Electric Drive!

 We had returned to New Hampshire to do taxes and some business, and planed to return within a month. Ha ha again! Covid scrambled everyone's plans and we were stuck in New England for the summer. Not a bad place to be stuck, but only remote progress on the Purple Gallinule. In the meantime, we sailed our smaller sailboat, Eclipse (link) up the coast of Maine for a five week adventure. Come October we drove to Michigan and back for our new (used) 48v 150ah lithium batteries. 

Kristen soldering new BMS wires onto the battery cells.

We chose Thunderstruck for our new motor. They offer a 48v, 5kw sailboat motor, with all the controllers needed. Kristen applied her computer and electrician magic to the battery, and replaced the proprietary BMS that came with the battery with a simpler one from Thunderstruck. Together we laid all the parts out on a table, and proceeded to connect them.

First there's the 48v DC service from battery to bus to charger and to the motor controller (Sevcon), which converts to 48v AC-three phase. This is also where the solar charger hooks in.

48v system, solar not shown.

Then there's a 12v system to power all the controllers. 


Everything needs a little 12v

Also two separate CAN networks so the battery can talk with the 110-charger, solar charger, and a laptop, and another so the motor and motor controller can talk with a laptop

Two CAN nets, solar not shown.

And finally a network that allows us to control the motor from the cockpit.

Throttle and key switch connected to SevCon

Thunderstruck has been very helpful with phone calls and parts and advice. Next we'll disconnect it all for transport to Florida.

Comments

  1. UnknownDecember 9, 2020 at 10:44 PM

    Excellent! Good job! Woot hoot! Great documentation of the PG

    ReplyDelete

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