John Cassara wrote:

Well whats wrong with a good electric blanket and a heavy comforter to keep
warm over night. That would be alot less taxing on an electrical system. You
still have to be able to recharge, but getting through the night should be
easy.

John

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...

"Meindert Sprang" wrote in
:


It's already there. AFAIK all new VW marine diesels have a 42V system to
power the injectors.

Meindert




I think the Toyota Prius hybrid takes this even further with a 480VDC
system, doesn't it? A friend has one and it's quite impressive, once you
get used to NOT starting the engine to take off from the parking lot.
That's a bit unnerving, just turning it on and driving away...(c;


The eliica car seen recently on Discovery uses 8 each 100 brake
horse power electric motor regenerators built into the wheels,
lithium ion batteries, and would need high voltage and high variable
frequency switching I expect. It goes 350 KM and about 400 KPH and
0-100 in FOUR seconds! Not all ot once, I expect.

Would not one such wheel motor be capable of driving a boat and
regenerating charge with the propellor providing the juice on a good
day? Why haul useless lead ballast if a keel was all batteries
immune to sea water / chlorine gas dangers?

A 5 horse genny could wait for an excuse for quite a while, if solar
cells were in the mix and harbour navigation was all that was really
needed. Even a long haul in doldrums would be tolerable at two or
three knots, using the genny if the batteries were flat. Relatively
slow water transport takes little energy, while a good sailing day
would likely keep batteries up unless you ran an air conditioner or
heater.

Terry K

Using my old 22ft Catalina as the example, quite a bit of drag is felt with
the O/B in the water while sailing. The prop-driven recharge would produce
alot of drag, but as they say there's no such thing as a free lunch!

John

"Terry Spragg" wrote in message
...
John Cassara wrote:

Well whats wrong with a good electric blanket and a heavy comforter to
keep warm over night. That would be alot less taxing on an electrical
system. You still have to be able to recharge, but getting through the
night should be easy.

John

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...

"Meindert Sprang" wrote in
:


It's already there. AFAIK all new VW marine diesels have a 42V system to
power the injectors.

Meindert




I think the Toyota Prius hybrid takes this even further with a 480VDC
system, doesn't it? A friend has one and it's quite impressive, once you
get used to NOT starting the engine to take off from the parking lot.
That's a bit unnerving, just turning it on and driving away...(c;


The eliica car seen recently on Discovery uses 8 each 100 brake horse
power electric motor regenerators built into the wheels, lithium ion
batteries, and would need high voltage and high variable frequency
switching I expect. It goes 350 KM and about 400 KPH and 0-100 in FOUR
seconds! Not all ot once, I expect.

Would not one such wheel motor be capable of driving a boat and
regenerating charge with the propellor providing the juice on a good day?
Why haul useless lead ballast if a keel was all batteries immune to sea
water / chlorine gas dangers?

A 5 horse genny could wait for an excuse for quite a while, if solar cells
were in the mix and harbour navigation was all that was really needed.
Even a long haul in doldrums would be tolerable at two or three knots,
using the genny if the batteries were flat. Relatively slow water
transport takes little energy, while a good sailing day would likely keep
batteries up unless you ran an air conditioner or heater.

Terry K

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 20:47:30 -0500, "Doug Dotson"
dougdotson@NOSPAMcablespeedNOSPAMcom wrote:

Depends upon alot of things, like the outside temperature, the insulation
of the boat, etc. I keep an electric heater on all winter and if the temp
is
below 40, it runs alot more than 30%.

======================================

I'm sure that's true but I'd probably be plugged into dock power in
that kind of weather.

Any warmer than 40 and you don't need a heater at night anyway.

With a good heavy comforter you don;t need the electric
blanket. I've have no idea the wattage of an electric blanket.
We have a small Glomate butane heater to take off the
chill. If it's really cold then we power up the Espar.


"John Cassara" wrote in message
...
Well whats wrong with a good electric blanket and a heavy comforter to
keep warm over night. That would be alot less taxing on an electrical
system. You still have to be able to recharge, but getting through the
night should be easy.

John

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
"Meindert Sprang" wrote in
:

It's already there. AFAIK all new VW marine diesels have a 42V system to
power the injectors.

Meindert




I think the Toyota Prius hybrid takes this even further with a 480VDC
system, doesn't it? A friend has one and it's quite impressive, once you
get used to NOT starting the engine to take off from the parking lot.
That's a bit unnerving, just turning it on and driving away...(c;

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 18:13:28 -0500, "Doug Dotson"
dougdotson@NOSPAMcablespeedNOSPAMcom wrote:

I've have no idea the wattage of an electric blanket.

=========================================

Relatively low. Our queen size draws 300 watts peak but averages much
less.

Well, back from the boat for a bit, and trying to keep up...

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
"Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach sez use my name at earthlink dot
fishcatcher (net) - with apologies for the spamtrap wrote in
:

Hm. Help me with the math. As a lapsed math, physics and chem major,
I don't remember my stuff all that well. However, I'll have right in
the neighborhood of 500W solar

How big are these solar panels? A Kyocera KC120 panel at 120 watts is:
Max power: 120 Watts
Max voltage: 16.9 Volts
Max current: 7.10 Amps
Dimensions (LxWxD): 56.1" x 25.7" x 2.2"
Weight: 26.3 lbs

4 of those kinda hinders going on deck, I suppose. Or, do you mean 500
watt-hours per day?? 500 watts x 8 hours = 4 KWh/day...pretty nice!

Well, that's sorta what I thought.

First, these (whatever they turn out to be, based solely on first, space,
and second, availability) will be run through an MPPT which will allow me
higher voltage/smaller wires - for example, ones designed for 24V systems..
Second, it appears I'll not be able to get the 500W I wanted - but quite
possibly more than 450, e.g 3x http://www.partsonsale.com/bp4170.pdf 170w
63x31, 34v or 4x http://www.affordable-solar.com/kc125g125watt.html 125w
56x26 24v but Third, these are going on our arch
http://www.justpickone.org/skip/gall...rch&star t=42
which, on construction, appears not to have the space above I'd expected.
So, back to the drawing boards for what will fit up there. You can muck
around in the rest of that gallery to see what else we'd looked at in coming
up with the specs and drawings. In any event, moving about on deck won't be
an issue..

None the less, 400W isn't out of the realm of possibility. Real world
experience suggests "normal" accumulation of something above 125AH/day...

The arch is in the rough welded stage, without any of the custom hang-ons,
at the moment. I assume it will be finished by my next time down there,
which I expect to be 10 days or so, when I'll take up the regimen of staying
on the boat for 3 weeks and coming home for one, in hopes of finishing in
May, as I have another surgery scheduled for June 6th, this time to relocate
muscle from my back to replace the dead ones in the rotator cuff...

L8R

Skip and Lydia, refitting as fast as we can


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"There is nothing-absolutely nothing-half so much worth doing as simply
messing about in boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's
the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get
anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and
you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

Im not sure the MPPT controller allows for higher voltage/smaller wires. PV arrays are to some
extent constant current and a "12 volt" array will put out its maximum power at a voltage
typically higher than the battery. So if you hook the array up to a battery with a "cheap"
controller, it is basically a direct connection and the PV current stays about the same but the PV
array voltage drops to the battery voltage so you can lose a fair amount of delivered power. The
MPPT controller allows the array voltage to operate for maxiimun power while supplying current to
the battery at the batteries charge current. I have a 160 watt pannel (2x80w Kyocera) and
typically I might have 8 amps comming out of the panel and maybe 10.5 going into the battery (the
currents will of course vary all over depending on how much sunlight, angle, ect).

Also, the MPPT charger I have (Blue Sky - company used to be called RV) is intelegent about
properly charging the batteries which can make them last longer. Ive only had this product for
several months but think it was a good investment.

wh

Skip Gundlach wrote:

Well, back from the boat for a bit, and trying to keep up...

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
"Skip Gundlach" skipgundlach sez use my name at earthlink dot
fishcatcher (net) - with apologies for the spamtrap wrote in
:

Hm. Help me with the math. As a lapsed math, physics and chem major,
I don't remember my stuff all that well. However, I'll have right in
the neighborhood of 500W solar

How big are these solar panels? A Kyocera KC120 panel at 120 watts is:
Max power: 120 Watts
Max voltage: 16.9 Volts
Max current: 7.10 Amps
Dimensions (LxWxD): 56.1" x 25.7" x 2.2"
Weight: 26.3 lbs

4 of those kinda hinders going on deck, I suppose. Or, do you mean 500
watt-hours per day?? 500 watts x 8 hours = 4 KWh/day...pretty nice!

Well, that's sorta what I thought.

First, these (whatever they turn out to be, based solely on first, space,
and second, availability) will be run through an MPPT which will allow me
higher voltage/smaller wires - for example, ones designed for 24V systems..
Second, it appears I'll not be able to get the 500W I wanted - but quite
possibly more than 450, e.g 3x http://www.partsonsale.com/bp4170.pdf 170w
63x31, 34v or 4x http://www.affordable-solar.com/kc125g125watt.html 125w
56x26 24v but Third, these are going on our arch
http://www.justpickone.org/skip/gall...rch&star t=42
which, on construction, appears not to have the space above I'd expected.
So, back to the drawing boards for what will fit up there. You can muck
around in the rest of that gallery to see what else we'd looked at in coming
up with the specs and drawings. In any event, moving about on deck won't be
an issue..

None the less, 400W isn't out of the realm of possibility. Real world
experience suggests "normal" accumulation of something above 125AH/day...

The arch is in the rough welded stage, without any of the custom hang-ons,
at the moment. I assume it will be finished by my next time down there,
which I expect to be 10 days or so, when I'll take up the regimen of staying
on the boat for 3 weeks and coming home for one, in hopes of finishing in
May, as I have another surgery scheduled for June 6th, this time to relocate
muscle from my back to replace the dead ones in the rotator cuff...

L8R

Skip and Lydia, refitting as fast as we can

--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"There is nothing-absolutely nothing-half so much worth doing as simply
messing about in boats.
In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's
the charm of it.
Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your
destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get
anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in
particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and
you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

Where did the extra 2.5 amps come from?

Roger

http://home.earthlink.net/~derbyrm

"Walt" wrote in message ...
snip
... I have a 160 watt pannel (2x80w Kyocera) and
typically I might have 8 amps coming out of the panel and maybe 10.5 going
into the battery (the
currents will of course vary all over depending on how much sunlight,
angle, ect).

The MPPT controller allows the PV array to operate at its maximum power point
which for example might be 8 amps at 16.4 volts. So the power output is 8*16.4 =
131 watts. The MPPT controller using some sort of power switching topology
transfers almost all of the power to the battery which is for example at 12.5
volts. The current at 131 watts and 12.5 volts is 10.5 amps. So its 8 amp in at
16.4 volts and 10.5 amps out at 12.5 volts - ie,. the power is maintained. If
you simply had connected the PV array to the battery (which is essentially what
most controllers do), the current output of the PV array would have remianed
constant but the voltage would have dropped to the battery voltage so the power
delivered would have been approx 8amps * 12.5 volts = 100 watts - ie,
significantly less than with the MPPT controller.

The one I have draws about 100 ma so it doesnt "break even" until its running
about .5 amps to the battery. MPPT contollers are also a fair amount more
expensive so must compete with simply adding more solar panel area. However, if
you want to keep the PV area as small as possible (like on a boat), it seems
like a good product.

Roger Derby wrote:

Where did the extra 2.5 amps come from?

Roger

http://home.earthlink.net/~derbyrm

"Walt" wrote in message ...
snip
... I have a 160 watt pannel (2x80w Kyocera) and
typically I might have 8 amps coming out of the panel and maybe 10.5 going
into the battery (the
currents will of course vary all over depending on how much sunlight,
angle, ect).

That's a lot more sophisticated that I expected from a "controller!" Can it
charge the batteries even if the solar cell voltage drops below the battery
voltage?

Do they have the "secondary" considerations such as RFI and waterproofing
dealt with as well?

Roger

http://home.earthlink.net/~derbyrm

"Walt" wrote in message ...
The MPPT controller allows the PV array to operate at its maximum power
point
which for example might be 8 amps at 16.4 volts. So the power output is
8*16.4 =
131 watts. The MPPT controller using some sort of power switching topology
transfers almost all of the power to the battery which is for example at
12.5
volts. The current at 131 watts and 12.5 volts is 10.5 amps. So its 8 amp
in at
16.4 volts and 10.5 amps out at 12.5 volts - ie,. the power is maintained.
If
you simply had connected the PV array to the battery (which is essentially
what
most controllers do), the current output of the PV array would have
remianed
constant but the voltage would have dropped to the battery voltage so the
power
delivered would have been approx 8amps * 12.5 volts = 100 watts - ie,
significantly less than with the MPPT controller.

The one I have draws about 100 ma so it doesnt "break even" until its
running
about .5 amps to the battery. MPPT contollers are also a fair amount more
expensive so must compete with simply adding more solar panel area.
However, if
you want to keep the PV area as small as possible (like on a boat), it
seems
like a good product.

Roger Derby wrote:

Where did the extra 2.5 amps come from?

Roger

http://home.earthlink.net/~derbyrm

"Walt" wrote in message
...
snip
... I have a 160 watt pannel (2x80w Kyocera) and
typically I might have 8 amps coming out of the panel and maybe 10.5
going
into the battery (the
currents will of course vary all over depending on how much sunlight,
angle, ect).