Jeremy Harris
100 MW
There's been some interest in an electric boat project I mentioned in the "mounting hall sensors to RC motors" thread in the "E-Bike non-hub motors" area, so I thought I'd transfer the topic here, where it might be more appropriate.
I've converted a cheap RC motor (a Towerpro 5330-10t) to run far more slowly and also fitted hall sensors to it, with the intention of building a very light power system for an electric canoe. Details of my motor mods can be found starting here:http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=9061&start=105#p149542.
I was originally going to use a reduction drive to gear the prop down, but the losses are quite high - it takes about 24W just to turn the belt reduction.
The canoe I'm planning to build is the Selway Fisher Raven on this site: http://www.selway-fisher.com/Opcan16.htm. It's a ply, stitch-and-glue, open canoe. It seems to need around 40 watts or so to travel at 3.5 to 4 kts. It's maximum hull speed is about 5 kts, but it would need around 200 watts to reach it. My plan is to build a cruising boat that I can use to travel inland waterways and lakes at normal paddling speed, hopefully with some solar cells to augment range and allow charging when not moving.
The finished canoe should look like a scaled-down version of a typical Victorian electric river canoe like this one:
Cedric Lynch (of Lynch Motor/Agni Motor fame) has already built a solar powered canoe:
Although I've already bought the plans for the Raven canoe, I'm still not wholly convinced that it's the right boat. Part of me wants to build a slipper launch, like a scaled down version of this one:
First job is to get the propulsion system finished and test the thrust vs power I can get. That will then help me to decide which boat design to go for in order to try and get a totally solar powered boat.
Jeremy
I've converted a cheap RC motor (a Towerpro 5330-10t) to run far more slowly and also fitted hall sensors to it, with the intention of building a very light power system for an electric canoe. Details of my motor mods can be found starting here:http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=9061&start=105#p149542.
I was originally going to use a reduction drive to gear the prop down, but the losses are quite high - it takes about 24W just to turn the belt reduction.
The canoe I'm planning to build is the Selway Fisher Raven on this site: http://www.selway-fisher.com/Opcan16.htm. It's a ply, stitch-and-glue, open canoe. It seems to need around 40 watts or so to travel at 3.5 to 4 kts. It's maximum hull speed is about 5 kts, but it would need around 200 watts to reach it. My plan is to build a cruising boat that I can use to travel inland waterways and lakes at normal paddling speed, hopefully with some solar cells to augment range and allow charging when not moving.
The finished canoe should look like a scaled-down version of a typical Victorian electric river canoe like this one:
Cedric Lynch (of Lynch Motor/Agni Motor fame) has already built a solar powered canoe:
Although I've already bought the plans for the Raven canoe, I'm still not wholly convinced that it's the right boat. Part of me wants to build a slipper launch, like a scaled down version of this one:
First job is to get the propulsion system finished and test the thrust vs power I can get. That will then help me to decide which boat design to go for in order to try and get a totally solar powered boat.
Jeremy