an arc flash issue. If salt water ever gets in your going to have an instant 50kw welders until your fuses blow. Once that happens you have no way to repair it. A better option is to change voltage then put in regular water tight conduit and pull normal wires that have no junctions under your deck. The get wires rated for water and to be in a conduit together. I love your work and want you to be successful.
I agree. That seems like way too much continuous current going to your motors. Electric cars putting out 200 hp don’t use bus bars. Seems like you’re way over engineering this with many opportunities for failure.
I’m not a engineer in no way but I thought the same thing. Either spend the money on equipment or money on lots of copper. It’s a lot easier pulling and installing smaller than dealing with that big stuff. I sure wouldn’t have run both in the same track with that kind of current. It would be a lot easier doing it over now than to find out and have a redo when everything is built. It’s a learning lesson now but later it could end up lots worse.
Absolutely right, the size of the busbar should ring a bell: no small electric motor is drawing that kind of currents trough its windings. There has to be a component that ups the voltage to make it usable anyway. And since there are two motors of 25, you can just use a cable to each hull at 400V and 62A.
I ran my whole seafood processing plant on a 1000 amps. Man. I think we used 3 runs of 500 mcm, it was 480 volts. Sure would cure a lot of problems transforming the power.
Delos crew, likely won't read this but hopefully you do. I work with large diesel electric equipment and some alarm bells are going off for this idea. On the EE side, there is nothing I can tell you that you dont already know or could easily find. I think in a controlled environment that this would work great. I do not think the bus bar idea will work long term. You are playing with 4 very different materials (aluminum, copper, brass and frp) that are going to experience thermal expansion at different rates. Tapping m6 into copper is going to work fine, until it isnt. Then you have a lap joint in a marine environment thats going to corrode and get hot. And its very hidden. 48v @1000a is scary in an aluminum structure in the middle of the ocean thats habited. I also think that laying +/- in the same channel is unwise. Salt water IS going to get in the channel. Can it escape? If the bar is in compression and buckles up, is it contained or? Youve already done the hard work of laying thr conduit. Spend the 3 grand on running two pairs of 500 mcm DLO (2+, 2- runs of 50ft? @14 bucks a foot). Either way, good luck!
Assume you installed the copper into aluminum hull at 20C. Then cruise high latitude where the water and hull are at 0C. The busbar is at what. 50C max? For 10m run, I'm getting the aluminum shrinking 4.6mm and the bus bar increasing by 5.1 mm. So a 10mm mismatch. Hopefully the bar can float that much? If not either the bar buckles and springs up, or if constrained you shear the joining fasteners. Food for thought. If you insist on staying the course, I'd think about a flexible portion on long runs, and I'd braze the plate connection in tandem with the fasteners so sandwich corrosion can't occur.
Another engineer here, lots of colleagues already gave you lots of advice in every major area. Please, HEAR THEM AND TAKE ACTION. There are some very serious concerns regarding safety, 50 KW is a lot amps and is to be taken very seriously. Personally even if this assebmly just "works", I would be terrified of condensation inside the fiberglass channel. Another point I would worry about and would investigate to be very sure is corrosion by condensation, salty air and electrolisis between metals.
Im not an electrician nor an engineer, but with that being said - Purely from a maintenance perspective I would have some concerns, the main one being that the bus bars are essentially hard-fixed into the hull, meaning: if something goes wrong you need to cut the hull wide open to get to the issue, and if the bus needs replacing you'll need a full refit. Cables can be fed in and fed out, like a wiring loom in a car, but when the wiring loom is part of the chassis that becomes almost impossible without taking the car apart. That being said, im interested to see how this turn out in the future!
I don’t have any electrical experience but I had the same thought about this being a maintenance nightmare of something breaks. Sure hope he does some extensive testing before sealing things up.
With all the constant churning of the ocean, and the slamming on the boat, you should run some rubber edging around those cut holes or they will act like knife blades. wherever a conduit/pipe goes through a cut hole put some rubber U trim/edging. Even that steering column will be slamming up and down with the waves.
I was going to say the same thing. The holes he had to cut out with the hole saw are higher than the holes that were already there. Which will be the first ones to cut through the fiberglass tray. I also wouldn’t use rubber. I would run flat aluminum the whole length of the tray for the tray to sit on. That would be the safest.
I have read all the comments and there is so much truth in them. Buss bars are great for distribution equipment mounted on a concrete pad with minimal vibrations and where thermal fluctuations can be mitigated by short runs and stand-offs. Brian all these people obviously love you and your family very much as do I. A ground fault failure here could be catastrophic to the point it could compromise the hull of the boat. I would say sleeve the holes around the fiberglass channel to protect it and install the $9K worth of cables by snaking them in the channel. Prayers for you and yours for many blessings always Bob
I worked with bus bars in a power station.... suggest some kind of ventilation system to carry the heat away, consider temp monitoring so you know about possible heat build up, consider flex joints for heat expansion, consider bevel washers on the joints and the correct conductive grease...... consider stand off insulators..... agree with others on running pos and neg in seperate channels....... all the best !
A video in which you explain how the concept came about would be cool. We had 48V in the last boat and are currently working on a 400V system for the new boat! There are now HV systems for drives and HV hybrid inverters for AC/DC conversion. It would be interesting to know why you opted for low voltage and high currents? I am only a mechanical engineer and the high cable cross sections were the reason to develop the 400V high voltage system
Brian is a pretty smart guy. While his plan is ingenious and him being an electrical engineer says a lot, I would have probably run separate channels for each busbar just to be safe. I suspect there will be flexing/movement on a boat so I prefer the separation of the two conductors.
Not just boat flexing, but daily/hourly flexing as the heat dissipates from the two bars at a slower rate on the lower bus than the top. Which means the bars will be constantly sliding against the insulation between them. Like 5-10mm of movment each cycle. 😢 I worry this will be an issue in a year or two, with no way to monitor and inspect this condition.
Brian take some time to watch arcflash videos. If copper sublimates as in an arcflash event. A 1 inch cube of copper expands 67,000 times and burns hotter than the surface of the sun. I dont want to scare you but this is scary stuff! I encourage you to consult a maritime EE. This is not the place to save money electrical safety is paramount.
Seriously, all these safety concerns and from what I understood they are saving mere 4k USD over the regular cabling, while adding a lot of complexity and future maintenance issues. K.I.S.S. is the way to go, hacking around 40kW electrical installation is not.
@@JoseMariaOliveira So you've never seen arcing on the brushes of a 12V motor? Also, back EMF from a motor can induce significantly higher voltages when the power is switched off. Never say never.
@trhosking that is not arcing, it's sparks, which is a totally different thing. 48V will not produce an arc between both busbars once they are separated by the insulation.
Loving watching the build. As an electrician I hate the serviceability of where you have put the bar. I have never worked in the marine industry but I would be stepping that voltage up alot. Running some double insulated underground cable in conduits to a sub board in the back then stepping it down. Yes there will be some extra losses in transformers. Easy to pull cables through again and replace transformers later if needed.
There is a reason why electric vehicles stack batteries to 400V-800V. This would result in much lower currents and therefore smaller conductors for the same power. Electric vehicles use special wires (and connectors) to handle high voltages and high currents. Brian, - maybe above is something to consider, and include good cell balancing electronics. Love your videos and ingenuity, but you may want to rethink this one and take the many comments from others here into consideration (if it is not too late). All the Best! This was my first time commenting on a video.
I gotta be honest, I’m pretty nervous about this electrical system. I’m no engineer but do work in power production. Reading the comments of electrical engineers solidifies my feelings. Please be safe with this Brian, and please take in every one of these comments.
As i was watching this video and thinking this must be different for a boat (is it ?) but got more and more concerned. I was a construction manager in the US and built plenty of condo towers with bus ducts. We had one instance where the shaft the duct ran in got wet and the result was catastrophic. Pretty ugly actually. Concerned about this install in a boat hull environment being hot, maybe salty, humid and not to mention the movement issues also noted by others. Wouldn't hurt to get a third party expert second opinion on this design and install. I am sure you are a smart guy, i have been following your channel for years, recognize you are extremely clever. But with this being a life safety issue, you can never be too pragmatic. Great channel, awesome adventures and experiences. Love to the family and best regards 😊
I am so impressed with all the qualified remarks being given to Brian. It is really cool and very thoughtful and helpful information to take into consideration for the safety of his family, everyone.👍💯🤔🏆
As others have alluded, I would prefer the batteries much closer to the motors, independent feed cables for each motor, a higher DC voltage (as much as possible) and thinner flexible cables. The 3% distance loss is not negligible for a solar application. Other heavy equipment (e.g. generator), storage or additional tanks can be installed forward to balance the boat.
I would consider brazing the bars together to eliminate any risk of the bolts loosening over time and requiring service. With the bars on top of each other in a single channel you will never be able to get to the lower positive bus bar to service it if needed. Brazing them together will also help prevent corrosion.
I agree with many of the comments. Conductivity through brazed connection will not change with time and corrosion. I am not an EE (unlike other comments) but I know running at higher voltage, or splitting the conductor for the two motors, would both reduce the amperage that is the reason for the large wire size. Love your videos - Reed in British Columbia
I agree also that placing both buss bars inside the same trough is only asking for trouble in a wet moveable environment! It's only a matter of WHEN water or condensation will fill your trough and completely melt down your buss bars and electrical system. Might want to reconsider or investigate a different way to independently insulate buss bars in a wet metallic environment.😢😢
Not that I disagree with running the bars in independent boxes, but how much current do you think 48VDC is going to pass through salt water to "melt down" the system?
Having dealt with many low voltage high current bus bar systems I applaud your choice for Delos 2. I'm curious about your choice of running positive power on the bottom bus bar & negative power on the top within the fiberglass channel. Assuming the motor/generator/battery system utilizes negative ground like most conveyance electrical systems, what happens if the aluminum spars grind through the fiberglass channel due to boat motion, temperature gradients or flexing of the hull? Is the possibility of breeching the fiberglass channel a non-issue or will the system be positive rather than negative ground? More ?? for the drive system video...
Good point. The negative is typically grounded so a catastrophic event to the bottom of the bus bar is less likely to cause a problem if it's the negative side. That's all super easy to switch so hopefully they see this.
Master Electrician and sailor here... I share the concerns of others on having bare bus bars stacked in the f/g channels. One point I haven't seem mentioned is that the stack of bus bar-insulator-bus bar seems to me to be a huge capacitor. Maybe this is a problem, maybe not. Definitely worth looking into though. Others have mentioned heat issues, have you considered thermal expansion and contraction of the bus bars and allowed for that in the long runs? Also, bolted connections should be done with belleville washers. Do yourself a favour and hipot test the whole assembly before you energize it!
From a mechanical perspective, i would also look at how much the hull is going to shrink in cold water versus how much the coper can expand and how much the fiberglass channel. Doing a quick calculation, if there is a 15 deg C difference in temp between the copper and the aluminum hull you will exceed the strength of the copper and it will bend or break. This is assuming rigid end connections with a 15 meter length.
Having worked with bus bar on the utility scale... That stack connection is probably fine, but you can bend bus bar. There is also braided copper bus bar jumpers that are flexible. That probably the way I would have gone. But I've seen both work great.
braided busbar connection between the backbone and lateral bars would have been a good idea to reduce the regidity of the connecitons. I can imagine the amount of movement those joins are going to have to handle. not including the expansion due to heat. But I still think busbar for the backbone is great (seperate channel) and 240mm2 for each motor run
As others have mentioned would really suggest sepperate paths for neg and pos. also maintain access to any joints as thermal expansion can loosen the bolts resulting in arcing at best and fire/electrecution at worst. love the idea have wanted to do something similar myself for a long time!
E E here. You've got a low voltage Tesla here. They have extraordinary fault protection including pyrotechnic fuses that quench DARPA type metal dust explosions. This is very high level EE design.
After thinking about the critical systems aspect of this.... I think i would run redundant lines to left and right engines. This would in theory half the amperage needed in each line, and might allow you to use cable rather than a bus bar. But even if you still use a bus bar, you could use a smaller one, that could be one continuous bar mounted vertically and bent to left and right, rather than needing a bolted/braised T-junction. And as a critical system, even if one bus shorted and failed, you would still have power to at least one engine.
I was thinking the same thing, 240mm2 single double insulated cable would be easier and the bolted connections could be torqued to the right amount and easy to repair if needed
Aircraft maintenance engineer here. Although I don’t have experience with high current, a lot of redundant systems and processes can still be applied from aircraft to your application. Firstly changing the single fed electrical bus bar system to a dual system would not only increase reliability but would reduce the size of bus bar needed. Another major consideration is corrosion, on aircraft this is taken VERY seriously. We constantly use corrosion preventatives. Looking at the splices of the bus bars this seems to be a critical failure area as moisture is 100% bound to enter this area eventually. Moisture especially with salt will cause corrosion to form between these splices and in turn will cause high resistance and a potential failure point. Aircraft also are exposed to a lot of vibrations, and there is definitely going to be vibrations here as well. Vibration dampening standoffs are used a lot for Isolating the vibrations. I would use this on the bus bar or insulation to stop cracks from eventually forming. Having the bus bar completely sealed off is terrible from a maintenance aspect and when moisture ingresses there will be no where for it to go and will just stay inside possibly arcing the 2 bus bars or corroding them further. The positive and negative bars being only 8 mm away from each AND stack directly on top of each other may not be the best decision. Taping pure copper seems like it won’t last very long especially with lots of heat cycles, aircraft undergo thousands of cycles and you almost always see a traditional bolt washers and Locking nut. Hopefully your plan works and you take into consideration some of the ideas mentioned in the comments! I love this type of content, keep it up!
I have built custom bus bars for a variety of applications and I only use c10100 copper which is the best copper for conductivity. I absolutely would not have bare copper bar running through a hull with limited to no accessibility. If water were to make it in the area you would have no way to access damage or make repairs. The bus bars should be fully encapsulated in electrical casting resin, the fiberglass trays would be perfect for casting if they were an inch wider than the bus bars. I do not use nuts and bolts to join sections of my custom bus bars, they are riveted together using the same grade copper before being cast in resin. Using 48vdc for electric propulsion is inefficient for many reasons. I am designing a hybrid propulsion system for my brothers boat and I am building a 400v system. The diy electric car conversions from the 90s were using 48vdc systems.
Hi, it has taken me over a year since first watching you on TH-cam much to my enjoyment. I so hope this new venture you are on bears glorious fruition. I spent a lot of time in the 1980’s whilst in the Royal Air Force and your sailing exploits rekindle fond memories, thank you.
I'm not an engineer, but I work in industrial power supply. Orienting the bars face to face, even with insulation, presents an opportunity for arc flash. It's much safer to put the bars edge to edge. Check out UL standard 891 for some suggestions on using copper bus.
Not only building your own home from scratch is rewarding, but you guys will know every inch of it when it comes to toubleshooting in the future. Love the build videos!
8:17 I can see how this will work for insulating it electrically, but what about the magnetic field shielding? Even less than 1kA under your floor may end up messing up with the circuits or devices you will be running across the hull. Those weird issues will drive you mad and can potentially be hazardous when boat control gets impacted.
@@stargazer7644 yes, but at this amperage any misalignment of the bus bars in any axis will result in residual, not-insignificant field. The thick insulation between the two bars is enough of an offset for the field to not be completely cancelled out. So you can’t just blindly assume it’ll be OK and hack it together, some testing and measuring is in order, as the ‘leftover’ field is likely to be significant, still. It will not be COMPLETELY cancelled out, as you speculate.
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The system also needs a way to break the current instantly in case of a short. This much power will turn your aluminum hull into molten metal and fire faster than you can react. Imo there is insufficient insulation around your buss bars and condensation will be a problem at some point. I do respect your right to do it any way you see fit though, it's your family and your boat. Best wishes.
To monitor the resistance of each junction you should measure the temperature with an infrared thermometer. Low temp means low resistance which is what you want. By layering like you have, there is no way to measure the bottom buss bar. If the resistance of the bottom bar goes up it will warm up pretty quick in the confined space. Use conductive grease in the joints and around the screws reduce resistance and corrosion. Polish the copper junction before assembly. Torque each screw for minimum resistance. You'd be amazed how much better it conducts. Personally I would have installed them vertically for heat dissipation and servicing if you have the space. That is what we did in telephone exchanges where it is not uncommon to conduct 1000 amps at 48 VDC. Good luck.
I am guessing a stretch of 15m (x2) and find that the voltage drop is approximately 1.V (or 2%), and the power loss is approximately 1kW for a 50kw nomina load. As a ship electrification, i have never seen Cu bars encapsulated.. cresttive, but...questioning that it may be an idea to ensure airing of the 1kw of heat. (Ie. 2 separate trays installing the bars on isolators allowing air circulation). Edit: in operation you will need access to every screw and joint for maintenance purpose. / Amazing project, wish you success.
I'm on the side it's a very bad idea. Back in the late 60s, I'm the guy who changed hot plants to cold plants. Aka nukler power plants. The blow off from bus bars was amazing. In 1976 1977, we designed and put up a whole new power grid for all 48 lower states in 18 months. I was in charge of 30.000 engineering guys war vets army core ECT. ( My back history ).. your right the heat,. The chance of arking, salt water will find it's way into the Chanel. I also wish them good luck..
There’s about five boat shows I watch like you guys and you guys are all amazing. Seems like engineers the way you can fix everything and just to figure out all that. Why did you just said my mind starts hurting but you love it because you understand it so wellyour boat’s coming along it’s gonna be amazing
Innovative design. I'm sure the team has considered this but, I hope the bus bar splices maintain their integrity in the dynamic environment of a vessel and moisture in the conduit is not a problem. Perhaps I missed when this was addressed.
Not to forget expansion and contraction between dissimilar materials. I realize the difficulties of 'doing everything twice' but I'm thinking two separate ducts would have been much, much safer. Not that I'm an expert, but I was thinking of encapsulating the two layers with a vinylester resin (or similar?), pouring and sealing one conductor in the bottom of the tray, adding a thin, solid insulator sheet, pour another layer, then finishing by pouring a second, capping vinylester layer.
There's something you should know. He's overdoing it a bit. Not unlike in EV's, electric ships motors need to be calculated well above their norm use power consumption in order to last. As a consequence, he's got way more power than he'll ever need, but the bus bars are able to deal with that peak power anyway. The whole track is dry above the water line, so seawater ingress is unlikely to ever become a problem.
@Berend-ov8of in a marine environment, salt is in the air and condensation . The insulation he is building is not sufficient for a salt marine environment.
@@bamaman6297 I'm not so sure of that. I lived and worked on a sailing vessel myself for a few years when I was younger, and I noticed that impact of water or salt in the air depends to a considerable extend on how exposed the material is, ranging from corrosion happening so fast you can almost see it happen, to parts or compartments the air had no noticeable access to, or influence on. Corrosion inside electronic equipment for instance. You would expect to see at least some damage, but even after years of being used, I opened it up and there was nothing. Not even a little. So it varies. I don't expect these bus bars to turn into a corroded mess any time soon. They're relatively well tucked in. Waxing them might have been a good idea. Hot wax and a flame, so it creeps into every corner. But it'll hold.
Brian, as an electrician, I am very impressed with your ability and ingenuity and skill to come up with this solution and set it up, amazing job buddy👍👍❤️❤️🇮🇪🇮🇪
Hi Bryan, very creative and innovative design! I apologize if this is repeating something already asked below, I had a few thoughts when watching the video. I don't have the depth of electrical knowledge to appreciate that side of this design, so my comments are primarily from a mechanical/structural viewpoint. It must be super rewarding to be designing and building a new Delos, thanks for taking the time to share your work. Here are my questions: 1) how will you inspect the lower buss bar? how often do the mechanical joints need to be inspected? 2) how hot will the buss bar be during normal? high loading? how will the thermal expansion take place? will both bars be the same temperature? 3) If salt water got into the fiberglass conduit(channel) can it drain? would the salt residue create any issues? 4) is there a danger of arcing between the bars? 5) will the areas where the fiberglass rest on the hull stringers have differential movement when the hull flexes under load? if so, will this wear through the fiberglass over time? can this be inspected? if this were an issue is there a way to install a grommet in these areas? 6) is it possible that the buss bar can move of bounce up and down in a seaway? this motion could loosen the mechanical joints or damage the fiberglass conduit. I have followed and enjoyed watching the Delos adventures for many years and hope these comments are helpful.
Dirk here from Germany. Long time lurker, finally hit the notification bell. I hope, my English is good enough you can understand the concerns I have? Be very carefull!!!! I agree with Ian-C.01>>> I am electrician as well. 1000 Amp DC/ 48V ain't no joke. You running +/ - in the same duct only with an layer of 8 mm insulation??? I hope I get it correct, the 8mm insulation layer has no contact to the 2 side walls of the fiber glas duct, and will not be glued to them correct? So you still doesnt have a fully concealed Plus duct and fully concealed Minus duct, correct? You are underestimate the humidity and moisture,& the twist of the whole ship structre. I have seen Master electrical cabinets for big bank buildings here in Germany for 400V AC 1000A with even smaller copper busbars as those ones on your ship, The Bang I heard 2 level above the basement was enourmous during 1st time switch on the system. The cabinet cover had a hole 30x30 cm only because 1 copper busbar ( 1 phase of 3) hat not the correct air gap safety distance to the cabinet grounded sidewall on a foggy moisterus day decades ago. Dont get me wrong, I dont want to schoolmaster you or lecturing you,I am no ship builder electrician after all, but I would consult a electical engineer in Aussi Land, who's specialized in electric installation in ship/ vessel power distribution systems. Personally I would run them ( +/-) separate as long as I can,concealed from each other, and would only join them only in the Machine compartment. Run them ( +/-) together as short you can effort for safety. Have you thought about the master kill switch, which allows you to disconnect the battery power from the busbars in case of problems? This switch I would use remotly controlled, not entering the batterie compartment or the machine compartment for operation. A switch often used in transformer stations on land on medium- high voltage systems all above 1000V AC. Nevertheless, I love your channel. cant wait week by week on the new episode.
Have you considered Step-Up/Step-Down with DC/DC Converters? You could convert from 48V DC at the battery to, say, 150V DC for transmission to keep current manageable but within practical limits for marine electronics. Then, use another DC/DC converter to step down to the motor's required voltage. Wire Size: For 150V DC with the same 50 kW power, the current would be about 333A (50,000W / 150V), allowing for: 2/0 AWG or 3/0 AWG copper wire might suffice for this distance, balancing voltage drop and physical size.
Double insulated wire with a cross section of 240mm2 has a price in the EU of approx. 25 USD/meter (type 1-YY 1x240 CR) 3x17 + 3x17 meters costs: 2550 USD. A ready-made solution with 100x less risk
Hi Brian, as others have mentioned moisture in the channel could be a problem. I would consider drilling drain holes in the bottom and sealing between layers. An even better option would actually be to fill the sections between splices with epoxy. Lastly having worked with buss bar a lot, I'd say that the stack joint isn't ideal and will add a lot of resistance. Effectively each layer becomes a series joint adding compound losses to the circuit. Not a significant problem at 600v but at 48v it will be substantial. Bend up an offset. Keep the bends with a radius at least equal to the thickness preferably 1.5x if there's room and the buss bend up nicely.
Electrical engineer here too, my career was in semiconductors but a few years ago I designed a power system for my camper, 400 amps @ 12v is very serious. Minus seawater. 1,000 amps @ 48v is Impressive engineering.
Brian there are companies in Australia and elsewhere that make an IP65 rated bus duct. I’m an electrician that has installed this product up to 2,500Amp AC bus duct but I’m sure if you sourced these manufacturers and gave them your requirements, space restrictions etc. they would be able to advise you on a safer option.
Something like insulated cable?? If he doesn't like the envelope of cable, he'll freak at a proper bus duct. Lots of good comments in here. Move batteries closer. Up the voltage to reduce current. Use cable (splice flexible battery cable at ends) Very misguided. I'm sure his fabricators are ecstatic with his cut & trim to the structure...
Sailing SV Lynx is doing a very similar thing with bus bars on his Cat build. He just moved his batteries a lot closer to the engines. You may not be able to do that for weight distribution. He’s having some issues with that.
This episode was so interesting. I love how you used a commercial application to solve a small boat problem. It looked like a very satisfying electrical project. I trust you did the math. My wife teaches math and it works:)
Yes, fiberglass makes a good insulator, yet it is susceptible to moisture, I would suggest two insulators between positive and negative bars as well as paint the outside of the fiberglass with numerous coats of hard coat that is used on fiberglass boats to help cut down on blisters from moisture getting into the fiberglass. The more coats of hard coat the better, my rudder only had four coats on it and when pulled out had hundreds of blisters on it, so adjust as you see fit, it is your boat. Best of luck
Dear Brian. Did you derated busbars for heating, closed space and non ventilation? Since you choose 80x6mm I think that you didn't. Your bus bar will be overheated. Also when bus bar is dimensioned properly, it heats up to 65C. Additionaly I think that it is better to use heat shrinkable tubing, halogen free, than custom made insulation. Please recheck your calculation for current carrying capacity of bus bar.
We use DC bus bar systems like this in the telecoms industry. It's a nice way of working when you're on dry, still land. My concern here (in addition to the other comments) is around the flex on the yacht's hull. You will work-harden the copper components causing micro-fractures, which can lead to arcing. This is really an instance where I would recommend running multiple stranded conductors in parallel. Enjoy the videos, so sorry to be a bit of a wet blanket.
Brian, why did you put the batteries so far forward? Moving the batteries closer to the engines would also reduce the voltage drop. Do they make a narrower fiber channel? I would add two channels, each in a different mouse hole, rather than trying to put both bus bars in one channel! How do you plan to cool and ventilate the bus bars? I think it's important to cool and reduce condensation on the bus bars and insulation in your 2 bars in one channel design. Please tell me you've planned a way to be able to service and replace those long stiff bus bars if they corroded over time, or need the separating insulation layer replaced.
I think narrower fiber channels would allow you to add rubber grommets in the beams, so that vibrations do not wear through the fiberglass over the years in the surf and waves! And using two channels would have given you a lot more room to adapt to the alignment difference near the salon, and inspect to splice points over time.
I am a little worried about your splices! Did you measure the resistance of your connection? I worry about the galvanic action of the M6 bolts going through the tin and copper. And they may vibrate loose over time without lock tight, inspecting those is going to be a PITA. For sure, make sure you have a hatch so you can monitor those bolts. That's also why I would have used two channels, as checking the bolts and splices with the bus bars stacked is going to be very hard. I think I would solder the splices, in addition to the bolts?
This made me think. I made a few large busbars myself for our 1500 watt/12v battery bank and my biggest fear was lack of isolation, as that can totally ruin a boat. Hence they’re totally separated and waterproof. And I’d do the same here. I know it’s double the work but having total isolation would be my preferred solution. It adds the weight of extra polyester u profile but prevents 100% the spark risk and electric leak risk. If ever the boat floor gets soaked with water and water gets in between you have an enormous problem. a totally isolated system can be repaired but this.. if there water in those profiles you need to get everything out and totally dry it.. try that at sea. it’s probably still relatively easy to separate the positive/negative at this stage. As for insurance don’t be surprised if this is excluded from coverage. Just my five cents.
Brian, I don't know how relevant this is, but might be worth checking in with 'Gone With The Wynns'. I think they have some kind of electric hybrid motor propulsion system also and their latest video on their YT channel showed a significant battery/energy management failure.
@@stargazer7644 oh good grief, didn't my comment start with 'I DON'T KNOW HOW RELEVANT THIS IS!!!!!!! But you're confident enough to say that there is absolutely nothing of benefit from learning what went wrong with their system? That there isn't a single thing that Brian could learn from it? How arrogant are you?
@@SeanHendy I'm sick of people misrepresenting what happened to the Wynn's 12V battery charger. Delos I has a 12V battery charger on it's diesel. Every car in the world has a 12V battery charger. I think he's familiar with them.
@@stargazer7644 and I'm sick of people making a mountain out of a molehill. FFS. Misrepresenting? Get a grip man. I literally didn't expand on anything other than make a VERY simple statement or suggestion or whatever. Get over yourself.
Wow! What a job, Brian! Fingers-crossed that when you turn the power on sparks don't fly and things don't start to melt! May Poseidon, Amphitrite, ...and all of the rest of the sea gods be with you!
I'm not an EE, but I've got concerns about how close your bars are (even with insulation) and those splices. Without a very solid electrical connection between the bars, most of the current is going to be flowing through the screws holding things together. I definitely feel like, while the bus bar was a good idea to reduce weight and expense, probably should have been handled much earlier in planning, and involved an EE to ensure it was done properly.
I see you've got alot of feedback regarding the electrical system. I think it's a nice idea and that you should certainly take their advice into account. The only thing I would add as a major must have is a physical disconnection lever on both sides. You see them usually being used on big power packs, a physical lever that makes or breakes a connection. But besides that, great work! It sure as hell looks like a great project! Keep it up!
Went to comments to make my point - but it’s been said so many times 😄 only thing I would add is that you could fill the channel with transformer oil - but you need to consider access and thermal expansion - your 3% volt drop will be 1.5kW of heat in those bars!
Hey Brian, In my old telecommunication office we had a battery plant that the positive and negative were far apart! Plus you should have a "shunt" built into the buss in case of overload condition. Lastly, the difference of elevation you have at the T connection, I'd recommend a "C" to connect which you have less points of failure and less resistance with the stack plate method.
Did you consult with an electical engineer? From the comments and from my own experience with HV EV systems it seems as if you might have some serious safety problems. One major problem incountered in EV's is that the constant vibration is very hard on straight runs of solid wire/bus bars so there is always a flexible joint somewhere so that the bar can flex and also expand/contract with the heat generated by the current. Also when changes of direction were needed, instead of using layers of copper like you did, we would heat the bus bar and bend it to make the offset needed. Besides you're going to have to have the boat inspected for insurance reasons and hopefully you'll have some documentation on the electrical bus bars.
@@stargazer7644- and with such credentials it still takes years of mentoring and practice to know what your doing with 1000’s of amps. It’s much more than just voltage drop calcs.
@@jtrudgen7973 No, not really. This is basic DC electronics 101. It's really about as simple as it gets. The power we're dealing with here is no more than what you have in a standard 200A 240V electrical panel found in most North American houses - 50kW. The fact that it is 48V instead of 240V just makes it safer.
Yes, using busbars in a 60-foot aluminum catamaran can make a lot of sense, particularly for managing the electrical systems on board. Busbars offer several advantages that make them well-suited for marine applications: 1. Efficient Power Distribution • In a larger vessel like a 60-foot catamaran, you’ll have multiple electrical systems (navigation, lighting, communication, bilge pumps, etc.) that need a reliable power source. Busbars streamline the power distribution by centralizing the connections, reducing wiring complexity, and ensuring a stable flow of electricity. 2. Simplified Wiring Layout • On a catamaran, space and accessibility can be limited in certain areas. Busbars help organize wiring more neatly, avoiding large bundles of cables running throughout the vessel. This simplifies the electrical layout, makes maintenance easier, and keeps the system more organized. 3. Reduced Voltage Drop • In a larger boat, long cable runs can lead to voltage drop, reducing efficiency and performance. Busbars can minimize this issue by providing a centralized point that reduces the need for excessively long wires, thus improving the system’s overall efficiency. 4. Enhanced Safety and Durability • Busbars are robust and designed to handle high current loads, which enhances safety in marine environments. They are also more resistant to overheating and corrosion, which is essential on a saltwater vessel where moisture and corrosion are constant challenges. 5. Modularity and Expandability • With a busbar system, you can easily add or modify electrical connections as the boat’s systems evolve. This flexibility is helpful if you plan to upgrade or add new equipment over time. 6. Grounding Benefits for an Aluminum Hull • Since your catamaran has an aluminum hull, grounding is essential to prevent galvanic corrosion. Properly installed grounding busbars can help connect and ground electrical circuits without creating stray currents or risking corrosion to the aluminum structure. Key Considerations: • Marine-Grade Materials: Use busbars made from marine-grade copper or tinned copper with corrosion-resistant coatings to withstand marine conditions. • Proper Insulation: Ensure that the busbars are properly insulated and isolated from any aluminum hull or bulkheads to prevent unwanted currents. • Professional Installation: Consider hiring a marine electrician for installation, as this will help ensure the system is safe, efficient, and optimized for marine use. In summary, busbars are a practical and effective choice for a 60-foot aluminum catamaran, providing efficiency, organization, and safety for the vessel’s electrical system.
There's plenty of discussion of the busbar challenges here already, so I'll just say I see some great comments. I'll add: Higher voltage would allow the use of a simpler connection at much lower currents, and increase efficiency. This is why electric cars use high voltage drive circuits (350-400v is common).
That's my question as well. Given the length of these bars, and seeing that they connect perpendicular to one another, I would expect significant movement in both the X and Y directions. If this had been cable, there would have been some loop or bend left in it to allow for the movement.
I used to build insulation for large power transformers, and they used bus bars just like that within the unit. The small transformers were like a 20 foot box on a 5 tone truck. This will work for you. It’s an ideal solution. As long as the insulation is adequate, you’ll be all good.
Fingers crossed that the electrical works as intended. Have fun on your break in the USA and Sweden. It would be a blast to see you three visit Malin, Johan, and Vera (Ran Sailing) while you are in Sweden. Cheers!
Great comments from EE engineers here However I think I would of just moved the battery bank to the aft nearer to the engines, I’m sure the weight could of been offset by moving other components to forward. Keep it simple.
I am a retired professional power generation engineer. I share Kirk's view that having 50kW of power at 51.2 volts DC flowing a long distance from in front of the mast to both rear corners, introduces a lot of additional weight in copper bars and supports. Also, if there was a large power system fault onboard, these copper bus bar will move and likely break something in the floor structure. A bank of 64 @ 314AH LFP cells and 4 separate 16-point BMS would weigh 363 kg, excluding battery pack framing, and this would almost balance out the weight of Nanni 80, the associated ICE engine support equipment and additional Combi frame.
I can only think of one bad thing to say about this episode and that is we have to wait another week for another. I'm 100% invested in watching these episodes ASAP :)
32:15 This is a very frightening admission. You absolutely need to throughly test this as soon as possible, and have some experts inspect it. I am by no means an engineer, let alone an electrical engineer, but I am a former architect with some structural engineering training, and I’m sensing some serious issues with this implementation. For one, the positive and negative bus bars seem very close to one another and in the environment of a marine watercraft, I feel like moisture and corrosion are going to be huge issues. Secondly, in the context of the huge metal cage in which this sits, I have questions about the way all of the metal in the boat will interact with this system. Third, in buildings we include things like expansion joints when making long spans out of rigid material when flexure is an issue. Boats are constantly in flexure, and I worry that these rigid bolt joints may be a problem. Lastly, and related to this, how hot is this thing going to get, and will its thermal expansion cause issues? And why brass bolts and not keeping it copper? Isn’t that going to affect how much power comes through it and attract corrosion? I have concerns this thing will not be insulated enough and the whole metal structure of the boat will be conducting current or arcing. Overall, this seems very dangerous and like kind of thing that should most definitely not be winged and DIY’d, but designed, inspected, and tested by someone with a high degree of experience with this. Also, cutting more holes in the structural elements of the boat definitely weakens them.
Hi Brian , there is a lot of good advise in the comments. For my 10 cents look up voltage creepage distance, this is industry standard in High Voltage. also there is a HV powder coating which is well worth looking at. Lovin' your work
You two are a HUGE inspiration for my retirement plans! Im an industrial medium and high voltage electrician. I would recommend investing in non-oxidizing conductive grease and a high quality torque wrench. Vibrations are going to be a big enemy for the rigidity in your system. It may be a good idea to add bushings or a sleeve to the holes that were widened with the die grinder. I know its not convenient, but the entire vessel will flex a little bit and stress all of the splices on the bus. I would make flexible splices using braided busbar (which might not be possible with the amperages you are needing) or bite the bullet and do it with crimped lugs and paralleled wire. Sea air + coppper = statue of liberty green. I would imagine anything you cant clean would need to be sealed from moisture ingress. It might be worth getting the input from a marine electrical engineer. I wish this project to have only success and fruitfulness. Its angry invisible pixies. Scary. Please be safe.
How can the entirty of the conductors be routinely inspected for chaffing against frames and eventual short circuiting on those frames? Bound to be chaffing due to sea states.
I am not an expert in any of this... My concern is stray current, seeing as how it appears that the Wynns boat seems to be eating itself in every area, due to stray current. Having such long runs with bus bars and having an aluminum boat I'm fearful of the same issues for you guys. This is such a beautiful project and I truly am hoping for the best for you. I don't know if my concern is an apples and oranges situation or a valid concern. Much love, and best wishes in your dream build.
The alternative would have been to invert the DC to a higher voltage AC at a much lower amperage so you can use cables, then xfmr/rectify for the engines. More electronics but the insulation headaches in a salt water/fog environment would be much better. Also i'd AFCI/GFCI the living crap out of the electricals with an AL boat.
The holes you had to cut out with the hole saw are higher than the holes that were precut. You had to lift the tray up to slide it past (17:00). This might cause it to cut through the fiberglass tray. I would recommend running flat aluminum the whole length of the tray for the tray to sit on. That would be the safest. Also I would install buss bar temp sensors at each joint for safety.
As an old Electrical Engineer myself I like the idea of copper busbars but I wouldn't run them both in the same channel, the possibilities of moisture or even condensation inside the insulation on a boat is high and may lead to arcing ! 50kw is no joke even at 48v and must be given every consideration, if it was in a factory or distribution system it would have to have separate insulation and a good air gap !
I don't think you want the channel sealed either because you'll need to be able to inspect the connections so it may be necessary to leave some holes for drainage in case water gets in.
That was my first thought too, and I am a hobbyist, not an engineer. Is having both conductors in the same box even a thing on boats?
After installing quite a few 48V off grid systems, I was thinking the same thing, that the + and - bus bars may be too close to each other.
Brian needs to see this!!!
@@RJMSINCR Wiring for boats has to be up to certain standards which I'm sure Brian is fully aware of but this does seem to be a bit of an oversight on his part, I may be wrong because it is unfamiliar territory but I would err on the side of caution when dealing with so much power.
45 years in industrial electrical power installation. I would also suggest an air gap between the buses. Any heat generated needs a place to go.
Regarding the Busbars: many electricians already said their concerns:
- putting them in same enclosure
- not using conductivity grease between plate connections
- not using copper rivets / using brass instead of pure copper screws
- calculating dimensions only for standard ambient temp instead of critical temp (you are in the warm regions often so calculate for 40°+ celsius
- using only adhesive to close the glassfibre enclosure
BUT ALSO
- there is also a mechanical point :
Please check with your Naval engineer what the maximal deflection of your boat will be .
Calculate the work hardening of your copper bus bars after some years of deflection cycles.
I think it will be under the aluminum values, but i am not sure.
Even small deflections over millions of cycles will harden the copper and it will at least crack, this will lead to high resistance and if big enough to a fiery ending.
That is why in most applications even with small possibility of cable (busbar) movement one would use fine-core flexible cables instead of wire.
Possible mitigation:
Install measuring cables between all 3 endings of the busbars, use an automatic logging device which can log volts amperes and resistance. You could measure between +and - ends of the bus bars, but you then would not know which one is the problem. That is why you need separate measuring cables.
The big thing I have is vibrations over time. I've worked in automotive and I've worked with this type of bar too and the reason automotive uses stranded copper wire is the vibrations. I know this is a boat but I think that either doesn't help or makes it worse.
One thing to note, all the consumers of this high current (motor controllers, inverters, etc...) will throw low voltage faults well before a crack in the busbar results in a fiery end. The devices are designed to work with batteries, so they monitor the voltage to prevent over draining the batteries. So if the bus bars develop high resistance, the motor controllers will shut off. Still a very big concern to lose propulsion when it's needed most, but Delos will still have the diesel.
I can't comment on your mechanical concerns, but what a lot of EEs are doing here is applying their knowledge of high voltage, high duty cycle AC systems to low voltage, low duty cycle DC systems. There is no skin effect, there is no concern about coronal discharge, they are not taking into account the very low duty cycle of Delos' electrical propulsion. It will be physically impossible to pull 50KW for more than an hour because it's limited by the capacity of the batteries. In fact I suspect 50KW will never be pulled for more than a minute or two during maneuvering. The only way to get a decent range out of the electric propulsion is to run at low power, 10KW or less.
@@dacharyzoo Another concern I have is that I know there are distance requirements we had in place along with material thickness for proper insulation and air gaps. I don't know how much of that was a precaution but I do know that many of the things we did would be a more expensive way of doing things and I know know big corporations don't like to waste money if they can avoid it. Also I have personally seen a 5k amp bus cabinet ark fault and it is beyond nasty. Definitely the kind of thing that could sink a boat like this if it's anywhere even remotely sensitive to flooding.
@@skyknight6467 That's the thing. You have to understand why those requirements are there, to understand if they apply in this situation. I can counter your example. I have personally walked up and touched with my bare hands an uninsulated *live* conductor carrying half a million amps. I was invited to do so on a tour of an aluminum smelter because it was completely safe. The conductor was as thick as a dinner plate and the potential was only 3V.
You have to understand the physics, and most of the engineers commenting on this post simply do not.
@@dacharyzoo bless your heart and have a nice day
I‘m an EE since 40 years and I was working with bus bars. Please take the added contact resistance in account if you are using splices and especially on your stack‘s. We put always crease between the contacting areas. It’s not a yoke. Not to insulate but to enhance the conductivity between pressed conducting areas and not to get corrosion in between. Please look for specific literature . It is named conductiv grease
Just came to add the same information I used to install high voltage bus bars in hospitals. Wish I could remember the name of that conductive Grease we used at every connection. It was to promote conductivity and stop corrosion. The old rememory ain't what it used to be. Lmao 🤣
I watched the whole video anticipating a consultation with an EE or similar professional expert. That never came.
i was thinking the same thing. Plates are never 100% flat. So effectively reducing the surface area. Although the flat bit has much more area than then cross section (if that makes sense). The corrosion might create a serious issue.
Brian's degree and job he quit to by Delos was an EE.@jackechan1311
@@doggonedk Wasn't Thermalle Condusil was it?
I love the respectful way so many have made suggestions. Speaks to the quality of the channel👍🏻👍🏻
I manage buildings that use busbars exclusively and you have to think of 3 things. The insulation between the busbars have to be extremely well made when you are running that high of a load. the connection points between 2 bars have to be milled as a bar will not be flat, and with that load you will have a lot of heat if you don't have a 100% good connection. And 3rd and last that i have not seen anyone talk about think of how much the bar will expand and shrink with heat. a long straight bar will expand much when it gets warm and that will compromise the connections.
Yes, that was my first thought, heat. Both for temperature rise and expansion.
@@jonathanwetherell3609 It's a long run in an unventilated space. Although copper does not have a huge coefficient of thermal expansion, the effect of a single run could see a few centimeters of expansion/contraction.
The insulation required has only to do with the voltages involved. It has nothing to do with the amount of load.
Yep... not to mention all the flexing it's going to do...
Yes thermal cycling from heat due to current flow, or even daily temperature swings will cause the bus bar to grow relative to the boat and the fiberglass.
Make sure you only attach it at one end and allow the bar to slide and creep along the entire run.
Make sure there are flexible attachments at the three main connections.
You know this about boats, everything is always moving, and this bus bar will always be sliding and stretching and shrinking...
I love you guys, so this comes from the bottom of my heart.
As an Electrical engineer within the offshore industry I watched the busbar installation with a high degree of concern.
You need to consult a certified electrician/ engineer with specialty in marine installations and get professional advice.
There are so many safety concerns, that you have not taken into account, that I do not know where to start 😅
Please stop and rethink this setup before continuing, as this could literally burn down your beautiful new catamaran/ home 🫶🏼
My warmest regards
Jesper (Denmark)
I had a long list of concerns too and I just stopped typing it out. I've worked with big bus bar and fiberglass insulation very similar to this at 2 different large scale electrical cabinet manufacturers. My biggest concern is actually vibration. These systems weren't designed for the vibrations and shock loads in a boat.
Brian! STOP! BACK OFF! RETHINK!
Not IF but WHEN salt water gets into that red water CANAL your building, DEAD SHORT CIRCUIT!!!!!!!
KA-BOOM !
BUT IF YOU INSIST ON GOING THE BUS BAR ROUTE PUT THE NEG IN A SEPERATE ENCLOSURE!!!
Insulate the bars, you can buy long lengths of heat shrink in a flat roll
YOU ARE BUILDING A BOMB!
Mark, 40yrs electrical professional, industrial & marine.
I’d also load the system and check temp on the splices.
1000% he should be load testing the setup first to ensure the joints are good enough
Another EE of 30 years here. I have some serious concerns - but I am not a Marine Electronics expert. Hopefully this has been reviewed by a qualified professional Marine Engineer. Moisture, flexing, the chosen insulation, etc - ingenious yes, but my little voice is taking to me.
Canadian Structural Engineer Here: Slicing additional area out of your support trusses absolutely does impact strength, and you've done it at the same spot all the way down the middle of the boat. It won't be a huge reduction, but it does create a weak plane right down the middle of the boat. I'd weld some stiffeners above and below each of the openings, where you have enlarged the openings, before the busway goes in.
The man's right. Just like putting screws down the same grain line along a board. It's splitsville.
barely cut any out, absolutely wont change it. the boat is overbuilt anyways
Brian. Get some advice from a maritime electrical engineer, there are risks here (moisture ingress, shorting, method of jointing causing heat, movement, electrolysis). I’m an ex marine engineer and to be honest I’m not happy that this is a safe design for a marine environment, such high currents can be dangerous in the event of failure and your conduits are effectively inaccessible. I’m also not sure Insurers would accept this unless it was certified and tested.
I watched the whole video anticipating a consultation with an EE or similar professional expert. That never came.
Brian, Dave Mc, ex MarE 1 here. I’m adding a further comment because I am concerned. I know you’ve put time and cost into this and you yourself are an electrical engineer, however I really do think you need to get the advice of a marine electrical design engineer or company. I’ve looked back at UK DOE Marine Electrical Regs (which are basically the same as USA Regs) and I’m concerned that what you are doing doesn’t comply in terms of insulation, separation, jointing and integrity, also durability in the marine environment. It may even be a fire hazard, if not sooner, then later. Please take some advice before you proceed further. Sorry to be a downer, I love your channel and I’m concerned for you all.
They have used buss bars in the marine world for decades. As long as the connections are done properly and he has taken the added resistance into account, as well as expansion, there is no more danger here than cable.
@@Seansousa757. I understand your point but these are not bolted, braised or riveted connections, they are screwed, thus compromisable by age, vibration etc. Insulation by way of loose flat grp plate between bars is not integral, it’s incomplete and open to compromise by water, condensation and dust. Also thermal expansion/contraction is not accounted for. The entire conduit is also open to compromise by water, particularly in its bilge location. These are all regulated matters that would not comply.
@@Seansousa757 Not true. Cable has a measure of flexability, buswork does NOT.
Coming out of the power generation industry we used a hollow buss system because of the increased surface area and since curent flows on the surface of the buss there was less heat build up. Also, we used chilled air to remove the heat and keep the resistance from increasing. I sure hope this works well for you.
Also I aggree that I would not run the + and - bus in the same channel since you could experience arcing when you start puching higher amount of current accross the buss.
Good luck and God bless
Current tends to the surface of the conductor (skin effect) only on AC, on DC this doesnt happen, so it wil distribute evenly across the conductor cross-section.
Having both polarities close together tightens the magnetic field, which is better for the boat.
As above peron said surface effects are for AC only.
listen to this amazing advice from peeps who care
@@alhamilton7261 Doesn't the sheer number of advisors amaze you? Nothing of this build got that much consideration, usefull or otherwise. I'm honest, I'm guilty too, but you gotta admit, he's got ways of his own.
As an electrician and a boater, the bus bars need to be installed with standoff insulators, and the bars should be in separate channels. I would also use coated bars, the danger of something conductive shorting them out is too great. Best of luck.
I agree they should be in separate channels or something needs to secure and so they don’tchafe
…just one thought - is negative line needed? This is a metal boat - Can the minus be extremely well terminated in battery compartment to dry massive body part. Like a car starter that takes hundreds of amps from the engine body which is terminated to car body.
@@elinicfurniture6860 too much of a chance for galvanic corrosion to eat the aluminum in my opinion expecally with the salt water atmosphere
@@tommussington8330yes I think you are right
I'm not an electrician but even I was thinking of 2 layers of insulation between them, even that is probably far from ideal.
You guys have many well educated loyal fans , the comments are excellent .
another retired engineer. I calculated with CTE of 16.4 micron/meter/degree C for copper would yield an expansion of. .387 mm/degree C in a length of 23 meters, or about 15 mm with a delta C of 40 degrees. Need to have a flexible join somewhere.
If you assume rigid end connections you will exceed the strength of copper when the aluminum and copper differential is about 15 deg C
Why would the ends be rigidly attached? They'll have cables bolted to the ends.
@@stargazer7644 At any rate, the ends need room to expand..
It would be good to have made all direction changes in enclosures and using loops of cable.
@@stargazer7644not at the tee
A lot of really good comments here by electrical engineers - I'm sure Brian will take them seriously. I'm also a EE, also with ME & thermal experience. Might want to also consider that the fiberglass housing is a thermal insulator. If you have 3% loss in the bus bars and are transferring 50 kW, that means 1500W of heat being generated. With that inside a thermally isolated chamber things will get hot. Fortunately that's distributed over a long distance, but is it negligible?
I can’t understand why he can’t up the Voltage and reduce the current.
Am I missing something
@@stephenwilliams4722I'm an engineer working in DC power. 48V is much safer. You can touch live 48VDC (not that you should), and its probably fine. 400V is a different story
@@Ultrarc I'd assume this is the reason for 48V, its a balance between efficiency and safety. Though after reading all the electrical engineers responding on here I really hope he rethinks the design work here as it sounds like he at least needs separate channels and some more design work on join expansion and connections.
@@stephenwilliams4722 400V on an aluminium boat that's in seawater?
@@SuperDirk1965
And your point is?.
Brian, everyone who has ever watched any of your content knows you’re an extremely intelligent and talented Man.
I’m not an electrical engineer, but I’d definitely run each bus bar separately as a rookie electrician. AC and DC.
You’re well versed on how bad salt conditions and exposure kills everything.
Also PLEASE use a respirator anytime you grind, cut or drill metal. Each time it creates microscopic metal dust that small shards get in your lungs and creates scar tissue. Definitely a serious no no.
Best of luck moving forward.
Nothing but love and positive wishes for you, your Family and this legendary build.
Just want you to be safe. ❤
Your electrical backbone using buswork in a sailboat is certainly daring. Mixing both polarities in the same fiberglass channel with nothing more than a fiberglass spacer is INSANE! This is a catastrophe waiting to happen! The buswork should be at least in totally separate channels. Using bus in an environment that will make it shrink, stretch, and bind is the daring part. Doing this next to each other is an accident waiting to happen. Buswork used in industry and switchgear is in a relatively stable environment. The temperature doesn’t change much, there is no movement, and there is little chance that it will come in contact with liquids or other hazardous materials. There is lots of clearance between bus bar members. But what you have is the opposite where it is entirely possible for this to be immersed in sea water. On top of that, wrecks happen, and there is certainly a chance that part of the assembly could fail and become an out of control 50KW welder! This is a situation where your boat should FAIL certification! Do yourself a favor and have both a marine surveyor and an electrical engineer who is fully familiar with buswork assemblies inspect your design and handywork. Certainly, do this before you enclose it with a deck.
@@tgmct I’m a UPS engineer I would have run this in copper cable completely segregated from each other on batteries we use trilaminate cables specifically designed for DC high current this bus bar in a boat is very dangerous, imagine an arc flash out at sea 🙏🙏
It is amazing to watch you guys develop and build your custom new boat! While other channels are going to mainstream manufacturers and getting new catamarans or trimaran, and two of them are having serious issues, one caused by a runaway fishing boat that plowed into them at night at anchor at night, and then you have one channel that is taking their original small boat and completely gutting it and redoing it. It’s amazing that all this is happening in a relatively short period of time with so many different sailing channels. a lot of fun to watch you all, and very inspiring and uplifting to watch the story. Thank you so much for sharing your life with us!
This build is being done in Brisbane Australia. Does anyone know WHO might be best for Brian and the Delos team to consult? It seems clear from the comments an expert needs to be consulted and it seems that the quality and experience of the expert is going to be very very important. Also bear in mind that (I think) these videos are on delay so the build may actually be a fair bit ahead - which makes this even more urgent. Make Delos SAFE AGAIN!
The videos seem to have a 10 - 12-week lag at present. This is such a serios matter that it needs addressing. The consequences of a short, thermal expansion, fasteners becoming lose will generate a high resistance connection which will generate heat that could lead to a fire. Or a short to the hull could lead to accelerated electrolysis.
It’s also completely illegal to do any type of high voltage electrical work in Australia without being a licensed electrician which Brian is not.
Jeff Cote of Pacific Yacht Systems.. He is a boat electric system ninja guru. I left Brian a comment about it.
Looks awesome Brian.
Are you worried about the chafing of the aluminum holes on the fiberglass channel?
With all the movement that boat is gonna be doing, I'm worried about the aluminum chewing into that fiberglass and grounding that out.
Food for thought.
Brian I am also a Master electrical engineer , I watch you from year and this is my first comment. What I wanted to inform you the buss bar are use in MCC room who do no move , MCC center on large boat are mounted on vibration support. also the bus bar should be separated and isolated by 12 inch’s or so. The fiber tray needs to be mounted solid with isolation for vibration . What fuse size and type do you use on this line? And what disconnect do you use ? Personally I will use rated cables for your application and will split the line in 2 different pass .Brian good lock .
I think you need to rethink your voltage. At 400v your whole system only needs 125 amps witch is much easier to deal with. No buss bar needed. This system you built will be impossible to inspect and repair. Since your new to electrical engineering using prebuilt parts will make the system much safer. Take a look at your blocks that you built to go from one tray to the other. Each connection you made adds resistance and a failure point, You just built a small heater, what you should have done is bent the buss bar to the shape you need. I am also very worried about the the bars being so close with no air gap. This is both a heat and an arc flash issue. If salt water ever gets in your going to have an instant 50kw welders until your fuses blow. Once that happens you have no way to repair it. A better option is to change voltage then put in regular water tight conduit and pull normal wires that have no junctions under your deck. The get wires rated for water and to be in a conduit together. I love your work and want you to be successful.
I would also consider go to high voltage to decrease ampers and enable standard components. 48V looks safe but that current...
I agree. That seems like way too much continuous current going to your motors. Electric cars putting out 200 hp don’t use bus bars. Seems like you’re way over engineering this with many opportunities for failure.
I’m not a engineer in no way but I thought the same thing. Either spend the money on equipment or money on lots of copper. It’s a lot easier pulling and installing smaller than dealing with that big stuff. I sure wouldn’t have run both in the same track with that kind of current. It would be a lot easier doing it over now than to find out and have a redo when everything is built. It’s a learning lesson now but later it could end up lots worse.
Absolutely right, the size of the busbar should ring a bell: no small electric motor is drawing that kind of currents trough its windings. There has to be a component that ups the voltage to make it usable anyway. And since there are two motors of 25, you can just use a cable to each hull at 400V and 62A.
I ran my whole seafood processing plant on a 1000 amps. Man. I think we used 3 runs of 500 mcm, it was 480 volts. Sure would cure a lot of problems transforming the power.
Delos crew, likely won't read this but hopefully you do. I work with large diesel electric equipment and some alarm bells are going off for this idea. On the EE side, there is nothing I can tell you that you dont already know or could easily find. I think in a controlled environment that this would work great. I do not think the bus bar idea will work long term. You are playing with 4 very different materials (aluminum, copper, brass and frp) that are going to experience thermal expansion at different rates. Tapping m6 into copper is going to work fine, until it isnt. Then you have a lap joint in a marine environment thats going to corrode and get hot. And its very hidden. 48v @1000a is scary in an aluminum structure in the middle of the ocean thats habited. I also think that laying +/- in the same channel is unwise. Salt water IS going to get in the channel. Can it escape? If the bar is in compression and buckles up, is it contained or? Youve already done the hard work of laying thr conduit. Spend the 3 grand on running two pairs of 500 mcm DLO (2+, 2- runs of 50ft? @14 bucks a foot). Either way, good luck!
Assume you installed the copper into aluminum hull at 20C. Then cruise high latitude where the water and hull are at 0C. The busbar is at what. 50C max? For 10m run, I'm getting the aluminum shrinking 4.6mm and the bus bar increasing by 5.1 mm. So a 10mm mismatch. Hopefully the bar can float that much? If not either the bar buckles and springs up, or if constrained you shear the joining fasteners. Food for thought. If you insist on staying the course, I'd think about a flexible portion on long runs, and I'd braze the plate connection in tandem with the fasteners so sandwich corrosion can't occur.
Another engineer here, lots of colleagues already gave you lots of advice in every major area. Please, HEAR THEM AND TAKE ACTION. There are some very serious concerns regarding safety, 50 KW is a lot amps and is to be taken very seriously.
Personally even if this assebmly just "works", I would be terrified of condensation inside the fiberglass channel.
Another point I would worry about and would investigate to be very sure is corrosion by condensation, salty air and electrolisis between metals.
Im not an electrician nor an engineer, but with that being said - Purely from a maintenance perspective I would have some concerns, the main one being that the bus bars are essentially hard-fixed into the hull, meaning: if something goes wrong you need to cut the hull wide open to get to the issue, and if the bus needs replacing you'll need a full refit. Cables can be fed in and fed out, like a wiring loom in a car, but when the wiring loom is part of the chassis that becomes almost impossible without taking the car apart. That being said, im interested to see how this turn out in the future!
I don’t have any electrical experience but I had the same thought about this being a maintenance nightmare of something breaks. Sure hope he does some extensive testing before sealing things up.
With all the constant churning of the ocean, and the slamming on the boat, you should run some rubber edging around those cut holes or they will act like knife blades. wherever a conduit/pipe goes through a cut hole put some rubber U trim/edging. Even that steering column will be slamming up and down with the waves.
It's one of the reasons they use Basalt fiber for high current/volt insulators .
@@danw3735 If the metal can chafe through the fiberglass tube, it can also chafe through the rubber enroute to the fiberglass & busbar.
I was going to say the same thing. The holes he had to cut out with the hole saw are higher than the holes that were already there. Which will be the first ones to cut through the fiberglass tray. I also wouldn’t use rubber. I would run flat aluminum the whole length of the tray for the tray to sit on. That would be the safest.
I have read all the comments and there is so much truth in them.
Buss bars are great for distribution equipment mounted on a concrete pad with minimal vibrations and where thermal fluctuations can be mitigated by short runs and stand-offs.
Brian all these people obviously love you and your family very much as do I.
A ground fault failure here could be catastrophic to the point it could compromise the hull of the boat.
I would say sleeve the holes around the fiberglass channel to protect it and install the $9K worth of cables by snaking them in the channel.
Prayers for you and yours for many blessings always
Bob
😂 Brian has very subtly acknowledged all the helpful advice on his masterpiece. Love your work brother.
I worked with bus bars in a power station.... suggest some kind of ventilation system to carry the heat away, consider temp monitoring so you know about possible heat build up, consider flex joints for heat expansion, consider bevel washers on the joints and the correct conductive grease...... consider stand off insulators..... agree with others on running pos and neg in seperate channels....... all the best !
A video in which you explain how the concept came about would be cool. We had 48V in the last boat and are currently working on a 400V system for the new boat! There are now HV systems for drives and HV hybrid inverters for AC/DC conversion. It would be interesting to know why you opted for low voltage and high currents? I am only a mechanical engineer and the high cable cross sections were the reason to develop the 400V high voltage system
Brian is a pretty smart guy. While his plan is ingenious and him being an electrical engineer says a lot, I would have probably run separate channels for each busbar just to be safe. I suspect there will be flexing/movement on a boat so I prefer the separation of the two conductors.
Not just boat flexing, but daily/hourly flexing as the heat dissipates from the two bars at a slower rate on the lower bus than the top.
Which means the bars will be constantly sliding against the insulation between them. Like 5-10mm of movment each cycle. 😢
I worry this will be an issue in a year or two, with no way to monitor and inspect this condition.
Brian take some time to watch arcflash videos. If copper sublimates as in an arcflash event. A 1 inch cube of copper expands 67,000 times and burns hotter than the surface of the sun. I dont want to scare you but this is scary stuff! I encourage you to consult a maritime EE. This is not the place to save money electrical safety is paramount.
Seriously, all these safety concerns and from what I understood they are saving mere 4k USD over the regular cabling, while adding a lot of complexity and future maintenance issues. K.I.S.S. is the way to go, hacking around 40kW electrical installation is not.
Arc flashes are from high voltage, not high current. 48V will never cause arc flashes. Short circuit could be an issue, but not arcing in this case.
@@JoseMariaOliveira So you've never seen arcing on the brushes of a 12V motor? Also, back EMF from a motor can induce significantly higher voltages when the power is switched off. Never say never.
@trhosking that is not arcing, it's sparks, which is a totally different thing. 48V will not produce an arc between both busbars once they are separated by the insulation.
Arc flash at 48VDC? Please tell me where I can see a video of that.
Loving watching the build.
As an electrician I hate the serviceability of where you have put the bar. I have never worked in the marine industry but I would be stepping that voltage up alot. Running some double insulated underground cable in conduits to a sub board in the back then stepping it down. Yes there will be some extra losses in transformers. Easy to pull cables through again and replace transformers later if needed.
This is DC, not AC. You're going to have some trouble with transformers.
There is a reason why electric vehicles stack batteries to 400V-800V. This would result in much lower currents and therefore smaller conductors for the same power. Electric vehicles use special wires (and connectors) to handle high voltages and high currents. Brian, - maybe above is something to consider, and include good cell balancing electronics. Love your videos and ingenuity, but you may want to rethink this one and take the many comments from others here into consideration (if it is not too late). All the Best! This was my first time commenting on a video.
I gotta be honest, I’m pretty nervous about this electrical system. I’m no engineer but do work in power production. Reading the comments of electrical engineers solidifies my feelings.
Please be safe with this Brian, and please take in every one of these comments.
As i was watching this video and thinking this must be different for a boat (is it
?) but got more and more concerned. I was a construction manager in the US and built plenty of condo towers with bus ducts. We had one instance where the shaft the duct ran in got wet and the result was catastrophic. Pretty ugly actually. Concerned about this install in a boat hull environment being hot, maybe salty, humid and not to mention the movement issues also noted by others. Wouldn't hurt to get a third party expert second opinion on this design and install. I am sure you are a smart guy, i have been following your channel for years, recognize you are extremely clever. But with this being a life safety issue, you can never be too pragmatic. Great channel, awesome adventures and experiences. Love to the family and best regards 😊
I am so impressed with all the qualified remarks being given to Brian. It is really cool and very thoughtful and helpful information to take into consideration for the safety of his family, everyone.👍💯🤔🏆
It's so cool to see so many people come together :)
As others have alluded, I would prefer the batteries much closer to the motors, independent feed cables for each motor, a higher DC voltage (as much as possible) and thinner flexible cables. The 3% distance loss is not negligible for a solar application. Other heavy equipment (e.g. generator), storage or additional tanks can be installed forward to balance the boat.
I would consider brazing the bars together to eliminate any risk of the bolts loosening over time and requiring service. With the bars on top of each other in a single channel you will never be able to get to the lower positive bus bar to service it if needed. Brazing them together will also help prevent corrosion.
I agree with many of the comments. Conductivity through brazed connection will not change with time and corrosion. I am not an EE (unlike other comments) but I know running at higher voltage, or splitting the conductor for the two motors, would both reduce the amperage that is the reason for the large wire size. Love your videos - Reed in British Columbia
I agree also that placing both buss bars inside the same trough is only asking for trouble in a wet moveable environment! It's only a matter of WHEN water or condensation will fill your trough and completely melt down your buss bars and electrical system. Might want to reconsider or investigate a different way to independently insulate buss bars in a wet metallic environment.😢😢
Not that I disagree with running the bars in independent boxes, but how much current do you think 48VDC is going to pass through salt water to "melt down" the system?
Having dealt with many low voltage high current bus bar systems I applaud your choice for Delos 2. I'm curious about your choice of running positive power on the bottom bus bar & negative power on the top within the fiberglass channel. Assuming the motor/generator/battery system utilizes negative ground like most conveyance electrical systems, what happens if the aluminum spars grind through the fiberglass channel due to boat motion, temperature
gradients or flexing of the hull? Is the possibility of breeching the fiberglass channel a non-issue or will the system be positive rather than negative ground?
More ?? for the drive system video...
Good point. The negative is typically grounded so a catastrophic event to the bottom of the bus bar is less likely to cause a problem if it's the negative side. That's all super easy to switch so hopefully they see this.
Master Electrician and sailor here... I share the concerns of others on having bare bus bars stacked in the f/g channels. One point I haven't seem mentioned is that the stack of bus bar-insulator-bus bar seems to me to be a huge capacitor. Maybe this is a problem, maybe not. Definitely worth looking into though. Others have mentioned heat issues, have you considered thermal expansion and contraction of the bus bars and allowed for that in the long runs? Also, bolted connections should be done with belleville washers. Do yourself a favour and hipot test the whole assembly before you energize it!
Two 17m x 8cm plates separated by 1cm of fiberglass forms a whopping 7.6 nanoFarad capacitor. Utterly insignificant.
From a mechanical perspective, i would also look at how much the hull is going to shrink in cold water versus how much the coper can expand and how much the fiberglass channel. Doing a quick calculation, if there is a 15 deg C difference in temp between the copper and the aluminum hull you will exceed the strength of the copper and it will bend or break. This is assuming rigid end connections with a 15 meter length.
Why would the ends of the bus bars be solidly connected to the hull?
bryan solving problems is just fun to see and how he explains it is just woww . learning a lot for sure .
Having worked with bus bar on the utility scale... That stack connection is probably fine, but you can bend bus bar. There is also braided copper bus bar jumpers that are flexible. That probably the way I would have gone. But I've seen both work great.
braided busbar connection between the backbone and lateral bars would have been a good idea to reduce the regidity of the connecitons. I can imagine the amount of movement those joins are going to have to handle. not including the expansion due to heat. But I still think busbar for the backbone is great (seperate channel) and 240mm2 for each motor run
As others have mentioned would really suggest sepperate paths for neg and pos. also maintain access to any joints as thermal expansion can loosen the bolts resulting in arcing at best and fire/electrecution at worst. love the idea have wanted to do something similar myself for a long time!
E E here. You've got a low voltage Tesla here. They have extraordinary fault protection including pyrotechnic fuses that quench DARPA type metal dust explosions. This is very high level EE design.
Fascinating how you converted all of that…much sleeker look less space used…well done Sir! Blessings to the family…
After thinking about the critical systems aspect of this....
I think i would run redundant lines to left and right engines. This would in theory half the amperage needed in each line, and might allow you to use cable rather than a bus bar. But even if you still use a bus bar, you could use a smaller one, that could be one continuous bar mounted vertically and bent to left and right, rather than needing a bolted/braised T-junction.
And as a critical system, even if one bus shorted and failed, you would still have power to at least one engine.
I was thinking the same thing, 240mm2 single double insulated cable would be easier and the bolted connections could be torqued to the right amount and easy to repair if needed
Aircraft maintenance engineer here. Although I don’t have experience with high current, a lot of redundant systems and processes can still be applied from aircraft to your application.
Firstly changing the single fed electrical bus bar system to a dual system would not only increase reliability but would reduce the size of bus bar needed. Another major consideration is corrosion, on aircraft this is taken VERY seriously. We constantly use corrosion preventatives. Looking at the splices of the bus bars this seems to be a critical failure area as moisture is 100% bound to enter this area eventually. Moisture especially with salt will cause corrosion to form between these splices and in turn will cause high resistance and a potential failure point. Aircraft also are exposed to a lot of vibrations, and there is definitely going to be vibrations here as well. Vibration dampening standoffs are used a lot for Isolating the vibrations. I would use this on the bus bar or insulation to stop cracks from eventually forming. Having the bus bar completely sealed off is terrible from a maintenance aspect and when moisture ingresses there will be no where for it to go and will just stay inside possibly arcing the 2 bus bars or corroding them further. The positive and negative bars being only 8 mm away from each AND stack directly on top of each other may not be the best decision. Taping pure copper seems like it won’t last very long especially with lots of heat cycles, aircraft undergo thousands of cycles and you almost always see a traditional bolt washers and
Locking nut. Hopefully your plan works and you take into consideration some of the ideas mentioned in the comments! I love this type of content, keep it up!
I have built custom bus bars for a variety of applications and I only use c10100 copper which is the best copper for conductivity. I absolutely would not have bare copper bar running through a hull with limited to no accessibility. If water were to make it in the area you would have no way to access damage or make repairs. The bus bars should be fully encapsulated in electrical casting resin, the fiberglass trays would be perfect for casting if they were an inch wider than the bus bars. I do not use nuts and bolts to join sections of my custom bus bars, they are riveted together using the same grade copper before being cast in resin.
Using 48vdc for electric propulsion is inefficient for many reasons. I am designing a hybrid propulsion system for my brothers boat and I am building a 400v system. The diy electric car conversions from the 90s were using 48vdc systems.
Hi, it has taken me over a year since first watching you on TH-cam much to my enjoyment. I so hope this new venture you are on bears glorious fruition. I spent a lot of time in the 1980’s whilst in the Royal Air Force and your sailing exploits rekindle fond memories, thank you.
I'm not an engineer, but I work in industrial power supply. Orienting the bars face to face, even with insulation, presents an opportunity for arc flash. It's much safer to put the bars edge to edge. Check out UL standard 891 for some suggestions on using copper bus.
At 48V?
Not only building your own home from scratch is rewarding, but you guys will know every inch of it when it comes to toubleshooting in the future. Love the build videos!
8:17 I can see how this will work for insulating it electrically, but what about the magnetic field shielding? Even less than 1kA under your floor may end up messing up with the circuits or devices you will be running across the hull. Those weird issues will drive you mad and can potentially be hazardous when boat control gets impacted.
ali hulls and the magnetic field is a very BIG problem as when the hull gets electrolisys pits (spots ) they go to a green paste up to 20 mm wide
Having the bars close together will completely cancel the magnetic field.
@@stargazer7644 yes, but at this amperage any misalignment of the bus bars in any axis will result in residual, not-insignificant field. The thick insulation between the two bars is enough of an offset for the field to not be completely cancelled out. So you can’t just blindly assume it’ll be OK and hack it together, some testing and measuring is in order, as the ‘leftover’ field is likely to be significant, still. It will not be COMPLETELY cancelled out, as you speculate.
@@wrobelda This is ridiculous. The fields will cancel. Any residual is completely insignificant.
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The system also needs a way to break the current instantly in case of a short. This much power will turn your aluminum hull into molten metal and fire faster than you can react. Imo there is insufficient insulation around your buss bars and condensation will be a problem at some point. I do respect your right to do it any way you see fit though, it's your family and your boat. Best wishes.
To monitor the resistance of each junction you should measure the temperature with an infrared thermometer. Low temp means low resistance which is what you want. By layering like you have, there is no way to measure the bottom buss bar. If the resistance of the bottom bar goes up it will warm up pretty quick in the confined space. Use conductive grease in the joints and around the screws reduce resistance and corrosion. Polish the copper junction before assembly. Torque each screw for minimum resistance. You'd be amazed how much better it conducts. Personally I would have installed them vertically for heat dissipation and servicing if you have the space. That is what we did in telephone exchanges where it is not uncommon to conduct 1000 amps at 48 VDC. Good luck.
I am guessing a stretch of 15m (x2) and find that the voltage drop is approximately 1.V (or 2%), and the power loss is approximately 1kW for a 50kw nomina load. As a ship electrification, i have never seen Cu bars encapsulated.. cresttive, but...questioning that it may be an idea to ensure airing of the 1kw of heat. (Ie. 2 separate trays installing the bars on isolators allowing air circulation). Edit: in operation you will need access to every screw and joint for maintenance purpose. / Amazing project, wish you success.
I'm on the side it's a very bad idea. Back in the late 60s, I'm the guy who changed hot plants to cold plants. Aka nukler power plants. The blow off from bus bars was amazing. In 1976 1977, we designed and put up a whole new power grid for all 48 lower states in 18 months. I was in charge of 30.000 engineering guys war vets army core ECT. ( My back history ).. your right the heat,. The chance of arking, salt water will find it's way into the Chanel. I also wish them good luck..
There’s about five boat shows I watch like you guys and you guys are all amazing. Seems like engineers the way you can fix everything and just to figure out all that. Why did you just said my mind starts hurting but you love it because you understand it so wellyour boat’s coming along it’s gonna be amazing
Innovative design. I'm sure the team has considered this but, I hope the bus bar splices maintain their integrity in the dynamic environment of a vessel and moisture in the conduit is not a problem. Perhaps I missed when this was addressed.
Stainless Belleville washers are in order here to maintain the connections. from 45 years in the Utility world.
Not to forget expansion and contraction between dissimilar materials. I realize the difficulties of 'doing everything twice' but I'm thinking two separate ducts would have been much, much safer. Not that I'm an expert, but I was thinking of encapsulating the two layers with a vinylester resin (or similar?), pouring and sealing one conductor in the bottom of the tray, adding a thin, solid insulator sheet, pour another layer, then finishing by pouring a second, capping vinylester layer.
There's something you should know. He's overdoing it a bit. Not unlike in EV's, electric ships motors need to be calculated well above their norm use power consumption in order to last. As a consequence, he's got way more power than he'll ever need, but the bus bars are able to deal with that peak power anyway. The whole track is dry above the water line, so seawater ingress is unlikely to ever become a problem.
@Berend-ov8of in a marine environment, salt is in the air and condensation . The insulation he is building is not sufficient for a salt marine environment.
@@bamaman6297 I'm not so sure of that.
I lived and worked on a sailing vessel myself for a few years when I was younger, and I noticed that impact of water or salt in the air depends to a considerable extend on how exposed the material is, ranging from corrosion happening so fast you can almost see it happen, to parts or compartments the air had no noticeable access to, or influence on. Corrosion inside electronic equipment for instance. You would expect to see at least some damage, but even after years of being used, I opened it up and there was nothing. Not even a little. So it varies. I don't expect these bus bars to turn into a corroded mess any time soon. They're relatively well tucked in. Waxing them might have been a good idea. Hot wax and a flame, so it creeps into every corner. But it'll hold.
Brian, as an electrician, I am very impressed with your ability and ingenuity and skill to come up with this solution and set it up, amazing job buddy👍👍❤️❤️🇮🇪🇮🇪
Swedish sailing vloggers unite! Delos and Ran should do a little collaboration boat building if you can.
This!!!! ⛵
Didn't realize Brian was Swedish...
@@War4theWest
Lol the clues in the hair and The mother in law granny. 😉🧙🏼♂️
I agree
@@War4theWestBrian is not Swedish. He is an American. Karen is from Sweden
Hi Bryan, very creative and innovative design! I apologize if this is repeating something already asked below, I had a few thoughts when watching the video. I don't have the depth of electrical knowledge to appreciate that side of this design, so my comments are primarily from a mechanical/structural viewpoint. It must be super rewarding to be designing and building a new Delos, thanks for taking the time to share your work. Here are my questions: 1) how will you inspect the lower buss bar? how often do the mechanical joints need to be inspected? 2) how hot will the buss bar be during normal? high loading? how will the thermal expansion take place? will both bars be the same temperature? 3) If salt water got into the fiberglass conduit(channel) can it drain? would the salt residue create any issues? 4) is there a danger of arcing between the bars? 5) will the areas where the fiberglass rest on the hull stringers have differential movement when the hull flexes under load? if so, will this wear through the fiberglass over time? can this be inspected? if this were an issue is there a way to install a grommet in these areas? 6) is it possible that the buss bar can move of bounce up and down in a seaway? this motion could loosen the mechanical joints or damage the fiberglass conduit. I have followed and enjoyed watching the Delos adventures for many years and hope these comments are helpful.
Dirk here from Germany. Long time lurker, finally hit the notification bell. I hope, my English is good enough you can understand the concerns I have? Be very carefull!!!! I agree with Ian-C.01>>>
I am electrician as well. 1000 Amp DC/ 48V ain't no joke. You running +/ - in the same duct only with an layer of 8 mm insulation??? I hope I get it correct, the 8mm insulation layer has no contact to the 2 side walls of the fiber glas duct, and will not be glued to them correct? So you still doesnt have a fully concealed Plus duct and fully concealed Minus duct, correct? You are underestimate the humidity and moisture,& the twist of the whole ship structre. I have seen Master electrical cabinets for big bank buildings here in Germany for 400V AC 1000A with even smaller copper busbars as those ones on your ship, The Bang I heard 2 level above the basement was enourmous during 1st time switch on the system. The cabinet cover had a hole 30x30 cm only because 1 copper busbar ( 1 phase of 3) hat not the correct air gap safety distance to the cabinet grounded sidewall on a foggy moisterus day decades ago.
Dont get me wrong, I dont want to schoolmaster you or lecturing you,I am no ship builder electrician after all, but I would consult a
electical engineer in Aussi Land, who's specialized in electric installation in ship/ vessel power distribution systems.
Personally I would run them ( +/-) separate as long as I can,concealed from each other, and would only join them only in the Machine compartment. Run them ( +/-) together as short you can effort for safety. Have you thought about the master kill switch, which allows you to disconnect the battery power from the busbars in case of problems? This switch I would use remotly controlled, not entering the batterie compartment or the machine compartment for operation. A switch often used in transformer stations on land on medium- high voltage systems all above 1000V AC. Nevertheless, I love your channel. cant wait week by week on the new episode.
Have you considered Step-Up/Step-Down with DC/DC Converters?
You could convert from 48V DC at the battery to, say, 150V DC for transmission to keep current manageable but within practical limits for marine electronics. Then, use another DC/DC converter to step down to the motor's required voltage.
Wire Size: For 150V DC with the same 50 kW power, the current would be about 333A (50,000W / 150V), allowing for:
2/0 AWG or 3/0 AWG copper wire might suffice for this distance, balancing voltage drop and physical size.
Double insulated wire with a cross section of 240mm2 has a price in the EU of approx. 25 USD/meter (type 1-YY 1x240 CR) 3x17 + 3x17 meters costs: 2550 USD. A ready-made solution with 100x less risk
Hi Brian, as others have mentioned moisture in the channel could be a problem. I would consider drilling drain holes in the bottom and sealing between layers. An even better option would actually be to fill the sections between splices with epoxy. Lastly having worked with buss bar a lot, I'd say that the stack joint isn't ideal and will add a lot of resistance. Effectively each layer becomes a series joint adding compound losses to the circuit. Not a significant problem at 600v but at 48v it will be substantial. Bend up an offset. Keep the bends with a radius at least equal to the thickness preferably 1.5x if there's room and the buss bend up nicely.
Electrical engineer here too, my career was in semiconductors but a few years ago I designed a power system for my camper, 400 amps @ 12v is very serious. Minus seawater. 1,000 amps @ 48v is Impressive engineering.
Brian there are companies in Australia and elsewhere that make an IP65 rated bus duct. I’m an electrician that has installed this product up to 2,500Amp AC bus duct but I’m sure if you sourced these manufacturers and gave them your requirements, space restrictions etc. they would be able to advise you on a safer option.
Something like insulated cable?? If he doesn't like the envelope of cable, he'll freak at a proper bus duct.
Lots of good comments in here. Move batteries closer. Up the voltage to reduce current. Use cable (splice flexible battery cable at ends)
Very misguided.
I'm sure his fabricators are ecstatic with his cut & trim to the structure...
Sailing SV Lynx is doing a very similar thing with bus bars on his Cat build. He just moved his batteries a lot closer to the engines. You may not be able to do that for weight distribution. He’s having some issues with that.
This episode was so interesting. I love how you used a commercial application to solve a small boat problem. It looked like a very satisfying electrical project. I trust you did the math. My wife teaches math and it works:)
As long as you have access to all the the splice for future maintenance and check outs the system is genius Man!
Yes, fiberglass makes a good insulator, yet it is susceptible to moisture, I would suggest two insulators between positive and negative bars as well as paint the outside of the fiberglass with numerous coats of hard coat that is used on fiberglass boats to help cut down on blisters from moisture getting into the fiberglass. The more coats of hard coat the better, my rudder only had four coats on it and when pulled out had hundreds of blisters on it, so adjust as you see fit, it is your boat. Best of luck
Dear Brian. Did you derated busbars for heating, closed space and non ventilation? Since you choose 80x6mm I think that you didn't. Your bus bar will be overheated. Also when bus bar is dimensioned properly, it heats up to 65C. Additionaly I think that it is better to use heat shrinkable tubing, halogen free, than custom made insulation. Please recheck your calculation for current carrying capacity of bus bar.
I second this. Anywhere you plan to run 1kA needs cooling and those fiberglass channels might not deal with the heat load as well as you think.
We use DC bus bar systems like this in the telecoms industry. It's a nice way of working when you're on dry, still land. My concern here (in addition to the other comments) is around the flex on the yacht's hull. You will work-harden the copper components causing micro-fractures, which can lead to arcing. This is really an instance where I would recommend running multiple stranded conductors in parallel. Enjoy the videos, so sorry to be a bit of a wet blanket.
Brian, why did you put the batteries so far forward? Moving the batteries closer to the engines would also reduce the voltage drop.
Do they make a narrower fiber channel? I would add two channels, each in a different mouse hole, rather than trying to put both bus bars in one channel!
How do you plan to cool and ventilate the bus bars? I think it's important to cool and reduce condensation on the bus bars and insulation in your 2 bars in one channel design.
Please tell me you've planned a way to be able to service and replace those long stiff bus bars if they corroded over time, or need the separating insulation layer replaced.
I think narrower fiber channels would allow you to add rubber grommets in the beams, so that vibrations do not wear through the fiberglass over the years in the surf and waves!
And using two channels would have given you a lot more room to adapt to the alignment difference near the salon, and inspect to splice points over time.
I am a little worried about your splices! Did you measure the resistance of your connection?
I worry about the galvanic action of the M6 bolts going through the tin and copper. And they may vibrate loose over time without lock tight, inspecting those is going to be a PITA.
For sure, make sure you have a hatch so you can monitor those bolts. That's also why I would have used two channels, as checking the bolts and splices with the bus bars stacked is going to be very hard.
I think I would solder the splices, in addition to the bolts?
This made me think. I made a few large busbars myself for our 1500 watt/12v battery bank and my biggest fear was lack of isolation, as that can totally ruin a boat. Hence they’re totally separated and waterproof. And I’d do the same here. I know it’s double the work but having total isolation would be my preferred solution. It adds the weight of extra polyester u profile but prevents 100% the spark risk and electric leak risk. If ever the boat floor gets soaked with water and water gets in between you have an enormous problem. a totally isolated system can be repaired but this.. if there water in those profiles you need to get everything out and totally dry it.. try that at sea. it’s probably still relatively easy to separate the positive/negative at this stage. As for insurance don’t be surprised if this is excluded from coverage.
Just my five cents.
Brian, I don't know how relevant this is, but might be worth checking in with 'Gone With The Wynns'. I think they have some kind of electric hybrid motor propulsion system also and their latest video on their YT channel showed a significant battery/energy management failure.
That was their 12v battery system.
Oh good grief. The Wynn's battery failure was the 12V diesel engine starting battery. It had absolutely nothing to do with the 48V propulsion system.
@@stargazer7644 oh good grief, didn't my comment start with 'I DON'T KNOW HOW RELEVANT THIS IS!!!!!!!
But you're confident enough to say that there is absolutely nothing of benefit from learning what went wrong with their system? That there isn't a single thing that Brian could learn from it?
How arrogant are you?
@@SeanHendy I'm sick of people misrepresenting what happened to the Wynn's 12V battery charger. Delos I has a 12V battery charger on it's diesel. Every car in the world has a 12V battery charger. I think he's familiar with them.
@@stargazer7644 and I'm sick of people making a mountain out of a molehill. FFS.
Misrepresenting? Get a grip man. I literally didn't expand on anything other than make a VERY simple statement or suggestion or whatever. Get over yourself.
Wow! What a job, Brian! Fingers-crossed that when you turn the power on sparks don't fly and things don't start to melt! May Poseidon, Amphitrite, ...and all of the rest of the sea gods be with you!
I'm not an EE, but I've got concerns about how close your bars are (even with insulation) and those splices. Without a very solid electrical connection between the bars, most of the current is going to be flowing through the screws holding things together. I definitely feel like, while the bus bar was a good idea to reduce weight and expense, probably should have been handled much earlier in planning, and involved an EE to ensure it was done properly.
I see you've got alot of feedback regarding the electrical system. I think it's a nice idea and that you should certainly take their advice into account. The only thing I would add as a major must have is a physical disconnection lever on both sides. You see them usually being used on big power packs, a physical lever that makes or breakes a connection. But besides that, great work! It sure as hell looks like a great project! Keep it up!
Went to comments to make my point - but it’s been said so many times 😄 only thing I would add is that you could fill the channel with transformer oil - but you need to consider access and thermal expansion - your 3% volt drop will be 1.5kW of heat in those bars!
Hey Brian, In my old telecommunication office we had a battery plant that the positive and negative were far apart! Plus you should have a "shunt" built into the buss in case of overload condition. Lastly, the difference of elevation you have at the T connection, I'd recommend a "C" to connect which you have less points of failure and less resistance with the stack plate method.
Did you consult with an electical engineer? From the comments and from my own experience with HV EV systems it seems as if you might have some serious safety problems. One major problem incountered in EV's is that the constant vibration is very hard on straight runs of solid wire/bus bars so there is always a flexible joint somewhere so that the bar can flex and also expand/contract with the heat generated by the current. Also when changes of direction were needed, instead of using layers of copper like you did, we would heat the bus bar and bend it to make the offset needed. Besides you're going to have to have the boat inspected for insurance reasons and hopefully you'll have some documentation on the electrical bus bars.
Brian IS an Electrical Engineer. He has an EE degree from University of Washington.
@@stargazer7644- and with such credentials it still takes years of mentoring and practice to know what your doing with 1000’s of amps. It’s much more than just voltage drop calcs.
@@jtrudgen7973 No, not really. This is basic DC electronics 101. It's really about as simple as it gets. The power we're dealing with here is no more than what you have in a standard 200A 240V electrical panel found in most North American houses - 50kW. The fact that it is 48V instead of 240V just makes it safer.
Yes, using busbars in a 60-foot aluminum catamaran can make a lot of sense, particularly for managing the electrical systems on board. Busbars offer several advantages that make them well-suited for marine applications:
1. Efficient Power Distribution
• In a larger vessel like a 60-foot catamaran, you’ll have multiple electrical systems (navigation, lighting, communication, bilge pumps, etc.) that need a reliable power source. Busbars streamline the power distribution by centralizing the connections, reducing wiring complexity, and ensuring a stable flow of electricity.
2. Simplified Wiring Layout
• On a catamaran, space and accessibility can be limited in certain areas. Busbars help organize wiring more neatly, avoiding large bundles of cables running throughout the vessel. This simplifies the electrical layout, makes maintenance easier, and keeps the system more organized.
3. Reduced Voltage Drop
• In a larger boat, long cable runs can lead to voltage drop, reducing efficiency and performance. Busbars can minimize this issue by providing a centralized point that reduces the need for excessively long wires, thus improving the system’s overall efficiency.
4. Enhanced Safety and Durability
• Busbars are robust and designed to handle high current loads, which enhances safety in marine environments. They are also more resistant to overheating and corrosion, which is essential on a saltwater vessel where moisture and corrosion are constant challenges.
5. Modularity and Expandability
• With a busbar system, you can easily add or modify electrical connections as the boat’s systems evolve. This flexibility is helpful if you plan to upgrade or add new equipment over time.
6. Grounding Benefits for an Aluminum Hull
• Since your catamaran has an aluminum hull, grounding is essential to prevent galvanic corrosion. Properly installed grounding busbars can help connect and ground electrical circuits without creating stray currents or risking corrosion to the aluminum structure.
Key Considerations:
• Marine-Grade Materials: Use busbars made from marine-grade copper or tinned copper with corrosion-resistant coatings to withstand marine conditions.
• Proper Insulation: Ensure that the busbars are properly insulated and isolated from any aluminum hull or bulkheads to prevent unwanted currents.
• Professional Installation: Consider hiring a marine electrician for installation, as this will help ensure the system is safe, efficient, and optimized for marine use.
In summary, busbars are a practical and effective choice for a 60-foot aluminum catamaran, providing efficiency, organization, and safety for the vessel’s electrical system.
As long as it stays dry, it should be okay. Salt water ingress would be a disaster. Keep an eye on electrolysis and the gasses it will create.
Condensation particularly if they ever take it to cold climates.
There's plenty of discussion of the busbar challenges here already, so I'll just say I see some great comments. I'll add: Higher voltage would allow the use of a simpler connection at much lower currents, and increase efficiency. This is why electric cars use high voltage drive circuits (350-400v is common).
Have you allowed for expansion, copper over that length will move quite a bit ..
That's my question as well. Given the length of these bars, and seeing that they connect perpendicular to one another, I would expect significant movement in both the X and Y directions. If this had been cable, there would have been some loop or bend left in it to allow for the movement.
I used to build insulation for large power transformers, and they used bus bars just like that within the unit.
The small transformers were like a 20 foot box on a 5 tone truck.
This will work for you.
It’s an ideal solution. As long as the insulation is adequate, you’ll be all good.
This being said, these transformers were filled with oil as a coolant.
I am SO glad you broke down the electrical needs into microwaves, TVs, and MacBooks. Us Americans needed it 😆
And then he threw in the tea water boilers for the rest of us.😁
Why?? Do you take pride in living out the stereotype of American inferiority? Quit listening to that bologna.
Fingers crossed that the electrical works as intended. Have fun on your break in the USA and Sweden. It would be a blast to see you three visit Malin, Johan, and Vera (Ran Sailing) while you are in Sweden. Cheers!
@@davidh3194 Seconded!
Great comments from EE engineers here However I think I would of just moved the battery bank to the aft nearer to the engines, I’m sure the weight could of been offset by moving other components to forward. Keep it simple.
I am a retired professional power generation engineer. I share Kirk's view that having 50kW of power at 51.2 volts DC flowing a long distance from in front of the mast to both rear corners, introduces a lot of additional weight in copper bars and supports. Also, if there was a large power system fault onboard, these copper bus bar will move and likely break something in the floor structure.
A bank of 64 @ 314AH LFP cells and 4 separate 16-point BMS would weigh 363 kg, excluding battery pack framing, and this would almost balance out the weight of Nanni 80, the associated ICE engine support equipment and additional Combi frame.
I can only think of one bad thing to say about this episode and that is we have to wait another week for another. I'm 100% invested in watching these episodes ASAP :)
32:15 This is a very frightening admission. You absolutely need to throughly test this as soon as possible, and have some experts inspect it. I am by no means an engineer, let alone an electrical engineer, but I am a former architect with some structural engineering training, and I’m sensing some serious issues with this implementation. For one, the positive and negative bus bars seem very close to one another and in the environment of a marine watercraft, I feel like moisture and corrosion are going to be huge issues. Secondly, in the context of the huge metal cage in which this sits, I have questions about the way all of the metal in the boat will interact with this system. Third, in buildings we include things like expansion joints when making long spans out of rigid material when flexure is an issue. Boats are constantly in flexure, and I worry that these rigid bolt joints may be a problem. Lastly, and related to this, how hot is this thing going to get, and will its thermal expansion cause issues? And why brass bolts and not keeping it copper? Isn’t that going to affect how much power comes through it and attract corrosion? I have concerns this thing will not be insulated enough and the whole metal structure of the boat will be conducting current or arcing. Overall, this seems very dangerous and like kind of thing that should most definitely not be winged and DIY’d, but designed, inspected, and tested by someone with a high degree of experience with this. Also, cutting more holes in the structural elements of the boat definitely weakens them.
Hi Brian , there is a lot of good advise in the comments. For my 10 cents look up voltage creepage distance, this is industry standard in High Voltage. also there is a HV powder coating which is well worth looking at. Lovin' your work
You're so gutsy. It would have taken me 5 minutes to find an experienced specialty electrical engineer with many similar installations.
You two are a HUGE inspiration for my retirement plans!
Im an industrial medium and high voltage electrician. I would recommend investing in non-oxidizing conductive grease and a high quality torque wrench. Vibrations are going to be a big enemy for the rigidity in your system. It may be a good idea to add bushings or a sleeve to the holes that were widened with the die grinder. I know its not convenient, but the entire vessel will flex a little bit and stress all of the splices on the bus. I would make flexible splices using braided busbar (which might not be possible with the amperages you are needing) or bite the bullet and do it with crimped lugs and paralleled wire. Sea air + coppper = statue of liberty green. I would imagine anything you cant clean would need to be sealed from moisture ingress. It might be worth getting the input from a marine electrical engineer. I wish this project to have only success and fruitfulness.
Its angry invisible pixies.
Scary. Please be safe.
How can the entirty of the conductors be routinely inspected for chaffing against frames and eventual short circuiting on those frames? Bound to be chaffing due to sea states.
I am not an expert in any of this... My concern is stray current, seeing as how it appears that the Wynns boat seems to be eating itself in every area, due to stray current. Having such long runs with bus bars and having an aluminum boat I'm fearful of the same issues for you guys. This is such a beautiful project and I truly am hoping for the best for you. I don't know if my concern is an apples and oranges situation or a valid concern. Much love, and best wishes in your dream build.
The alternative would have been to invert the DC to a higher voltage AC at a much lower amperage so you can use cables, then xfmr/rectify for the engines. More electronics but the insulation headaches in a salt water/fog environment would be much better. Also i'd AFCI/GFCI the living crap out of the electricals with an AL boat.
good points. would most likely be much more expensive and must be done by a licensed professionel. Me personally, I would have gone this route…
The holes you had to cut out with the hole saw are higher than the holes that were precut. You had to lift the tray up to slide it past (17:00). This might cause it to cut through the fiberglass tray. I would recommend running flat aluminum the whole length of the tray for the tray to sit on. That would be the safest. Also I would install buss bar temp sensors at each joint for safety.