"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
efficient. I know someone who has homemade panels hanging from the
sunny side window sills to the ground below. When the sun shines on
them, it superheats the air on the front of the panel. This air rises
and enters the room through the window sill opening. The hot air
rising sucks house air from the bottom side of the sill into the heat
exchanger to replace that already heated.

Before they went to flush toilets, the campground we used in Maine as a kid
had 'solar holers' and solar showers. The solar holers were "restroom"
outhouses - like a multiple stall restroom but no water - with south facing
black-inside/clear-top vertical risers with the intake at the bottom and the
exhaust well above the roof of the outhouse, which pulled fresh air through
the outhouses and out the top. No stinky outhouse. Likewise, the hot water
in the showers was a solar black-pipe covering on the bath house roof,
faciing south. Summer in Maine has a *lot* of sunshine hours, so they never
ran out of hot water unless it was raining...

Marvelous thing, the sun....

L8R

Skip

--
"And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a clear
night, and gaze at the countless stars overhead, and realize that you are
quite alone on a great, wide sea, it is apt to occur to you that in the
general scheme of things you are merely an insignificant speck on the
surface of the ocean; and are not nearly so important or as self-sufficient
as you thought you were. Which is an exceedingly wholesome thought, and one
that may effect a permanent change in your deportment that will be greatly
appreciated by your friends."- James S. Pitkin

"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...


For those times, perhaps what is needed is a black plastic water
heater you could haul up the mainmast to heat some medium for the
night.

What you would need is thermal mass. The key word here is "mass". It will
take a lot of it, if you intend to pull heat out of it all night long. And
it will be heavy. How much weight would you feel comfortable hauling up the
mast?


I know someone who has homemade panels hanging from the
sunny side window sills to the ground below.

This works great IF you have a sunny exposure BELOW the area where you use
or store the energy. I have known people who live on a steep hill with a
southern exposure (northern hemisphere, which means that the slope gets a
lot of sun). It is somewhat common to construct a solar heater out of black
ABS pipe that runs down the hill a ways. Heating swimming pools is common,
but I know one person who had copper pipes embedded in the concrete slab of
his home and ciculated the warm water to heat the slab.

The key is that warm air/water will rise, so if the source of heat is lower
you can create a natural flow of water. If the source of heat is above,
then you will need to pump the water, and you may end up using more energy
pumping than you would have heating.

Rod

Rod McInnis wrote:

the old Volkswagon Beetles used a heat exchanger off the exhaust manifolds
to heat the car! It was actually pretty nice on cold mornings, as the
heater worked almost instantly after starting the car.

Woah! I had one of those Beetles way back then. It leaked CO so bad it nearly
killed me. I would worry about any heating system that utilizes a heat
exchanger off the exhaust manifolds.

Larry Weiss
"...Ever After!"
"a little after..."

If you recall the heritage of the Volkswagon, it's no surprise it tried to
gas you.

-W


"Larry Weiss" wrote in message
...

Woah! I had one of those Beetles way back then. It leaked CO so bad it
nearly
killed me. I would worry about any heating system that utilizes a heat
exchanger off the exhaust manifolds.

Larry Weiss
"...Ever After!"
"a little after..."

x-no-archive:yes


Larry Weiss wrote:

Rod McInnis wrote:

the old Volkswagon Beetles used a heat exchanger off the exhaust manifolds
to heat the car! It was actually pretty nice on cold mornings, as the
heater worked almost instantly after starting the car.

Woah! I had one of those Beetles way back then. It leaked CO so bad it nearly
killed me. I would worry about any heating system that utilizes a heat
exchanger off the exhaust manifolds.

Well you do need to maintain your exhaust system of course. We had
one of those heat exchangers (still do) in one of the 1932 Plymouths.
There was just a hole in the firewall for the duct, so the passenger
got pretty hot, and the driver stayed cold. I used to deflect the
heat with a clipboard (this was in 1964, and not in 1932 BTW)

grandma Rosalie

(Larry W4CSC) wrote
My shop heater in winter is a 1KW Honda EU1000i power plant. I welded a
pipe nipple on the little exhaust port . . .

Hmm. The manual that came with my EU1000i went to great lengths in
several languages to *don't do that*! I suppose if the length was
short, not too restrictive, not near flammable materials, it could
work.

Its quiet enclosure . . . hidden away behind the cabinets.

Hmm, The EU1000i wasn't designed to operate in an enclosure, might be
hard on the plastic parts. Although big ventilation grates might make
such an installation viable.

Of course, restricting the exhaust with a long length of tubing and
letting the generator recycle a good dose of it's own (hot) cooling
air would just make it work harder and produce *more* heat g.

The warning in the manual is for the carbon monoxide and to keep you
from suing them if you do what they tell you not to......

The enclosure has a big outlet where the heat comes out the end of the
genset and two intakes, one in the bottom and one near the bottom on
the end with the outlets. The plastic doesn't even get as warm as it
would sitting in the sun being eaten alive by the UV rays from the
sunshine. It runs 8 hours a day on the road all summer in a modified
tool box bolted to the back door it just fits in. It's cooler in the
cabinet than in the sun because of the volume of air the blower in it
creates....

Operating in the van, in winter, the only end that gets warm is where
the hot air comes out of it to heat my truck. I'd guess doing this
recovers near 95% of the energy of the consumed fuel.

Too bad boats don't use Deutz air-cooled diesels. You could dump the
heat overboard in the summer around the dry stack and divert it into
the cabin in winter to recover the waste heat with a
thermostatically-controlled shutter to regulate its cabin temperature
through a muffler to block the noise. I had Deutz V-16 engines
driving 200KW gensets in Iran and they were fantastic engines, even
running where the OAT was over 100F all day long! One injector
clogged in 2 years and that was our fault some idiot put the filter in
wrong. Change the oil every 150 hours and she'd just run and run
24/7/365



On 13 Jan 2004 21:51:56 -0800, (Mark) wrote:

(Larry W4CSC) wrote
My shop heater in winter is a 1KW Honda EU1000i power plant. I welded a
pipe nipple on the little exhaust port . . .

Hmm. The manual that came with my EU1000i went to great lengths in
several languages to *don't do that*! I suppose if the length was
short, not too restrictive, not near flammable materials, it could
work.

Its quiet enclosure . . . hidden away behind the cabinets.

Hmm, The EU1000i wasn't designed to operate in an enclosure, might be
hard on the plastic parts. Although big ventilation grates might make
such an installation viable.

Of course, restricting the exhaust with a long length of tubing and
letting the generator recycle a good dose of it's own (hot) cooling
air would just make it work harder and produce *more* heat g.

HI Mi,
You have run hard aground on the 24 volt appliances. The selection is
slim. Your best bet is an inverter, 12 volt charger and 12 volt house
battery, Then utilize 110/12 volt appliances. Don't forget use 12v
breaker(s). It would cost you less in the long run. Also, having a
decent inverter (5000 watts or so will allow you to run your air
conditioner, hot water heater or stove as necessary.

Have a look at the link below.

http://www.cetsolar.com/dcappliances.htm

Good Luck,

Capt. Frank
la Dolce Vita

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~aartworks



misia wrote:
On my new boat I will have a powerfull 24VDC battery bank charged by a
diesel generator and auxiliary sources.

I did a bit of search but couldn't find much- are there any 24 VDC
appliances such as cooker/oven, fridge, AC and water heater you could
recommend?

I know I can run standard items through power inverter but I would
prefer not to do it for the sake of reliability/efficiency/cost. I want
to go totally electric (no gas)

Regards Mi

Wouldn't actually make much of a difference. If the 2KW water heater
were running on 12V, it would draw 167A. On 24V it would still draw
83.3A, draining the batteries in a matter of minutes, not hours......

Then, comes the problem of battery real estate. in the same space it
takes to put 500 amp-hours of 12V batteries, you get 250 amp-hours of
24V batteries.....the same exact kilowatt-hour rating. If you
parallel two 130AH 12V deep cycles, you get 260AH at 12V. If you
series them, you get 130AH at 24V......the same exact power output in
KwH. You can use smaller wire, though....(c;

Running large electrical loads of batteries is a pipe dream on these
boats at any voltage. There just isn't room for a proper battery
bank, like you'd need. A 350AH large golf cart battery, which is only
6 volts, is only 2.1Kwh but at a very low rate like 20A, not 200A. We
run 4 of these monsters in 2 banks in series-parallel to get 12V at
700AH in Lionheart's engine room. You can't use all 700AH because
that would really shorten their life, so you only discharge them about
400-500AH before charging, and that's stretching it. Then, it's so
hard to get that last 15% to full charge, there's no point running the
charging engine for hours more so you lose 15% more capacity charging
them only up to 85% of full specific gravity. This battery bank of 4
is about 4' x 20" x 24" tall and 400 pounds of ballast. In
comparison, each CELL of 126 cells in a WW2 submarine is about 7' high
by 4' by 3' and puts out 2V at 6,250AH to drive the sub 48 hours at
only 2 knots on TWO 126 cell banks...one forward, one aft. WW2 subs
carried nearly 1000 TONS of batteries to accomplish this level of
power. No wonder they sank a perfectly good boat!

With an 80A alternator running flat out, you can recharge Lionhearts
400AH "standard discharge" in about 5.5 hours. Charging too fast, and
this is almost too fast, makes charging more dangerous (heat) and
boils off the electrolyte (hydrogen). With a tapering charge, it
takes longer...6-7 hours. At 80A, the fanbelt better be TIGHT!
Charging monster battery banks is another problem altogether.....

Nothing is funnier than a boater with a new 4KW inverter carrying his
electric heater down the dock with a big smile on his face.......

The real answer is a super quiet insulated diesel genset with a small
starting battery and a hundred gallons of #2 fuel oil.....an immense
pool of liquid power...(c; The Navy prefers nuclear power but the
refueling is messy.



On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 22:20:53 GMT, misia
wrote:

On my new boat I will have a powerfull 24VDC battery bank charged by a
diesel generator and auxiliary sources.

I did a bit of search but couldn't find much- are there any 24 VDC
appliances such as cooker/oven, fridge, AC and water heater you could
recommend?

I know I can run standard items through power inverter but I would
prefer not to do it for the sake of reliability/efficiency/cost. I want
to go totally electric (no gas)

Regards Mi

Fatal Error.
The heating element is resistive. 120V 2KW element is approx 7 ohms. Reduce
voltage to 24 v and current draw drops to 3.5 amps. Power is not a constant.
"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
Wouldn't actually make much of a difference. If the 2KW water heater
were running on 12V, it would draw 167A. On 24V it would still draw
83.3A, draining the batteries in a matter of minutes, not hours......

Then, comes the problem of battery real estate. in the same space it
takes to put 500 amp-hours of 12V batteries, you get 250 amp-hours of
24V batteries.....the same exact kilowatt-hour rating. If you
parallel two 130AH 12V deep cycles, you get 260AH at 12V. If you
series them, you get 130AH at 24V......the same exact power output in
KwH. You can use smaller wire, though....(c;

Running large electrical loads of batteries is a pipe dream on these
boats at any voltage. There just isn't room for a proper battery
bank, like you'd need. A 350AH large golf cart battery, which is only
6 volts, is only 2.1Kwh but at a very low rate like 20A, not 200A. We
run 4 of these monsters in 2 banks in series-parallel to get 12V at
700AH in Lionheart's engine room. You can't use all 700AH because
that would really shorten their life, so you only discharge them about
400-500AH before charging, and that's stretching it. Then, it's so
hard to get that last 15% to full charge, there's no point running the
charging engine for hours more so you lose 15% more capacity charging
them only up to 85% of full specific gravity. This battery bank of 4
is about 4' x 20" x 24" tall and 400 pounds of ballast. In
comparison, each CELL of 126 cells in a WW2 submarine is about 7' high
by 4' by 3' and puts out 2V at 6,250AH to drive the sub 48 hours at
only 2 knots on TWO 126 cell banks...one forward, one aft. WW2 subs
carried nearly 1000 TONS of batteries to accomplish this level of
power. No wonder they sank a perfectly good boat!

With an 80A alternator running flat out, you can recharge Lionhearts
400AH "standard discharge" in about 5.5 hours. Charging too fast, and
this is almost too fast, makes charging more dangerous (heat) and
boils off the electrolyte (hydrogen). With a tapering charge, it
takes longer...6-7 hours. At 80A, the fanbelt better be TIGHT!
Charging monster battery banks is another problem altogether.....

Nothing is funnier than a boater with a new 4KW inverter carrying his
electric heater down the dock with a big smile on his face.......

The real answer is a super quiet insulated diesel genset with a small
starting battery and a hundred gallons of #2 fuel oil.....an immense
pool of liquid power...(c; The Navy prefers nuclear power but the
refueling is messy.



On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 22:20:53 GMT, misia
wrote:

On my new boat I will have a powerfull 24VDC battery bank charged by a
diesel generator and auxiliary sources.

I did a bit of search but couldn't find much- are there any 24 VDC
appliances such as cooker/oven, fridge, AC and water heater you could
recommend?

I know I can run standard items through power inverter but I would
prefer not to do it for the sake of reliability/efficiency/cost. I want
to go totally electric (no gas)

Regards Mi