"up and coming" equipment vendors?

[0xkruzr]

So, I'm doing a refit of a pontoon boat with 2 48V electric motors. Won't go terribly fast, but will go, and that's enough. I'd like to have solar charging for it, tho. Which brings me to this question:

Frequently in the tech world some OEM producer of equipment ends up quietly surpassing "name brand" big vendors -- HTC and their smartphones in the early 2010s springs to mind as an example -- and buying their stuff early ends up paying off in terms of quality and support. I'm curious if there are "off brand" producers (i.e. not Renogy or Victron) of solar and DC power gear in general out there that are similarly worth taking a look at in terms of feature support and quality. Looking for the kind of functionality you get out of, for example in the Victron world, a 150/35 charge controller, Cerbo GX and screen, and battery monitor shunt, specifically with a view toward being able to handle at least 2KW of power and a sensible attitude toward getting data out of your system and control into it -- from reviews, for example, it sounds like the Cerbo has weird restrictions as to what you can get from WiFi vs. Bluetooth vs. other connectivity options.

I haven't dived into Renogy much; if you guys think they might be a better solution than Victron for this application I'd be all ears.

 

[Supervstech]

Wait. You have a pair of 48V motors on a pontoon boat, and want solar charging? I am guessing you mean a ground mount array you can charge the boat from… you aren’t thinking of charging from boat mounted panels?

 

[0xkruzr]

Wait. You have a pair of 48V motors on a pontoon boat, and want solar charging? I am guessing you mean a ground mount array you can charge the boat from… you aren’t thinking of charging from boat mounted panels?

yes, why?

 

[Supervstech]

yes, why?

Yes to which? Ground mount, or mounted on the boat.

 

[Q-Dog]

Renogy and Victron are not the same thing ... at all.

Renogy is a marketing company that sells stuff with their name on it. Victron is an energy company that designs and manufactures electrical power equipment.

 

[Supervstech]

Renogy and Victron are not the same thing ... at all.

Renogy is a marketing company that sells stuff with their name on it. Victron is an energy company that designs and manufactures electrical power equipment.

AT ALL needs to be emphasized...

It's not even a Ford vs Ferrari comparison, it's more like a dollar general vs Mercedes benz...

 

[justinm001]

Frequently in the tech world some OEM producer of equipment ends up quietly surpassing "name brand" big vendors -- HTC and their smartphones in the early 2010s springs to mind as an example -- and buying their stuff early ends up paying off in terms of quality and support.

Maybe 5% of the time this happens, the other 95% of the time the company or the product disappears with zero support.

What happens is a company builds something solid and great then they become the company to beat so another company emerges with a superior product and then it becomes the company to beat. Unfortunately this type of thing doesn't happen much anymore as the big company just copies the little companies ideas and they release their new model with the same specs.

Nothing compares to Victron and I doubt anything will. They've been in business a while and not only are their products far superior but they provide tools (like VRM) to support their products free of charge. Not sure what weird restrictions you're talking about as you can build your own cerbo using their software on something like a raspberrypi. Even use any screen instead of their touch since its just hdmi, or not use a screen as their VRM is amazing. They even have a victron grafana docker app that allows you to use a device to make your own dashboards if you want.... all FREE.

Victron is more expensive because they use better components and better engineering. their tech is free.

 

[littleharbor2]

I sold some panels to a guy who was building solar powered pontoon boats. They ran directly off solar panels, no battery powering the motors. He had a pair of panels for one motor and another pair for the other motor. He would steer by cutting power to one motor or the other, depending which way he needed to go. Also had seating below the elevated panels to give shade while seated. Obviously these weren't large pontoon boats. I have often wondered how this all worked out for him.

 

[Sirtate]

My buddy did this.
Converted his pontoon boat to electric power, and put solar panels on the roof.

He has an off-grid cabin in the Northern Wilds of Ontario, and didn't want to mess with hauling gasoline in to the camp. He has a Tesla Model 3, that he charges off the cabin when its there, too.

Over a typical summer, the boat is self contained, and doesn't require external power.

I'm not sure about the storage on the boat, but it has 1200W of panels on it.

 

[0xkruzr]

Yes to which? Ground mount, or mounted on the boat.

Mounted on the boat. Why would that be a problem? I'm not thinking to run the boat solely off that input; largely the idea here is "panels will charge the boat while it's in the storage yard and blunt drain from the battery bank to some degree while it's in operation on the water."

 

[0xkruzr]

Maybe 5% of the time this happens, the other 95% of the time the company or the product disappears with zero support.

What happens is a company builds something solid and great then they become the company to beat so another company emerges with a superior product and then it becomes the company to beat. Unfortunately this type of thing doesn't happen much anymore as the big company just copies the little companies ideas and they release their new model with the same specs.

Nothing compares to Victron and I doubt anything will. They've been in business a while and not only are their products far superior but they provide tools (like VRM) to support their products free of charge. Not sure what weird restrictions you're talking about as you can build your own cerbo using their software on something like a raspberrypi. Even use any screen instead of their touch since its just hdmi, or not use a screen as their VRM is amazing. They even have a victron grafana docker app that allows you to use a device to make your own dashboards if you want.... all FREE.

Victron is more expensive because they use better components and better engineering. their tech is free.

honestly this strikes me as a very well-informed endorsement and I really like the model of "build high quality equipment, sell that, and keep your ecosystem open and free to use."

 

[schmism]

Mounted on the boat. Why would that be a problem? I'm not thinking to run the boat solely off that input; largely the idea here is "panels will charge the boat while it's in the storage yard and blunt drain from the battery bank to some degree while it's in operation on the water."

50hp = about 37kw. so the electric version of something like a 50hp outboard, you need 37kw to run it for 1 hr.

37kwh/48v = 770ah of battery. thats like 8 eg4 batteries at $1500 each. so thats $12,000 worth of batteries, 800lbs of weight and you only manged to move the boat around the pond for a couple of hrs.

It would take about a weeks worth of sitting for the boat to charge up fully with a 1500w array of PV.

with that 1500w of solar on the boat you could generate about 2hp of output while the sun is shinning.

Saillife has a 48v electric outboard on their tinny dinngy and only pushes it about 3mph with 2 people.

 

[justinm001]

honestly this strikes me as a very well-informed endorsement and I really like the model of "build high quality equipment, sell that, and keep your ecosystem open and free to use."

Exactly why I like Victron so much. Not only are they the undisputed best in the business but they actually have an ecosystem thats open, uses mainly standard cat6 cables and they actively work with vendors to build integrations. Their Cerbo supports all the CAN protocols and lets you easily change the mode on any of their bus ports.

I plugged in a USB BT adapter and it just works, same with a usb GPS adapter. Now I get the weather on my VRM and have BT Ruuvi sensors throughout my coach which is integrated into VRM and can log all the temps.... all without paying Victron for anything additional. They also keep adding integrations and listen to their customers when updating the products... which is a couple clicks in VRM.

 

[justinm001]

50hp = about 37kw. so the electric version of something like a 50hp outboard, you need 37kw to run it for 1 hr.

37kwh/48v = 770ah of battery. thats like 8 eg4 batteries at $1500 each. so thats $12,000 worth of batteries, 800lbs of weight and you only manged to move the boat around the pond for a couple of hrs.

It would take about a weeks worth of sitting for the boat to charge up fully with a 1500w array of PV.

with that 1500w of solar on the boat you could generate about 2hp of output while the sun is shinning.

Saillife has a 48v electric outboard on their tinny dinngy and only pushes it about 3mph with 2 people.

Kinda impressed with this boat and starting to look at catamarans for my next project its doable

https://www.silent-yachts.com/silent60/

 

[schmism]

Kinda impressed with this boat and starting to look at catamarans for my next project its doable

https://www.silent-yachts.com/silent60/

100% doable. $3,000,000 and you can have a helva electric drive anything. But then again if you had that kind of $$$ you wouldn't be posting on a DIY solar forum.

 

[Supervstech]

100% doable. $3,000,000 and you can have a helva electric drive anything. But then again if you had that kind of $$$ you wouldn't be posting on a DIY solar forum.

Soo… $18MILLION dollars…

Kinda impressed with this boat and starting to look at catamarans for my next project its doable

https://www.silent-yachts.com/silent60/

yeah… an impressive lifestyle choice to be sure… a goal for retirement I suppose…

 

[Supervstech]

50hp = about 37kw. so the electric version of something like a 50hp outboard, you need 37kw to run it for 1 hr.

37kwh/48v = 770ah of battery. thats like 8 eg4 batteries at $1500 each. so thats $12,000 worth of batteries, 800lbs of weight and you only manged to move the boat around the pond for a couple of hrs.

It would take about a weeks worth of sitting for the boat to charge up fully with a 1500w array of PV.

with that 1500w of solar on the boat you could generate about 2hp of output while the sun is shinning.

Saillife has a 48v electric outboard on their tinny dinngy and only pushes it about 3mph with 2 people.

Slightly exaggerated, but not by much… sure, the 800Ah would only power the boat for one hour at full throttle, but puttering around the pond as you say would likely only use 200Ah… and with good sun on a 1500W array, it would impact the battery little.
A full day of cruising at .25 power, would be a TON of power, and most boats don’t have room for charging the bank needed to move a boat for long.
It is very difficult to math it out, but suffice to say, just battling a strong breeze would push the charging abilities of an average solar array…

 

[Crowz]

Spending that kind of money I'm getting one of russia's old alpha class submarines

 

[0xkruzr]

50hp = about 37kw. so the electric version of something like a 50hp outboard, you need 37kw to run it for 1 hr.

37kwh/48v = 770ah of battery. thats like 8 eg4 batteries at $1500 each. so thats $12,000 worth of batteries, 800lbs of weight and you only manged to move the boat around the pond for a couple of hrs.

It would take about a weeks worth of sitting for the boat to charge up fully with a 1500w array of PV.

with that 1500w of solar on the boat you could generate about 2hp of output while the sun is shinning.

Saillife has a 48v electric outboard on their tinny dinngy and only pushes it about 3mph with 2 people.

50HP? No, this is a pair of 2200W motors. A week's worth of sitting to charge up fully is literally just fine.

 

[0xkruzr]

Kinda impressed with this boat and starting to look at catamarans for my next project its doable

https://www.silent-yachts.com/silent60/

Personally I'm more of a fan of the Silent 80 with it's built in shuttlebay

Slightly exaggerated, but not by much… sure, the 800Ah would only power the boat for one hour at full throttle, but puttering around the pond as you say would likely only use 200Ah… and with good sun on a 1500W array, it would impact the battery little.
A full day of cruising at .25 power, would be a TON of power, and most boats don’t have room for charging the bank needed to move a boat for long.
It is very difficult to math it out, but suffice to say, just battling a strong breeze would push the charging abilities of an average solar array…

I currently have 200Ah of storage in there at 48V. We're not going anywhere NEAR as fast as I think you're assuming. Much smaller motors and not nearly as much constant cruising. For a good part of the day on a trip out she'll be at anchor, sitting in the sun expending no power. These guys seem to do just fine and I think have less storage than I do.