# New Electric EV speedboat



## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Hello All,

AK from Amsterdam here. Longtime reader of DIY EV now finally ready to post a build thread!

I run a small solar PV-systems company that i started in 2008. Somewhere in 2010 I recruited two friends to join me in a bid to turn New Electric into a EV workshop.
We are now building an EV speedboat. The donor is a 1974 Glastron V174 Bayflite. It had a Volvo Penta AQ130c (B20) 4-cylinder engine rated at 130HP which was hooked up to a 270 sterndrive with 2.15:1 gearing.










Donor: Glastron v174 Bayflite
Length: 5,30 m
Beam: 2,20 m

The boat is in the shop and the ICE and related parts are out. Now it's all about the EV parts. It has taken almost a year to select and source (and fund) the required components. All will be familliar here, as everything I found was either due to a thread here, or on EVTV. 










95 Winston-Battery LYP90AHA cells for nominal voltage of 313,5V










Kostov's 11" 250V motor. Has interpoles and is rated for 5500 RPM, dutycycle output 44 kW with no extra cooling.










Evnetics Soliton1 DC controller. Lots of features, including enough power to cook the batteries and melt the motor.










Elcon charger PFC 5000 288xx version. Pre-programmed for 10 voltages, currently set to 339,45V.










Was not labled but is a Meanwell converter in the right DC input range of our pack.










Two Ferraz fuzes with mounts and Tyco EV200 Contactors.










Nord-Lock washers to keep our connections snug.


Like I said, all the above parts have been more or less vetted by the community. What remains is if the selection works well together and if it will be up for the job. Well that, and whether you would want to take 300V+ out on a lake.
Right now we are are wiring up all the EV parts on the workbench, making sure everything works as desired before packing it into the boat. We are also trying to seal the deal on a coupler for our motor to the sterndrive splineshaft. We like this style made by EV coupler connection:










Once we are happy with the coupler our last big-ticket item is the adaptor-plate for mounting the kostov to the bellhousing, as well as a motor mount and/or collar for the other end.
If all goes well we want to be making a splash this spring. I think this setup has a shot at being good enough to match or exceed the original ICE setup. WOT range will be limited but this boat will be used in and around the canals of Amsterdam, so mostly slow speed cruising (as enforced by our friendly waterpolice).
Including some other components the parts investment is about 20.000 Euros. Not cheap, but interesting to note that a full tank runs at 150 Euros; depending on usage there could be a cost/benefit down the line, but this is not the point of the conversion. 

So thats us for now. I'd like to thank DIY electric car and you all for helping to turn an idea into a real build. I'll post more updates as we get along, here and on our page over at EV Album.
Also you can check out a video of our setup last summer at the Amsterdam sustainable tradeshow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuM-3SUAJXM


regards,

AK


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## RET (Jan 3, 2012)

I will be very interested in seeing how this work out , I live in Florida and have dreamed of an electric boat . Not just a slow boat but one that will get up on plane and cruise . The biggest problem is how long will the charge last while cruising fast ??? keep us posted .
I hope it is a big success .


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## mizlplix (May 1, 2011)

That is a great hull for electric power. You might wind up laying the cells down on their sides and running them in a row down the centerline to keep the good handling traits. 

You also might consider installing adjustable trim plates on the stern.

Propeller selection will be interesting...

Miz

NOTE: The EV200 contactors have been having issues when running on 24VDC. I am running one on 12VDC on a friends car and it seems to be fine.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Aluminum boxes for our pack have arrived. 
In a future build we would like to get the cells below deck like mizlplix suggests, but for our first outing we are taking a shortcut. Three boxes (66,5 x 42,8 x 28,3 cm interior) holding 30 cells each. Two mounted in the stern 'under' the rear seats and one in the bow where the gas tank used to be. The remaining 5 cells will be in a smaller container up front as well. With some interior padding and reinforcement this is a waterproof / shockproof setup that also allows us to keep pretty close to the original weight distribution.

Weight out:
Engine & parts 440 lb/ 200 kg
Gas tank (80 L.) 240 lb / 110 kg
Ballast 110 lb / 50 kg

total 790 lb / 360 kg

Weight in:
motor 178 lb / 81 kg
LiFePo4 660 lb / 300 kg
controller 33 lb / 15 kg
charger 33lb / 15 kg

total 905 lb / 411 kg

So we are adding about 50 kg to the total weight of the boat, but we have a little more power and our distribution will be more stable.. The gas tank was mounted up front for safety, but also to help keep the bow down during accelerating to planing speed. There was also about 50 kgs of ballast up there. The previous owner must have been cheap on gas, because it works perfect when you are running empty. When i filled the tank all the way the boat became a bit bow heavy, scary when you feel like you could duck right into a wave. Im glad the electrons in the new tank wont have this effect.

The ABYC (American Boat & Yacht Council) recommends all high voltage battery packs on boats should be broken down into groups <50V DC. We want to comply (and be safe) and have spied Epic boats doing the same (in this translogic video). Each of our 30 cell boxes will have two groups of 15 separated with a contactor. We want to put a few automated safety disconnects on the contactor wiring holding the pack 'together'. Like in the event of submersion or upsidedown. And a manual option for maintenance.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Hey All,
We've been under the radar for a while, but today we had a bit of a coming out.. of the garage that is.
Here's a sneak peek at day 1 with the New Electric Powerboat. Am working on a comprehensive 'making of', but like any proud father I must spam the airways with shots of our baby 

http://youtu.be/yt-F7meWNzA

Talk about EV grins, nothing beats that feeling of a build coming alive...


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## RET (Jan 3, 2012)

That looks great . What is the range ? . The Speed looks perfect ,how long before you actually get up on plane ? A lighter boat would fly . It would be cool to build a racing hull type boat to see what that would do.

GOOD WORK !


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

err, having an electric speedboat is not really conducive to keeping up with blogs, or forums, or anything but the electric speedboat really 
But since the camera comes with me on the boat there IS video.

Watercooling the Soliton 1. AUX battery swap. Tunes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=591o42ET-4M&hd=1

Waterskiing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txEp3PwYSkg&hd=1

And, if you can take the time, part 1 of 'the making of'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGGP4sexRtE&hd=1


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## TEV (Nov 25, 2011)

Nicely done.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

Ams_AK said:


> err, having an electric speedboat is not really conducive to keeping up with blogs, or forums, or anything but the electric speedboat really
> But since the camera comes with me on the boat there IS video.
> 
> Watercooling the Soliton 1. AUX battery swap. Tunes!
> ...



Ak,

Glad to see you came to this forum to post about your boat. You going to make the EVCCON this year? If you do I'll see you there. Love your boat. Mine is still in the thinking about it stage. Just waiting for me to take the plunge. But I have a couple other EV projects that have priority and with full time work and now teaching part time at the local college I don't have lots of time to invest. But that boat still sings to me to make it electric.


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## Tesseract (Sep 27, 2008)

Ams_AK said:


> err, having an electric speedboat is not really conducive to keeping up with blogs, or forums, or anything but the electric speedboat really http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGGP4sexRtE&hd=1


I love this boat and your videos really convey your enthusiasm. I really wish we could have submitted your entry to win the EVTV contest last year, but that was when we still weren't sure if Rebbl would be able to get our controllers approved for sale in the EU. A double shame, really, because the person who did win the contest used the lithium cells in another project but has done little else with the rest of the goodies.

Anyway, I suspect you will have a hard time keeping the temperature of the Soliton 1 under 55C because the heat exchanger for its cooling loop is so close the motor. If the controller is, say, 98.5% efficient and the motor is 85% efficient (typical numbers for a Soliton 1 and a Kostov, respectively) then the motor will shed ~10x more waste heat than the controller!

Our official recommendation is to use aluminum-safe automotive coolant when liquid cooling the Soliton controllers, but as the entire enclosure - including the inside of the coolant loops - is plated with electroless nickel, you should be able to use filtered seawater without any ill effects. Not sure if the Laing d5 pump will appreciate that kind of abuse; check the so-called "wetted" materials used in it first.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Tesseract said:


> I love this boat and your videos really convey your enthusiasm.


Hey thanks! I really love my controller, it is the hart of our conversion. 
The love seems more mutual now that I have her cooled. It's looking like we will get away with our loop and the 'hot seat' on top of the motor. The radiator is something like "black stealth GTFX Ultra 240 Bla Bla" (you know PC overclocker speak), and it gets it's air straight from outside...
We do have easy acces to a large reservoir via the sterndrive but atm it looks like we we can make do with air.

There are some really cool water to water heat exchangers (fi: used to recoup shower heat from hot waste water) that we are looking at for future use. Or its been suggested i just run a copper pipe out under the waterline..
Lots of cool tinkering ahead!



Tesseract said:


> wish we could have submitted your entry to win the EVTV contest last year


I ended up as Masterflux nominee for the EVTV prize and made it to the finals (9th out of 10 lol) ~ AND you guys have our boat on the Evnetics website
-> I'd say we are cool


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## Arlo (Dec 27, 2009)

Cool looks like you are trying to make a very clean/profesional build.


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## Qer (May 7, 2008)

Really, really awesome! I'm seriously jealous, and I'm not even that much into boats. 

Lovely work.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

onegreenev said:


> Ak,
> 
> You going to make the EVCCON this year?
> ..
> that boat still sings to me to make it electric.


Yes coming to EVCCON is the plan..
I believe I spied a vid of you racing around in that boat. Looked cool, sounded awful  Get on that conversion!


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Qer said:


> Really, really awesome! I'm seriously jealous, and I'm not even that much into boats.
> 
> Lovely work.


Thanks! I believe powerboats can be fun for a lot more people now that it neednt involve the mind numbing roar and rumble...As much as I loved the old Glastron, I always kept wanting to switch her off to enjoy the surroundings..

dont have that problem anymore


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Anne, have you messed around with different pitch for the prop or are you running the original? I would think there might be some gains to be had propping it more for the low end torque.


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## somanywelps (Jan 25, 2012)

JRP3 said:


> Anne, have you messed around with different pitch for the prop or are you running the original? I would think there might be some gains to be had propping it more for the low end torque.


I was thinking this too.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

JRP3 said:


> Anne, have you messed around with different pitch for the prop or are you running the original? I would think there might be some gains to be had propping it more for the low end torque.


Our original has a 14 x 17 prop mounted on a penta 270 sterndrive with 2.15:1 gearing. The electric has the same sterndrive and gearing, but we've gone with a 15 x 17 prop to start out with. It feels like the bigger blades really help the boat get out of the hole, and take advantage of the low rpm torque. 
From the log file we see that the current setup reaches peak power output of (soliton setting limited) 130 kW @3250 RPM, this is when the boat kinda jumps into the air, gets on plane, and the RPMs go up and the power goes down..
At full open we hit our max RPM of (limited) 5200 while doing 84 kW output @51 - 55 kph.

-start conjecture-

I think we could reach 65 - 70 kph if we go with something like a 15 x 21 or 15 x 23. But would likely lose a bit of that seat shifting accelleration.
We are def going to try this and do GPS readings on camera for bragging rights 
I do think the current setup is the sweetspot. The size of the prop, together with rpm settings limit the max continous power output to something the batteries, controller and (so far so good!) motor can handle.
So if I were to let someone else take the boat out they cant cook the parts just by flooring it.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

You might try more pitch instead of larger diameter. Larger diameter means more drag in the water at speed and might limit the top end. Stainless steel prop might be nice too, thinner, and less flex under load, but pricey to experiment with.
A good prop shop might be able to calculate it pretty close of you give them the power curve of the motor and weight of the boat.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

JRP3 said:


> You might try more pitch instead of larger diameter. Larger diameter means more drag in the water at speed and might limit the top end. Stainless steel prop might be nice too, thinner, and less flex under load, but pricey to experiment with.
> A good prop shop might be able to calculate it pretty close of you give them the power curve of the motor and weight of the boat.


just so we are straight..I put all the above as diameter x pitch. So yeah, I completely agree with you, more pitch is the way to go


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Ah, when you said "bigger blades" I thought you were going with larger diameter.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

just like any other conversion getting a good adaptor and coupler setup is the key to happy EV times.
We wanted everything in this department to be beefy. for piece of mind, and so we can scale to bigger boats and motors without having to 're-engineer' the mounting.







our adaptor fits to a (still off the shelf) Standard Penta bellhousing..so basically It fits any boat that uses a Volvo Penta sterndrive.








motor and controller fit in the same spaceas the old ICE, and we use the original rubber motor mounts.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

RET said:


> A lighter boat would fly . It would be cool to build a racing hull type boat to see what that would do.


we completely agree. the Glastron has whet our whistle, now we want to go faster!

















project


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

Ams_AK said:


> Yes coming to EVCCON is the plan..
> I believe I spied a vid of you racing around in that boat. Looked cool, sounded awful  Get on that conversion!


Actually not. These are my only two videos of this boat on the lake. No sound either. Cool. I will get on the conversion after my VW Roadster is done.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

ah classic case of supplied memory..
I saw these vids indeed. since the boat is not converted I left this memory marked as 'loud'


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## sourcefinder (Dec 17, 2010)

Hi Ams-AK,

Nice to see your boat growing.
You need a hull with less weight to get faster.....

You write you run 84 kW on your 90Ah cells at 300something volt, so you run over 3CA.

I built a boat with the 100Ah cells - 130 cells, taking 325A at 400V.
It runs 63 km/h.
The batteries last for 40 minutes at waterskiingspeed.

In the next one we will install 160 cells to get over 70 km/h.

As we have a water/oil cooled motor only batteries are the limit.
Our motor has a power of 150 kW and a peak power of 190 kW.

See more at www.lightstream.at or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6LHK5Nyayo

Even monoskiing is possible....


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

sourcefinder said:


> Hi Ams-AK,
> 
> Nice to see your boat growing.


Thanx man, nice to hear you are watching. saw your vids a while ago, your boat really rocks! I figured you would have direct drive but then saw you have 'the other' sterndrive (mercruiser instead of volvo penta).

I think we could get the boat to go above 60 with a different prop, but as you pointed out we are pushing what the batts will do without getting too hot. Same same for the motor.
In fact our whole setup really benefits from limited kWh capacity; its the ultimate thermal management  no juice -> no heat.

It will be cool to see how the next boats will compare.. You will go to 160 cells, we will lose about half the weight & drag, going for a skinny boat with direct drive.. we should race


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## sourcefinder (Dec 17, 2010)

What weight does your boat now have?
Our hull has due to sandwich-composit material only 500 kg, the batteries have about 450 kg and motor and drive 250.

The problem is that it is an increasing power curve....
We have a motorboat with a 200 kW V8 engine that has nearly the same weight and runs 83 km/h.
Now we have at the electric one 100 kW on the shaft for 60 km/h, so you see how the curve is going up.

A bigger prop would increase the torque the motor has to deliver.
I don`t know the torque-curve of your motor, but increasing the pitch of the prop can also cause in an overheating of the motor.

Our motor has more torque and more revolutions when voltage is higher.
This also means to reduce current which is good for batteries.

How man cycles do you have on your batteries now?
Are you satisfied?

We have more than 80 cycles at 3C and they are good 

The german boat magazine "boote" did a test on three boats. They all where the same (same boat, same engine), except the drive.
One was direct drive, one was a sterndrive and one was the new IPS from Volvo (which is to big to be installed in a small boat).
They measured fuel consumption over different speeds.
The best drive was the IPS, followed by the sterndrive.
The worst one is direct drive.
The reason is that you cannot use the component which is created by the angle of the direct drive down in the water.

So we decided to use a sterndrive (our engine has constant power from 2000 to 6000 rpm, so it woul also work with a direct drive).

Just have a look on alle the boats out there, they all have props with a pitch from 20 to 25, this are the most efficientest one.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

sourcefinder said:


> What weight does your boat now have?
> 
> How man cycles do you have on your batteries now?
> Are you satisfied?
> ...


Weight was about 900 kg before conversion and we added about 80 kg, kind of like a permanent passenger.

I cant really say how many cycles, i plugged maybe 40 times but mostly I was under 50%DOD..only a few times after range testing did I go to 100% (actualy over 100% as I charged 92.87Ah back one time
The cells have taken a lot of abuse though, and perform like champs. Full discharge at 3-3.5C without temp issues. I kept 5 spare cells that are now looking for a purpose.. yeah I guess I am satisfied

Interesting results on the tri-drive test. I really like our sterndrive setup, and would be comfortable taking it to higher kW's and bigger boats. The bellhousing/adaptor plate setup ensures we could fit any penta setup out there..
that said the unit with bellhousing and plate weigh upwards of 100kg. If I can lose that in favour of 100 kg worth of cells I'm thinking that would still be more range, even if it were less effecient by the numbers... Also ICE vs direct drive might be part of the problem in the cited test..(got link maybe, I read german kinda, and numbers better)

Good point on the props..we'll see what a 14x21 or 14x23 can do for us, and whether the motor overheats before the cells are drained.. game on!


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## Jazsa (Oct 5, 2012)

Hi Ams_AK.

I've watched all your videos on youtube and they have pushed me to want to power my boat electrically. I'm building a 21" ski boat in the garage. Was going to go down the V8 route but what you have done seems very interesting. 

I have a number of question for you though.

1. Why did you do for the Kostov 11" DC and not an AC?
2. How long can you run the Kostov at full power before it melts?
3. Do you charge your whole battery pack as one (300V) or is it divided 
for charging? 

Thanks in advance.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Jazsa said:


> Hi Ams_AK.
> 
> I've watched all your videos on youtube and they have pushed me to want to power my boat electrically. I'm building a 21" ski boat in the garage. Was going to go down the V8 route but what you have done seems very interesting.
> 
> ...


Great to hear our project is doing it's bit to promote the EV powerboat platform. We're having lots of fun and Id love for more people to join in!

answers
1 $$$$$$$$$$ and $$$$ .. we output a limited max of 130kW and 90kW continuous for up to 15 minutes..in AC those things get expensive quick~!
That said I bought my motor in April 2010, lots has happened in 2+ years and if youre set on sealed liquid cooled AC theres new stuff a coming soon

2 I am on my first motor thank you very much! I have not even melted the rubber on the com-end mounting clamp that we made and I intend not to melt any part of my dear motor in the future  lol
I CAN tell you it sees a brief max of 130 kW and upwards of 10-15 minutes at 85-90kW without complaining. 

3 I charge the 90s string of winston lyp-90AHA as one pack using an Elcon pfc5000. it has the 502 algorithm and is set for 90 * 3.65 (CC-CV) = 328.5V
After bit of a sitdown they rest around 303V. Full sag and Im 250V, still 10 above the 240V max i set for the motor


here's our latest clip I put together for a presentation at EVCCON, Lotsa torque! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad0dfp20RM4&hd=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad0dfp20RM4&hd=1


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## Jazsa (Oct 5, 2012)

Thanks for answering AK.

Whoops, didn't mean to suggest you were burning motors with my second question, should have worded it better! What I meant to ask was from your experience with the boat so far does that motor live up to your expectations?

And to continue tapping your knowledge:

1. Do you have to watch your power levels and keep your wide open throttles in check? How long do you think it would handle wide open throttle?

2. What happens if you were to do that (keep it wide open)? Does the controller cut the power or does the motor just overheat?

3. With the Kostov 11" do you think improvising a water cooling system would be practical and or beneficial? ie worth the effort?

4. With your battery system do you see it as being matched to the size of the boat? Would an increase of capacity overload the boat? It seems you are spot with regards to weight, just wondering whether you feel adding extra weight to gain more capacity would compromise the handling/safety.

Thanks again AK.


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## Jazsa (Oct 5, 2012)

Oh yeah.

Where is the 'Making of the Electric speed boat part 2' video?

Nudge nudge.


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

With a boat once on plane you don't have to keep it at wide open throttle. It's getting to plane that takes a bit extra then you can back off some. I can't answer for the electric motor part but I do know you don't have to keep it wide open. Just open to get to plane. Love the work on that boat. Some day we may do one too. I have one ready to go. A 64 Correct Craft.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Jazsa said:


> Thanks for answering AK.
> 
> Whoops, didn't mean to suggest you were burning motors with my second question, should have worded it better! What I meant to ask was from your experience with the boat so far does that motor live up to your expectations?
> 
> ...


Hey Jazsa!
Yup I gotta say I am very impressed with my Kostov, and its new version -the Alpha- looks better still..
So about user caution vs overheating:
1 The way I made this boat, and plan for future models, the driver can do with the throttle as he or she likes. If the motor (or bats or controller) melt simply by going WOT -> this is not a viable system to sell for 'regular' use. Same goes for going and going till the bats are drained..daughter mode and warning lights be damned, if you cant boat (or drive) to a complete standstill without hurting the setup -> not a viable system for 'regular' users.
Im running a 15 diameter x 17 pitch prop, up one size from the 14 x 17 I am running on the stock Glastron with a 130HP (95kW) AQ130 motor. At full open -FOR THIS HULL AND WEIGHT!- this prop requires about 90 kW to turn at 5000RPM. 
Now even though I have forced air cooling AND a beefy heatsink-to-water with our adapter-plate and bellhousing setup, I dont think the motor wants to do 90kW for more than 15-20 minutes... the 28kWh of battery capacity I have will last for about? -> 15 - 20 minutes MAX.
So the total kWh you have on board becomes part of the thermal management plan.

2 So right now all that happens is you are going to hit the PackLowVoltageUnderLoad setting in the Soliton, and it will cut power.
In the near future I will let the daughter mode kick in a little early (using the coulomb counter in our JLD404 and a relay) so you dont stop, but get to limp home..
As for overheating. Kostov has mounted a normally closed temp sensor right on the brush-holder, about 2 cm above the comm surface. It trips at 130C and can easily be routed to the controller to engage limited power mode. I have from reputable source the real damage starts above 180, and you might want to push till 160 if you need to -> but We Dont need to 

3 Water cooling our DC motors seems a bit of an Holy Grail  short answer -> no I dont see it paying off.
Long answer -> Try it and let me in on the data! We HAVE easy access to a LARGE resevoir, so there is no doubt we can use it to cool big time. I think it WILL help with the kind of heat buildup over time -long cruises, maybe even extend time that can be run at your slower planing speeds- BUT, I dont see it helping flash temperature at the comm ie. Allowing us to run WOT at higer kW draw without risking damage to the motor. If running at higher kWs continuous then the motor állows'is your aim, my honest advice would be: get a bigger motor!
DISCLAIMER -> I really dont know much about anything, and my advice is worth what you paid for it! /DISCLAIMER OFF

4 This is where things get interesting. I think you are pushing all the right buttons here in thinking about your boat. YES, I have the max amount of pack weight I would like in THIS boat. We are 80kg over stock (estimate) and she handles like a dream. I did a design where you take out the back-to-back seats and just have to swivel seats + a large suntanning bed with bats under it. Occupany would be down to 2 persons and I would be in constant fear of waves, to many people jumping aboard, the added weight straining my motor AND the added capacity straining my motor even more...
It kinda comes down to converting vs building. I think for THIS boat and how WE use it, we have struck the golden compromise. Remember it is a 70's (oil crisis) boat. Other (modern) boats have a better weight capacity vs Volume and there would be more room for extra kWh's without overloading quite as much as we would be.
Since you have a platform that could employ a V8 you most likely have space and capacity for more kWh..that said you will need those since your v8 would burn more fuel too.

to recap:

1 There is no such thing as a free lunch!

but we must listen to the shoe people:

2 Impossible is nothing -> Just do it!


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Jazsa said:


> Oh yeah.
> 
> Where is the 'Making of the Electric speed boat part 2' video?
> 
> Nudge nudge.


We aim to please! Here is part 2; from bottom balance to makin a splash 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIGwt6tZyzc&hd=1


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## Jazsa (Oct 5, 2012)

Very interesting. Thanks again for the info AK.

Did you happen to look at the A123 20Ah pouches available? It seems they give their power with 80% of the weight and 80% of the cost when brought in quantity. 

Ive worked out I'm going to need at least 400Ah. We use our boats on the Murry River (border between the states Victoria and New South Wales) at a place could Bundalong. 

105 400ah cells seems to cost around 55K. But doing the same with those pouches seems to come out at around 35K (depending on price). I'm thinking 7 banks of 300pouches (48v 400ah) would do the job. It needs 2100 pouches of course but Im prepared to spend the time grouping them up to save 20K.

Im a bit concerned about the weight as the the boat will be around 2ton at the end of all this. That makes the pouches very appealing as they come in at 950kg instead of around 1300kg. Ill make the battery boxes integral to the hull as well and use a new product called 'Multipanel' to do the fitout instead of plywood.

I priced up a BLDC (MP65L0 from Ehug) motor and controller that will be ample for the job and that comes in at around 30k - scary. Going DC would be around 10K. Makes DC look very appealing. I like the BLDC as its sealed, liquid cooled and 'maintence free'. Ill have to take that over to the motor page and see if anybody has any experience with them.

Are there any liquid cooled DC motors avaialble? It seems that if you cant cool the brushes there is not much point.

So before I even put to the water Im spending 65K on Batteries, motors and controllers then 20K fo the hull and 10K for a trailer. Hell of a commitment. Im scared! If I was to buy the equivilent boat ICE powered it would be around 100K. The equivilent electric boat (those Nautique or Epic things) seem to be around the 150K mark. 

Yes, the shoe people! Just do IT!


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Your telling a guy with 20K in parts and 1K in boat that you 'need' to spend 95K. You are spot on with the 100K ICE equivalent and the Epic and Nautique price range, but I firmly believe that anybody with about 25-30K gets to play and have more fun then thought possible.

If your boat would weigh two ton with 1300 kg of pack, it would be like my boat: one ton with 300 kg of pack weight. So it sounds like you want to go really fast or go further from A to B, or maybe want to power around more hours in the day, like running waterski/wakeboard school.
Fast charging (AC or DC options) might be cost effective if the point is kWhs 
As for motor, well it's a brave new world with all the new toys coming out. At the same time I think it is VERY hard to beat Series DC for Torque per $, and we spend more time talking about IF they will melt, but the examples are few and the causes mostly obvious. Changing a brush is like 20 minutes a year at worst, so as long as your dust doesnt build up the whole 'not maintenance free' issue is overhyped imho. If you wanna build and send to some customer overseas, I understand feeling a need for sealed systems. Otherwise there is a 13" option that will do torque and ALOT of HPs right over at Kostov. Thick adaptor plate and bellhousing combo like on our Penta setup and it would be hard to oveheat that with any normal battery setup. If you are replacing a V8 the 4500 RPM might be a sweetspot too..

I cannot see myself making cells out of pouches. I am very thankfull for the lego blok prismatics, without them I would not play. 

So what kind of boat are you doing>?


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## Jazsa (Oct 5, 2012)

From the impression I've got your Galstron is a tech demonstrator? Or proof of concept? Do you plan on building electric boats or just offering conversion kits?

I ask that because just as electric are the future for cars the same can be said for boats. Public transport or mass transit will never take the place of the car. Not going to happen. 

A good day of skiing will consume nearly $150 worth of fuel at the moment. The bigger boats even more. That cost is only going up in the future and an electric ski boat is really starting to become cost effective. 

ICE powered boats are noisy things. Thats the biggest thing I noticed about your boat - so quiet. I was all geared up to fit my boat out with PCM Excalibur engine package. 20K worth. But since viewing your video the whole electric thing has taken hold. Dam the cost!

I brought the plans for the 'Renegade' from Glen-L marine. A 21 ft ski boat. So far I've built all 7 frames, keel, keel stem, transom and breast hooks all out of hardwood and laminations of marine ply. Its basically ready to take form. That won't happen till next year when I will be buying my first home.

I happened on to this 'multipanel' product which is a high density polyurethane panel. Basically I can substitute all the marine ply that would be used to skin the hull and fit out the interior reducing weight by 70%. That means more room for batteries. I'm not affiliated with this multipanel stuff by the way! But in saying that the owner is pretty keen to see the results and help out as they are only a young company. 

Where we ski on the Murry river we usually put the boat in and have to head up river 10-15minutes to find a spot on the bank to base ourselves. So thats half an hour everyday we are pulling big amps (on plane cruising with all our peoples and beer). Then there is the skiing. I would hate to have to put in to recharge the batteries. That would make the ICE powered boats point and laugh! So thats how I came upon the 400ah requirement. 

Is that 13" Kostov still available? Some places say it is discontinued? I'm still considering the DC motors. Only thing that concerns me is because they're aircooled they are open to corrosion. Our boats sit around for 10 months of the year. Plus moisture from the bilge has me worried that the corrosion thing could be a problem. And I really would like to take advantage of that big cooling pond we play in. Even if I was to engineer a way of liquid cooling the brushes having water that close to that amount of power is a bit daunting.

That is something that is very confusing about the motor market. All the voltage and amp rating seem to be very conservative. Everybody seems to be running much higher levels than the manufactures specs. Your motor (k11 250V???) has a rating of around 45kw yet you seem to get 130kw no problems. Is Kostov just covering themselves or is everybody just over working the motors??

I think there is, or will be very soon, a market for electric ski boats. Our current crop of ski boats have very heavy hulls in my opinion. There is a lot of room to rip some weight out (and replace with batteries). If I had the spare cash I would look very seriously at starting an electric boat company. Design a lighter hull and take up the slack with batteries. Wake boats actually take on ballast to increase their wake! 


*Warning- political statement*
Now, if Australia was only to start building some big, juicy, 4.5 Generation Nuke power plants to power all our electric cars and boats!


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## onegreenev (May 18, 2012)

You might want to contact Glen-L about using those plastic panels in place of Marine Ply. I would be concerned when you try to splice more than one piece to another. With ply you can glue but with plastic it will be a challenge. I'd stick with Marine Ply. I used to own a Glen-L Ski Tow and I also have plans for the Mist Miss. Some day maybe I will build her.



This is the Mist Miss











I think the Glen-L line would be an excellent choice due to the fact that they are light weight and strong.


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## Jazsa (Oct 5, 2012)

Absolutley see where you are coming from with regards to substituting marine ply with multipanel. The multipanel guys have submitted impact and durabilaty tests results to the CSIRO and have come out on top. Marineply is impact resistant to a certain point before giving way. The mulipanel will deform under the same load before returning to 90% of its original shape. So they say anyway.


I will be skinning the hull in multipanel. I will form the hull skin before glassing and then gel coating the hull form. 
Marine ply is to strong for a ski boat hull in my opinion. A glass skinned multipanel hull will absorb any major impact with minimal water incursion. A ski boat is by no means an ocean going vessel. And nor does it need to be as strong.

The main strength of a ski boat is the cross structural form strength. Which basically equates to keeping the boat's form. A ski boat when it hits rough water wants to 'fold in on its self'. All structural forming must be designed to resist that.

To be honest, the biggest problem i see is the repeated 'beaching' that our boats undergo. By that I mean when we find a suitable spot to set up camp we 'push' our boats onto the sand to hold them firm. It really wears away the bow stems finish.


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## JRP3 (Mar 7, 2008)

Jazsa said:


> To be honest, the biggest problem i see is the repeated 'beaching' that our boats undergo. By that I mean when we find a suitable spot to set up camp we 'push' our boats onto the sand to hold them firm. It really wears away the bow stems finish.


Have you tried this? http://www.keelshield.com/


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## Jazsa (Oct 5, 2012)

Cheers JRP3!

Talk about the EXACT solution to our problems! Surprised none of us have found this product.


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

Getting colder here in Amsterdam, especially out on the water at 50kmh 

But it also means no one else out on the water so we can have fun with cold weather testing our boat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi1q3jQb3Kw&hd=1


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## Ams_AK (Jan 24, 2011)

New Glastron compilation I made for our presentation at EVCCON 2013:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P59lq8GlCw

"I built a waterskiboat, and it works!"


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