46' Ericson Sailboat Conversion...

willo

10 W
Joined
Jan 19, 2012
Messages
77
Location
Colorado
Well, the Beta 50 diesel in my boat has a couple of issues. It's running rough and either has a busted transfer plate (cheap enough) or has a failed cylinder.

I decided to go for it and make the thing... even more electric.

To start, I'm dropping in a 24kwh house pack made of 24x 304Ah LifePO4 cells. A 5000/24/120 Quattro inverter/Cerbo GX/3xMPPT chargers with 3x 530w panels and a 70A 24/12 converter. This project is half there, just making up new bus bars and finalizing battery mounts, etc.

For the motor conversion, I'm ripping out the Diesel, and perhaps the old diesel tanks as well. If I can get them out...
The new motor is a Motenergy ME-1616 Water cooled PMAC brushless. I found a few in stock and ordered that beast today.
Because of the size of my boat, I could run a dual motors at 48v or a single at 96v. Not ideal for Marine, but I'm thinking of putting a safety disconnect between two 48v packs for safety ops.
The ME-1616 can support 250A at 96v, which puts it at 24kw of output. This seems inline with systems produced by oceanvolt in power output and vessel sizing.

On the controller side, I am still shopping. (Because of this I'm having my motor shipped to me, and I can re-ship it to the controller shop if that's what I choose. I had conversations with thunderstruck motors as well as electricmotorsport. Both are happy to have me ship them my motor so they can program a controller.
So far it's Sevcon and Curtis. I plan to do a bit more research, I know how much it sucks to have a mis-programmed motor controller. (Been there with ebikes)

Battery wise, I'm mostly concerned with using something that'll support the discharge rates the motor will need. Aside from that, I will likely end up with a second pack in the neighborhood of 20 to 30kwh. I would prefer lifepo4, but again I am undecided on just what tech I'm going to go with. I suppose I could be the jerk with a crapton of headways... :p

As far as integration of systems goes, I'm leaning toward an AC/DC charger facing the motor pack. I have the 5kva inverter, which happens to support built in generator switching. I can vampire off the house pack and kick on a generator to keep things in usable shape.

I am the first to admit that a giant 48v pack would be the best thing... kinda. The issue with this idea is that on a monohull sailboat it's really hard to find somewhere to shove something like a 50kwh battery pack. Go ahead, I'll wait. So, I'm digging the split design since it allows me the freedom to muck about with the motor pack voltage and capacity without concern for modding the house systems - those inverters aren't cheap and they only go up to 48v anyway. (Mine is 24.)
 
Back
Top