Shamrock, 25 foot sailboat electric conversion with an ebike hub motor

[justin_le]

PS, we finally finished editing the video from last fall showing the boat running at 72V earlier this week
[youtube]4kAsdIiD8d4[/youtube]

I'll have pics and details to share soon with a new ASI BAC2000 motor controller installed that will let us run up to the 5000 watt power levels, and hope to do water tests on that in the week ahead!

 

[cheapcookie]

Thank you for your answer Justin all the best with the new shop.

Check this out, https://www.pogostructures.com/en/fiche-bateau/loxo-32-electric/

 

[justin_le]

Check this out, https://www.pogostructures.com/en/fiche-bateau/loxo-32-electric/

Oh nice, I like that they provide pretty meaningful consumption statistics. In this case it's a 1800kg boat and with enough motor power to get on a plane. Here's what I extrapolate for their wh/km consumption data as a function of boat speed:



I managed to get our sailboat running at 5kW yesterday and it reached 11 kph, corresponding to 450 wh/km consumption.

I'm not sure how far most powerboat cruisers want to go on a trip but I think that even the 50kWhr battery here would limit the appeal. 80-100 kWhr seems a little more appropriate for cruising autonomy when you don't have a sail.

 

[Voltron]

Great progress! :thumb:

Just an fyi tho for those going down the eboat route, esp for a commercial project, ABYC (American Boat and Yacht Council) code doesn't like more than 50 volts without lots of special safety requirements.

And re. the low average around the world speed, that seems not unreasonable factoring in driving all night on battery, long stretches of headwinds and bad sea states out in open ocean, preserving the structure for the whole trip etc? It's meant to be mostly a tech demonstrator, so they really didn't want it to break halfway thru publicity-wise. I could def see trans ocean solar racing being a thing though!

 

[Bullfrog]

Great progress! :thumb:

Just an fyi tho for those going down the eboat route, esp for a commercial project, ABYC (American Boat and Yacht Council) code doesn't like more than 50 volts without lots of special safety requirements.

And re. the low average around the world speed, that seems not unreasonable factoring in driving all night on battery, long stretches of headwinds and bad sea states out in open ocean, preserving the structure for the whole trip etc? It's meant to be mostly a tech demonstrator, so they really didn't want it to break halfway thru publicity-wise. I could def see trans ocean solar racing being a thing though!

I believe it is 60v as opposed to 50v. You probably just missed the "6" and hit the "5" key I am guessing .

11.2.2 direct current (DC) electrical systems on boats operating at 60 volts nominal or less.

 

[Hillhater]

....... I could def see trans ocean solar racing being a thing though!

Until battery tech/ (energy density)..”tx Ocean Solar” will be little more than a demo exercise for the rich.
I suspect Wind will remain the dominant fuel for ocean racing for a long time yet.

 

[Nils]

I'll have pics and details to share soon with a new ASI BAC2000 motor controller installed that will let us run up to the 5000 watt power levels, and hope to do water tests on that in the week ahead!

This is an awesome project. I'd love to see an explanation/diagram for how you are interfacing the ASI controller with the cycle analyst and hub motor. A quick word on tuning/programming would be great too!

I've worked with some of the commercial electric outboard offerings out there (torqeedo, elco, stealth) and haven't been all that impressed with the durability-cost balance. I have a BAC 2000 from another project that I would like pair with a CA to retrofit onto an existing defunct electric outboard. But it would be great to see a what you've done before diving into it.

 

[Voltron]

Great progress! :thumb:

Just an fyi tho for those going down the eboat route, esp for a commercial project, ABYC (American Boat and Yacht Council) code doesn't like more than 50 volts without lots of special safety requirements.

And re. the low average around the world speed, that seems not unreasonable factoring in driving all night on battery, long stretches of headwinds and bad sea states out in open ocean, preserving the structure for the whole trip etc? It's meant to be mostly a tech demonstrator, so they really didn't want it to break halfway thru publicity-wise. I could def see trans ocean solar racing being a thing though!

I believe it is 60v as opposed to 50v. You probably just missed the "6" and hit the "5" key I am guessing .

11.2.2 direct current (DC) electrical systems on boats operating at 60 volts nominal or less.

Not sure, but I think they modified the standards with the increase of electric drives, so, yes, I think they went to 60v isolated to just the drive, and 50v still for the regular electric?

 

[Voltron]

....... I could def see trans ocean solar racing being a thing though!

Until battery tech/ (energy density)..”tx Ocean Solar” will be little more than a demo exercise for the rich.
I suspect Wind will remain the dominant fuel for ocean racing for a long time yet.

Sorry, slightly off topic, but heres another solar electric tech demonstrator. They make so much electric, they run reverse osmosis to get fresh water from ocean water, then crack it and store the hydrogen, and run fuel cells.
The stat I saw was it would require 14 tons of batteries to match the energy storage of the hydrogen.
The raisable fabric sails produce about half the drive on windy days, but they can motor for a really long time also just on stored energy.

 

[JackFlorey]

Until battery tech/ (energy density)..”tx Ocean Solar” will be little more than a demo exercise for the rich.
I suspect Wind will remain the dominant fuel for ocean racing for a long time yet.

Agreed. Solar will provide motive power for windless days and for house loads, but most of the energy will come from wind.

 

[Hillhater]

....... I could def see trans ocean solar racing being a thing though!

Until battery tech/ (energy density)..”tx Ocean Solar” will be little more than a demo exercise for the rich.
I suspect Wind will remain the dominant fuel for ocean racing for a long time yet.

Sorry, slightly off topic, but heres another solar electric tech demonstrator. They make so much electric, they run reverse osmosis to get fresh water from ocean water, then crack it and store the hydrogen, and run fuel cells.
The stat I saw was it would require 14 tons of batteries to match the energy storage of the hydrogen.
The raisable fabric sails produce about half the drive on windy days, but they can motor for a really long time also just on stored energy.

They may be able to store a decent amount of Hydrogen (63kg), but they are very limited on how much they can produce with the onboard electrolyser system.
They have a max of 21kW of Solar ...notoriously inefficient laid on a boat...likely produces less than 100kWh on a good day.
That is not enough to crack even 2 kg of H2 ig noring the RO and Compression power loads !
..and of course whilst they are making H2 , they wont be charging batteries either.
Have you seen any feedback data on how it is all working ?

 

[Voltron]

I just heard about that boat a couple of weeks ago, but it's gone around the world a couple of times, soooo......

 

[Hillhater]

I just heard about that boat a couple of weeks ago, but it's gone around the world a couple of times, soooo......

Sooooo... thousands of boats have gone around the world... ( and without stopping too) ..using nothing but wind power !
... but i would like to know how much of the Energy Observer’s trip was made using Wind, battery, and H2.
Also how much of the hydrogen was actually produced on board rather than recharged when in dock ?

 

[Voltron]

I kinda want to stop derailing Justin's thread, I'm sure the info is out there if you're really interested.

Ok, one last fun fact, speaking of around the world by sail... It's built on the hulls on the former ENZA (Eat New Zealand Apples), which set the around the world record and captured the Jules Verne trophy as first sailboat to go around the world in under 80 days.

 

[justin_le]

Hey Guys and sorry about the seriously long lack of updates, and of that there has been plenty!

As you can see in this video we finally updated the controller to the ASI BAC2000 device to run up to 5kW and as expected this brought the boat right up to hull speed but also got the motor right up to it's temperature limits

[youtube]PBBeLVNga2s&t=267s[/youtube]

There was lots of interest from people looking to repower boats in the 30-36 foot size range where higher power levels will be the norm, so we also went ahead and made a more powerful version of this motor based around a 45mm wide stator than the 27mm stator of our original.



The problem with making the stator wider is that it's also slower since you have more flux going through each turn of copper around the stator teeth. So to get the neccessary ~20 rpm/V needed for this project we had to reterminate the stator wiring from Wye to Delta mode, which did the trick and gave us 21 rpm/V.


Other changes were made to the engine mount and the way that it couples to the propeller shaft in order to be more configurable to the various boats out there. The mounting hardware is now all with 80-20 aluminum extrusion so that it's easy to position the motor just where it needs to go, and the coupling to the shaft is now built into the motor side plate directly pinch the propeller shaft instead of trying to adapt to existing couplings.

 

[justin_le]

But the best part is how well all the solar system came together. I had set my plans for our end of August summer vacation to be a sailboat trip from Vancouver to my family home in Sooke, which is about 160km away and double the range of the electric drive. So the hope was to install enough solar panel to make up the difference in case the winds weren't cooperating, and then have the solar system passively charge up the battery during our stay to be ready for the return trip.

We ended up recently getting a commercial grade FDM 3D printer which has totally changed my perspective on these things, and that enabled me to create all the custom fixtures for mounting the solar panels to the boat and for making lightweight framing for the panels themselves.





In the end I was able to fit 400 watts on each side of the boat with panels that can fold down to be flush with the lifelines, or lift upwards to catch the sun. And 500 watts on the back of the boat on a stainless steel support arch that I clamped onto the stern railings.



It's a pretty wild transformation of the sailboat into what looks more like a spaceship with all the panels deployed, but it freaken worked.
Our first day we had blazing sunshine all day with zero wind. The panels were averaging 700-900 watts and you can see from the view of the masthead that the only shadow on the panels is from the mast itself, and it generally doesn't land on more than one panel at a time.



In the end we got just under 5.5 kWhr into the battery pack on day 1.



The 2nd day was all cloudy and foggy, but we still managed to get nearly 2.5 kWhr even in those conditions.



It was a little iffy with the tidal currents working against us much of the day but we ended up getting to my home in the evening with the 72V battery pack down at 61V or so.

 

[SlowCo]

That is a very nicely upgraded motor!
And not only for a sailboat with those spoke holes... 8)

The solar/sailboat turned out great and it seems to work very well. :thumb:

 

[ZeroEm]

by SlowCo » Aug 30 2021 8:30am

That is a very nicely upgraded motor!
And not only for a sailboat with those spoke holes... 8)

The solar/sailboat turned out great and it seems to work very well. :thumb:

Was thinking the same thing. What's the name of the New Motor? How much? Will need to up grade the Phaserunner to Paserunner2000.

 

[nicobie]

Well done!

I liked the fittings you made with your new 3d printer. There are a few of us on the forum that are playing around with them, but not with a commercial one. Looks like you are using CF/nylon filament. Curious which brand you picked?

 

[Bullfrog]

A little off topic I know...

Justin, please consider offering one of the ASI BAC controllers for use with an ebike. Something capable of 72v nominal and ~60A sure would be nice...I'd buy it :wink: . My 12T MAC and my BBSHD would run great on 72v...and 60A for short periods of time . I have run both the 12T MAC and the BBSHD on 52v/60A already.

And now back to your regularly scheduled "Sailboat" channel :lol: .

My 12' JON boat should scoot along pretty nicely on a similar set up to what you have in the Shamrock...may need to adjust prop pitch/rpm a little but if I could use the ASI BAC controller on my boat as well as my bike, that would be awesome plus cooling my MAC with distilled water or ATF would be super easy because a little leakage would not affect my brakes in the boat like it did on my bike :lol: and I could install a drip pan to catch anything that leaked if using ATF.

 

[justin_le]

Well done!
I liked the fittings you made with your new 3d printer. There are a few of us on the forum that are playing around with them, but not with a commercial one.

Yeah, it's such a world of difference! I really have gone from a total FDM printer skeptic to a true believer after we got this in our shop. The unit we have is from a local Vancouver company called Pantheon Design:
https://www.pantheondesign.com/high-speed-3d-printing

They started off more as a print farm operation but expanded into building their own in house 3D printers after being unsatisfied with existing printers on the market, and are in the early stages of commercializing a printer in about the $8K price range. It's all ball lead screws, super fast precision servo motors etc. So it's definitely not a DIY or hobby territory but for a manufacturing business like us it's almost a no brainer.

Looks like you are using CF/nylon filament. Curious which brand you picked?

Yeah that's close! This is actually the CF/ PTGE from filaments.ca
https://filaments.ca/collections/3d-filaments/products/carbon-fiber-petg-filament-1-75mm?variant=1299737051144
Since that's that they suggested as an ideal all-around engineering material, but I'm actually more inclined to the properties of both Nylon or PC plastics and will probably try those in our next filament order.
We did have a few parts from the PETG/CF filament that cracked in a brittle fashion, in this case here one end of the tube holding the solar panels swung out by mistake while we were assembling it and the prying snapped the clamp at the pinch bolt.

I imagine the Nylon/CF material would have held up better in this scenario. Since this is a pretty critical and high stress part of the panel attachment I redesigned it after this incident to use laser cut aluminum plates that wrap around the aluminum tube of the solar panels, while the 3D printer was used to make a filler spacer that bridges between the round stantion post and the flat metal plates. That worked perfectly and gave the assurance of having for an all-metal support of the pivoting side solar panels while the 3D printed bit is just in compression.


Otherwise though for the arch supporting the rear solar panels all the structural links were done with 3D printed clamps. I was using some salvaged 7/8" diameter tubing for the arch, while the cockpit rails are all 1" stainless, and this made it easy to bridge the two different tube diameters at all the necessary angles.




It likely wouldn't hold up in a crazy offshore winds but for the fair weather sailing we'll be doing I'm quite confident in the strength of this solution. It certainly looks pro and was a heck of a lot easier than trying to get my TIG machine and shielding gas down to the boat and welding it together.

 

[justin_le]

A little off topic I know...

Justin, please consider offering one of the ASI BAC controllers for use with an ebike. Something capable of 72v nominal and ~60A sure would be nice...I'd buy it :wink: .

For sure. We've got a batch on order and are just working out how we can go about connectorizing them to be more suitably plug and play with the hardware on an ebike since the built-in large automotive style molex plug is such a bugger to deal with for the various cables. What I did in this boat project to make that looks so-so was 3D printing an enclosure and cover that contained the shunt wire and all the solder spliced connections:



With the lid on as it is in the photo above it's pretty clean, but when you remove the lid it's quite a mess. The tentative plan now is to have a PCB board that solders directly to the molex header pins that will let us do away with the intermediary adapter harness work.

My 12' JON boat should scoot along pretty nicely on a similar set up to what you have in the Shamrock...may need to adjust prop pitch/rpm a little but if I could use the ASI BAC controller on my boat as well as my bike, that would be awesome plus cooling my MAC with distilled water or ATF would be super easy because a little leakage would not affect my brakes in the boat like it did on my bike :lol: and I could install a drip pan to catch anything that leaked if using ATF.

I say go for it of course! But you won't get nearly as much power output from a geared MAC motor as a direct drive motor spinning at a high RPM, since those geared motors are already being run at a point where the core losses are responsible for a substantial portion of the heat. Spinning at higher and higher RPM's for more and more power isn't an option like it is with the DD system.

Were you contemplating repowering an existing outboard with the MAC?

 

[Bullfrog]

A little off topic I know...

Justin, please consider offering one of the ASI BAC controllers for use with an ebike. Something capable of 72v nominal and ~60A sure would be nice...I'd buy it :wink: .

For sure. We've got a batch on order and are just working out how we can go about connectorizing them to be more suitably plug and play with the hardware on an ebike since the built-in large automotive style molex plug is such a bugger to deal with for the various cables. What I did in this boat project to make that looks so-so was 3D printing an enclosure and cover that contained the shunt wire and all the solder spliced connections:

ASI BAC2000 Controller Closeup.jpg

With the lid on as it is in the photo above it's pretty clean, but when you remove the lid it's quite a mess. The tentative plan now is to have a PCB board that solders directly to the molex header pins that will let us do away with the intermediary adapter harness work.

My 12' JON boat should scoot along pretty nicely on a similar set up to what you have in the Shamrock...may need to adjust prop pitch/rpm a little but if I could use the ASI BAC controller on my boat as well as my bike, that would be awesome plus cooling my MAC with distilled water or ATF would be super easy because a little leakage would not affect my brakes in the boat like it did on my bike :lol: and I could install a drip pan to catch anything that leaked if using ATF.

I say go for it of course! But you won't get nearly as much power output from a geared MAC motor as a direct drive motor spinning at a high RPM, since those geared motors are already being run at a point where the core losses are responsible for a substantial portion of the heat. Spinning at higher and higher RPM's for more and more power isn't an option like it is with the DD system.

Were you contemplating repowering an existing outboard with the MAC?

I plan to remove the 6hp outboard I am currently running and see what I can do with an electric motor on the 12' JON boat but there is no requirement to match the outboard power. Not sure exactly what type of motor I will be using...I need to do a lot more research at this point to see what prop will work best and then choose the motor that best fits the rpm and power level I want to run. A Direct Drive Hub Motor would make a lot more sense for a number of reasons but I have several MACs in the garage if the steady state power level and the rpm are acceptable. If I used a MAC on the boat, I'd run it using 52v to limit the losses but that is somewhat self defeating because I'd need a large battery to get much capacity and the power level will probably be too low unless I crank up the amperage and then it is difficult to keep the MAC cool but I still want to investigate the possibility, after all it is a 12' boat that weighs 105 pounds. The ASI BAC 2000 controller could be used with the MAC I believe and would also work well for a DD motor.

For the bicycle, it will probably always be a MAC/GMAC for me since acceleration is what determines the fun factor for me and not speed. I am currently BMS limited to 55A with my 52v battery/MAC set up.

Edit...after doing many runs using the Grin Tech Motor Simulator, I plan to run the 12T MAC in a 686mm OD wheel with a 72v battery and an Infineon 18 FET Controller set to 65A Battery and 180A Motor. I could go higher with the amperage but my battery and BMS are limited to 100A max and even if I use the full amperage capability, I get a ~9% torque increase for a 54% increase in battery amperage (compared to the 65A Battery setting). My general rule of thumb is less than 10% can't be felt by my seat of the pants dyno :lol: so 65A Battery is what I plan to try.

 

[justin_le]

Just finished the video edit showing how all the solar panel pieces were made and came together
[youtube]KTruEiFRNGM[/youtube]

 

[wturber]

I'd make sure that the hygroscopic nature of nylon doesn't bite you when using it on a boat. I'm sure the issue varies depending on the particular nylon blend. Just make sure you investigate/test before going all in. But yeah - nylon is tough so might be good.

The big issue with PC is that it tends to warp during printing. I have a PC/PETG blend I use and it warps substantially even though it is only about 50% polycarbonate. I understand that filaments that have larger PC components generally warp even worse.

As I posted on your YouTube video comments, I'd seriously look into getting familiar with Taulman3D filaments. In particular I'd look at their Alloy 910 for your application. But they have some nylons as well if you really think that's the way to go.

Edit: Oops. I guess Alloy 910 is a substantially made from Nylon. So the same caveats apply.

Skip to 4:29 for Alloy 910
Skip to 8:32 for PolyMaker's Polymide CoPA - which may be an even better choice - though also blend that has a bunch of nylon in it.

[youtube]2QT4AlRJv1U[/youtube]