Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Solar/Wind/Current Boats

Status
Not open for further replies.

dknguyen

Well-Known Member
Most Helpful Member
Has anyone see heard of that boat called the Orcell that uses solar, wind, and water current generators in addition to diesel to run?

How effective is it to take a tiny pager-type motor and stick some kind of fan blades or propeller on it to get it to generate power from the wind (or water for that matter)? In another thread in another section someone said that it wouldn't work very well because the motor is designed to be efficient at around 3000RPM.

The idea is to charge up a bank of supercapacitors to power electronics and the ocassional sail winch servo or rudder every now and then (miniature model-sized boat). It'd be nice to be able to augment the solar cells with wind power or water current power, with wind sails doing most of the movement work.
 
Last edited:
Like the guy who used a computer fan as a generator for his LED array headlamp on his bicycle. It lighted a single LED dimmly when he pedalled as fast as he could go, and didn't charge his battery.

For your propeller generator to do anything, it will have wind resistance so will act like a sail.
 
I had a 30 foot sailing boat with a keel instead of lead I installed lead acid batteries and two 100 watt solar panels on the coach roof. I scrounged a golf cart motor 3 H.P and I never bought any fuel after 11 years in the Med. I also had two wind generators which are easy to build.
 
oldtimer said:
I had a 30 foot sailing boat with a keel instead of lead I installed lead acid batteries and two 100 watt solar panels on the coach roof. I scrounged a golf cart motor 3 H.P and I never bought any fuel after 11 years in the Med. I also had two wind generators which are easy to build.
That's interesting. Are you a saying that you lowerd the batteries down into
the keel cavity with webing staps or sim. And they (the bat.s) would have to
be sealed gelcell wouldn't they?


Rog.
 
They were sealed gell electrolite batteries, I built the keel seperately from the boat then bolted it on. The top of the battery case was sealed to prevent gasses from getting into the cabin. Why carry lead around when it can be put to good use.
 
I guess rhetorical questions loose their meaning around here...

to be more explicit. since gelcells are typically designed for a 3-5 yr lifespan, anything that makes it hard to replace them is a huge usability issue. I just wonder what oldtimer's experience here was. I also wonder how salt water invasion was handled - seems another big issue what with salt water being conductive...

oldtimer?
 
oldtimer said:
I scrounged a golf cart motor 3 H.P and I never bought any fuel after 11 years in the Med. I also had two wind generators which are easy to build.
I bet that was slow, there again I suppose you're not after speed.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top