so after several months of downtime baby Ricardo is finally reaching the age where we can take him out and go comfortably for some day sails, so we've found ourselves a couple of sparring partners here in the anchorage, today we're out with our friends on NonnaRosa and that would be Barbara and Coco and their son Benjamin who's the captain of the ship, this has been great practice for us as we've had some beautiful weather, so we've made some trips all the way around the island as we brush up our skills before we venture off on some longer excursions, but in the last episode I put out to you guys, you all came back with some great feedback and some great questions so today we're going to do a little Q&A and answer some of those questions hello? oh I hear somebody, Benjamin! (hey) how's it going man? (always saving me with the water) oh you're coming to Rick and Maddie's water center (yeah exactly) (full of water tanks) yeah okay I just filled that one up (okay) that was one of these yeah, so it's there, so you can take that and fill that too if you want (okay) so these are mine we'll keep these here, and then how many more do you need? (I was thinking those four is good) yeah I think so, it should be all right, I think I've done about 260 liters so far today (I'm trying to fill up my water tanks without telling you) oh I know you had a you had a big boatload of people (yeah) okay all right well let's fill up this one to start good? all right perfect, yeah look at that water today (crystal clear) it's beautiful, beautiful summer day (yeah) can't argue, these are the kind of days we've been waiting for, light wind, just a nice breeze, beautiful water, and look at that sky beautiful so hey you guys I'd like to introduce you to my friend Jack Housni? (Hosni) Hosni, and Jack is about to become a trendsetter in San Andres island with solar energy as one of the first solar powered businesses on the island now you guys might remember in a lot of my videos you've seen the floating ibiza bar out on the reef well Jack is one of the owners of the ibiza bar and he's agreed to convert the ibiza bar... because if you guys remember I've been out there before and it's run completely off a generator they run a gas generator for how long now/ (for three years) three years for what eight-ten hours a day something like that? (something like that, from ten o'clock in the morning to six o'clock in the afternoon) every single day and it's loud, so they have to crank the stereo up because nobody can hear the generator now we're going to switch it over to an electric basically a solar generator the one that we showed you the other day the Bluettie and Jack is the one who bought all of my old solar panels off the top of the boat, so he's going to put them on top of ibiza bar, power the Bluetti and Bluetti's gonna power the entire ibiza bar that's gonna be cool, good job on you Jack (thank you) so I'm gonna take you out there when we get around to this project he's gonna start by putting up the solar panels now we're going to bring out the generator, the solar generator and install it and start hooking it up and see how it works, are you going to be just running the stereo are you going to run like a freezer or anything like that? (I have a stereo I have the vhf radio, blender several things, but not refrigerator for now) so small AC appliances but you should know I know you bring big bags of ice out there every day (every day) well I have a five cubic foot freezer that draws less than one kilowatt hour per day so you could run that for two days off the Bluetti without even solar power (okay) and if you've got enough solar power you could keep it running indefinitely that way you could actually make ice in the freezer or just put your beer and make it cold overnight before everybody gets there in the morning (with this solution of the solar panel I can think in several other things for the for ibiza, so it could be) yeah you'll have lots of opportunity but yeah I'm looking forward to testing that it's going to be the first solar-powered business in San Andres, so we're leaving a good trail behind us, so very cool, so anyway we'll catch up on that one later, but now back to what we were talking about earlier. all right, so I want to start no..... I wasn't looking at the lens, you got to remember not don't watch yourself (okay) it's a hard habit to break, but you got to look here, (yeah I know) they know you're watching yourself okay, so I want to start by saying thank you to all of you guys for all the great comments and feedback in the last video when we featured the Bluetti solar generator and I know there's some contention about what we call that, but that's an industry-wide term used on a whole new generation of products, so we're going to talk about that today and answer a few of your questions because you guys had some great questions, brought up some good points and some good points of contention also, now I think you guys remember Benjamin, Benjamin is one of our good friends that we met back in Panama... well no we met him in San Andres last year, but you might remember when we've crossed paths with them again in Panama, but it's Benjamin and his family on the sailboat in NonnaRosa that you see us sparring with at the beginning of this video, now for those of you with a really good memory you might remember as these were the same guys that saved our bacon when we were sailing to where? (San Blas) San Blas yeah he remembers see? when we yeah we blew out our muffler tube, remember the muffler tube blew out? but there's definitely another spot where the hose is gonna rupture soon oh no what happened down here look (so did it find a new place?) we are not getting out of here alive these guys had the only extra roll of duct tape, we had already used up all our duct tape and they passed it to us from the sailboat as we were sailing it was very very cool, but yeah thanks, this is why we like the cruising community there's always somebody around to help, now Benjamin is here because he's a fellow cruiser too and he's learning about all this stuff and has a direct interest in it because he's about to outfit his boat with a new upgrade with lithium and he's got solar, and going to be putting a water maker on soon also, so of course he has interest when we're talking about this stuff and I thought that he might be asking some good questions like you guys might, so to get started I'm gonna let Benjamin read our first question from you guys which was from Eric de la Villenciari, I hope I got that right Eric because you are one of our subscribers, so thanks very much for subscribing and the question is (Bluetti is good but pricey, I put together a five kilowatt system in a large toolbox, it's heavy, but still manageable, price wise it came out about 1000 which is a lot more bang for your bucks, it does require you to read up on basic electrical systems but well worth the investment and you can adapt it to your specific requirements) exactly and thank you for bringing this up Eric because there's always going to be the do-it-yourself community and there always should be, okay? now I suspect though when you put five kilowatts and one thousand dollars in the same system there's a good chance you're probably talking about the battery bank, the lithium bank itself, but you know over above a thousand dollars you're still going to have to add in your inverter, your solar chargers, your DC controllers, your regulators, all of that kind of stuff, now as much as I love do it yourself also this type of product, not just the Bluetti but all of the industry is not designed towards you, it's designed towards the person who just likes like a plug and play computer, you know plug it in, turn it on and it just works everything is there so yeah we're talking about a little bit different here, I understand exactly where you're coming from believe me and I appreciate it, thank you very much for your question, next question from Mar and actually it doesn't look like much of a question, so much as a statement, says sorry but I doubt that you are not sponsored, okay Mar I think I dedicated an entire paragraph to this in the previous video where I clearly stated that I am not paid or endorsed by this company in any way nor any of the other companies that you're going to see in the very near future, these are products that are sent to me, they are sent to me with no charge because they ask me what I like to review their products I said yes, they sent them to me so I'm reviewing, so the only thing that's sponsored is just the product itself, but there is absolutely no requirement on me to give a positive review or to sell this product I am not a salesperson for Bluetti or any other company that you're going to see me reviewing their products in the very near future, I am here for you guys, the only ones paying me are my patrons and google ads on these videos, as far as the products go, not all products are sponsored a lot of the stuff I'm going to be showing you stuff that I bought from my own money okay it's just stuff that I believe in that I know is going to be useful to a lot of you in this environment, when I say this environment yes this is a sailing channel, but we are more about sailing lifestyle and how to do it, I got a lot of experience with this stuff and I'm just here to share it with you guys, so when you hear my opinion based on one of these products it's just what I think about it from me to you so whether you think you should buy it or not that's completely up to you, it's nothing to do with me my job is done once I've told you what I think of the product, but just to illustrate that point to you I'm going to show you something up here because we have already replaced the Bluetti with this bad boy right here, Peter! hey how's it going man? (I'm good thank you Rick thank you very much for the tupperwear, I would put it in boiling water and maybe get it exercised) oh yeah you feeling better now? (well yeah yeah just get really tired like like straight away) yeah yeah (I did some exertions this morning, but anyway um) all right man (oh yeah yeah also think maybe uh I'm off to town I'm gonna get to lunch hey Ben how are you doing?) (oh good) (yeah hey um Rick do you have a volleyball?) a volleyball no sir, frisbee? (oh yeah I was thinking we could have clash of the channels, we could do frisbee golf?) uh oh (what do you reckon?) no frisbee is always fun (yeah but have you played frisbee golf?) but you know we're gonna kick your ass (it's the journey there not the end result) uh huh (probably would have to do it early where there's not, so many people) oh yeah it's always busy after about... (going to miss out obviously) (that's a problem for me) yeah I don't think we'll see Ben what do you think about noon? (maybe) (yeah I jumped on his boat once I think it was like 9:30 the boat's there and everything and I know...) he's still sawing logs
(and I was walking down I'm thinking is this like the maori celeste? you know that boat where everyone disappeared? everyone was dead, I'm going Ben?) free boat yeah we know, he's sleeping (oops) (out like...) (I'm a vampire) (yeah I don't know what you are man I sleep like two hours a night far around I wish I could have that) yeah I'm always up by sunrise also that's when I like to do my bike ride (yeah I miss it every day) yeah I tried to get you this morning and you were like no answer, all right man we get back to our work here (thank you again for helping me in my time of need) no worries man I'll give these back to Madeleina thank you, cheers glad you're feeling better see you around (bye) okay, but yeah back to this bad boy, this is the next one on the test bench, as you can see I'm just doing a charge on it right now it's already at 79% we're just putting in 238 watts from that one 400 watt solar panel you see right there across the deck, but this one is by Ecoflow it's the new delta pro and I think it only recently just hit the markets, this was one of their products that they launched last year uh like a kickstarter program and they raised eight million dollars to develop this product, and I've been very anxious to test this product and do a review for you guys, so that's the one that's coming up next, so keep an eye out because that's going to be a video in the very near future as we test this bad boy (which one you prefer the most?) Ecoflow or Bluetti?) that's a hard determination because they're two completely different animals I mean this one is much more powerful than the bluetti, but it's also you know it's heavier it's more of a beast like, but this one this is one that there's a lot of capacity in this one box right here, I don't want to express favoritism toward one or the other yet I'm still testing it but I've had this unit on board for three to four months just like the bluetti, so far I'm liking it, but that's for a different video, we're gonna wait until I do a full review on that one that's why I say we're just doing some testing again still on it right now, but even over and above that let's have a look down here, and this one from insta360, a camera manufacturer we love camera manufacturers, but this is the first time we've had a full box of goodies sent to us and this is all sponsored goods as well, we're not paid to review this stuff they just said you want to try our stuff, yeah, so they sent me a box check this out man it's like I can't wait to get at some of this stuff we got the new x1, the new one x2 camera the insta 360 go 2. all the different accessories for it waterproof cases, motorcycle handlebar mounts, selfie sticks carry cases, you can just imagine I'm going to have so much fun with this stuff I can't wait to test and review this stuff because we've been using you know mostly Gopro and my Sony's for a long time but I think insta regards themselves as a direct competitor to Gopro, so I'm looking forward to see how they compare A to B you know see how they work, but that's going to be coming up in some reviews also, but now yeah let's get back to what we were talking about here next question this one is from Quentin Mostert another subscriber thank you very much for your question Quentin, and he says why don't you put the generator in the dinghy and run an extension cable to the cockpit, let the dinghy drift a little away from the boat you won't hear any noise I won't deny that I have thought about doing that in the past, but the reality of it is if I put the generator in the dinghy and just let it sit back there one of two things is going to happen, the generator exhaust is going to burn a hole in the dinghy and I'm going to have a real set of problems or it's going to really upset the neighborhood (that's me! I'm going to move my boat) because all the boats anchored close to us especially behind us we try and shield that noise as much as possible, not just get you know not just put it further away from us but closer to the neighbors and even more in an open environment, so appreciate the suggestion, it is quite funny, but uh yeah we won't be doing that anytime soon, but thanks, next question from Ken Tracey, and Ken says sure you push these products because they're all free for you, but 1700 is not cheap for the rest of us, agreed I am fully aware of this, but my purpose here is just to show all of you because some of you are probably interested in products like this and I know that the average boat out there similar to mine is in the average price range of about you know 100 to 250'000$ and they're going to be looking for similar products like this to outfit the boats or back up their systems or anything like that, there are people that this is going to appeal to and you know when you say it's not cheap for us that's relevant to your own set of priorities also everybody is sitting there right now watching this video on a computer in a house using electricity and the value of that house or the mortgage payments or your car what you make payments on those are decisions you make you set your own priorities, I don't set your priorities, nobody does, but you, so when you decide what you're going to spend your money on it's because what you have decided is worth that money to you, and if you want to start allocating more funds towards products that last longer term with less expense in the long run like solar generation, I'm all for it and I think this is a good place to start for a lot of people because like I said it's plug and play you can just plug one of these things in and you can back up your whole system, whether it's at your house you know for a short time, but it's still it gives you something, I'm all about peace of mind you guys know me that's why my motto has always been backups on my backups, this is just another backup for me, but Ken thank you again for your question, much appreciated, next question from Doug Marder another subscriber, thank you very much Doug and this is a long one, the engineers can forgive poor sailor Rick, but I agree it is just a big power bank, yes you are right, but it's no more just a big power bank than a generator is not a generator unless it has fuel, once you add solar panels to this equation you have a generator, the solar panels are the generator converting a fuel photons into electricity the rest of the system is a wonderful combination of chargers, inverters, regulators, monitors, ports, and batteries, yes exactly thank you for pointing that out because that's exactly what it is, but it is still a backup portable powered device, a solar generator, and it has all of those units replicated in addition to what we have on the boat, and also for full use if you're just using it in a house that will actually allow you to generate electricity from solar for a very long time because these systems have a battery bank that's going to be good for probably at least 10 years and the solar panels typically have a lifespan around 20 years even with an expected lifespan of only 10 years, this compares extremely well to say a honda 2000 portable generator in terms of cost, assuming equal reliability which is yet unproven, at $1130US, at a package price of around $3600US for the generator and three solar panels with gasoline prices in the neighborhood of four dollars per gallon this thing could pay for itself very quickly, then there are the environmental benefits, no co2 exhaust blowing back into the cockpit and cabin and most blessed, no sound I can't agree with you more and thank you for spelling that out I couldn't have said it better myself honestly and you are exactly right, you will spend more for one of these systems and the solar panels, but what you do is offset the cost of spending money on gasoline for the rest of your life for a generator and there is no generator in the world I'm sorry that is going to last for 10-15-20 years without a ton of maintenance, parts, oil changes, looking after it constantly, I mean (yeah you know in a environment like this in a boat, forget it) yeah you guys might be thinking generators in your house in the backyard where it's fully contained in a stable environment, throw that in a boat full of sea water and salt air and yes, you're gonna have issues, and when you look at the other side of the coin well first of all you said gasoline at four dollars a gallon, and I think it's going to be a lot higher than that in the very near future, I've heard a lot of you guys telling me that you're seeing gas prices in the neighborhood of what $2.50, $3 a litre I can't even imagine guys, I mean how how somebody could even afford that I've seen you all posting jokes about oh your mortgage got approved you can fill your gas tanks now, it's like... I'm sorry, but yeah that's a very tough pill to swallow, but it makes me very happy again that you know what five-six years ago I really started putting more investment and time into building my solar system on the boat, and it's been worthwhile I can tell you because we spend almost nothing and I mean nothing on combustible fuels, so even if you spend an extra 1500 bucks on the three solar panels just amortize that over the cost of how much fuel you'll be saving running a little generator if you have to run that generator as a main power supply, because if you're running that thing every day for several hours or anything just because you need it, you're gonna be spending about fifty dollars a month minimum on fuel even for a small generator if you're using it on a regular basis, and I know that because I know what the cost of running mine are if you amortize that even over one year you're still talking about $600 a year just in fuel costs okay? and that's for light duty usage, not you know using it as a workhorse or a power supply on a daily basis, so you compare that to the cost of the solar panels, your three solar panels at fifteen sixteen hundred dollars are going to be paid for in three years flat, and that's a big incentive to start now because after that three years you don't have that fuel cost anymore, you've decreased it considerably, and we're not talking about trying to run your whole house again this is a backup power supply is how we are regarding these systems, so in the end of the day how fast it pays for itself is really up to your usage and your intentions with the system, but Doug thank you so much for that detailed analysis and question, we really appreciate it and keep them coming love to hear from you guys, next question from Scott Monson, another subscriber thank you very much Scott, Rick I'm a disabled firefighter and used to love camping, but I now have a cpap and I cannot go to the outdoors because I can't power my cpap there, I have looked into these generators but on a fixed income I cannot afford them do you know how I could get one of these? love your productions, giant hugs, Scott thanks so much for your question and I hear exactly what you're saying I know these are expensive and for somebody who's on limited or fixed income it could be a difficult process to undertake I don't know what to suggest aside from maybe contacting one of the companies and just seeing if they have a program set up for somebody like yourself, it would be a great thing for them to do you know that offer discounts for people who are disabled or veterans or anything like that in order to make it more affordable or possible for you guys, and yes you will be able to run your cpap from it on an ongoing basis and I know that because we've done it on my boat without problems with other people have come aboard and needed to run them, I have to be careful with them because they do draw you know they add an excess amount of draw to the system in the course of the night when they're being used, but as long as we pay attention to it we can always keep up with the demand, thanks again for the question Scott and we wish you all the best with that, next question from dreupen, I believe it is another subscriber thank you sir, you should be more open with details and try not to be more of an expert than you really are, I say this as a supporter, a solar generator is great for taking power to the beach, but it is foolhardy to say that it functions as a generator for the boat, well I agree with you I'm not saying that it should function as a generator for the boat the whether it can be used as a generator of the boat totally depends on the size of the system you implement and remember I told you that this system the one the first one that I showed you by Bluetti is a modular system, it doesn't have to be just the one box you can add as many spare batteries to that is you want to back the system up you can add stronger inverters you can add anything you want okay it's a modular system so depending on your own requirements and your budget you can build it to whatever specifications you want where it could actually replace the entire system on your boat, one would be much better with an additional LiFePO battery capacity either as a true bank increase or as a separate reserve bank, not my recommendation, yes I agree with you here also you'd be better off if all you want is extra capacity just add the extra capacity it's probably going to be cheaper in the long run but again I can't stress enough I'm not talking about trying to upgrade or you know replace my existing system, I have a system implemented the boat that I've built over the last couple years that I'm happy with, for me this device simply represents a small box backup that I can just put in a locker fully charged and if I have a lightning strike or something you know, it's just there, I can pull it out of storage and fire it up and be able to gain some power when we otherwise couldn't have it, your capacity test has problems you started at 98% but anyone who works with LiFePO BMS knows that this can be off especially, while the BMS is still learning and calculating capacity cycles, charge it to the max first and end with the same max charge yes the inverter is the biggest loss of power, test DC power capacity to find it out and not guesstimate, you are exactly right and thank you for pointing that out I knew somebody was going to notice that and I will tell you if you watch the video you'll see that on both in and out I did charge the battery to 100% full the problem was by the time I got the camera set up to do the time lapse for the discharge it was already at 98%, but I guarantee you that I did start it after a full charge and the charger had shut down it was at 100%, so no worries, but thank you for pointing that out and for catching it, your other point about the inverter losses, yes you are exactly right again I did not do a DC capacity test for only one reason and it's because this guy this is my dc load tester, it's dead, sorry, nothing I can do about that I need to get a replacement but not something I can possibly get where I am now I need to order a replacement and bring it down, but this is what I would normally use for discharging directly the lithium battery in the solar generator and that is exactly right how you said you can only test 100% of the capacity on the DC side because otherwise when we test on the AC side yes you're going to lose on the charging with the AC charger and you're going to lose on the AC inverter on the discharge, so not much I can do about that, but I do tend to prefer looking at worst case scenarios at the same time but we are going to try and remedy that in some of the future tests, so hopefully I can get my instrument replaced and then we'll carry on from there, but again, thanks for noticing you got a good eye mate, Neal Fenster says interesting device, but for you it's a red herring for you Neal I'm not sure what you mean by red herring (yeah the same I'm the same) is that kind of my my unicorn? or something the mystical creature I don't know what you mean by the red herring but I think I get the context you're talking about, but he goes on to say if there is no sun for your solar there won't be sun for this yes good point, but this is where I think some of you took out of context how I was you know analyzing this product and its features in relation to not just how it reacts to it... or how it interacts with my system on my boat, but how it can interact
with a system for you guys if you're using it either in your house or your own applications because I have my system set as a foundation and I wasn't looking to just add this as an auxiliary battery to my system, my system's like a complex consolidation of a lot of products, all into one thing that I've had to intermix and figure out and wire all together the Bluetti is kind of a standalone that represents a backup of everything on the boat in miniature form, okay, it has a battery bank, it has a solar charger, it has an AC charger, it has all these different components that if my system goes down completely like you know we got (lightning strikes) well yeah lightning strikes exactly we gonna cruise in Panama and stuff like that again and Panama is famous for lightning strikes we have a lot of friends who've been struck by lightning down there and I hope it never happens to us, we've had an indirect strike before... but if we do take a hit, the entire system is going to be gone and you never know what's going to last, but if you have a backup component hidden in a locker somewhere that's completely independent of everything on the boat you can immediately just take that system out turn it on it's already fully charged up, you got an inverter you got an AC power supply, DC power supply you've got charge regulators, if some of your solar panels survive you can plug that in and keep charging the system, it's something that covers you in a massive failure yes I know it is much like just a big battery bank but to me it represents much more than that because it backs up my entire system, if everything should fail, and that's a big factor if you're out in the middle of the ocean in the Pacific somewhere and all of a sudden everything goes down you know we carry a backup VHF and stuff like that on board isolated in its own container as well, so if our system goes down on the boat and we can pull out a backup battery supply that can still run you know a cooking utensil or a microwave oven or anything like that and still run a backup VHF system or even a single sideband for long-range communications that's an important thing to consider, that's how I look at these devices and not just the Bluetti, but the entire industry that is coming to fruition with all of these new products now Neal continues to say add a battery and a solar panel to your system and you will accomplish more yes for your overall system and its components but again that doesn't protect you in the event of the failure that we've been discussing (yeah) you know? you've got a battery bank system now, you've got solar panels, but if they all get wiped out what have you got? (nothing, the generator) the generator exactly, but the generator is... this is what these guys are talking about as well the gas generator they say is a generator, it generates electricity (yeah) but what happens when they run out of fuel (yeah I know, yeah exactly) and when you want to use anything on the boat you have to run the generator whether you're utilizing the full capabilities of the energy that you're producing with that fuel or not, and that's something to be considered (yeah the sun is always over there waiting, if it's cloudy...)
some of you don't like the fact that we call these solar generators, but they are in fact generators if you go back and look at my generator in the back and you see it on its own hey without that little red fuel can on top it's a big useless piece of metal, that's what it is it ain't generating anything with no fuel, so if you have run out of fuel, if you can't get fuel if you can't afford fuel, because we've all seen what the cost of fuel going like in the last little while it's like (crazy) crazy and that's what makes me more than happy to distance myself from the fact that they can utterly control you through the cost of you producing your own energy you know what? you buy the solar panel you buy it once it's good for 20 years, on average, so if you look after it you've got an endless fuel supply from the sun, now that my friends is a big difference and I have no issue whatsoever with calling these items a solar generator because yes they can't generate anything on their own, they can only store power and give it back to you when you want it, the gas generator is no different if you don't have that reserve tank of fuel you have nothing, if you don't have a solar panel with a solar generator you have nothing, but if you have the two of them together which we can utilize at any time, in any place in the world, on any ocean on any island, whether there's people around or nobody, no fuel stations or anything, the sun at some point is going to shine, back to Neal's question, if someone doesn't have as good a system as yours or they want power at a remote area, a beach party it may make sense but it will not replace a primary generator, no of course it won't, but a primary generator can never replace a solar generator also, you know the two of them kind of augment each other, if you really want to have a fail-safe backup system you have one of each really, the solar generator is always going to be able to work no matter what, but if you have lost power completely you're not trying to run everything in your house and your air conditioning and everything like that it's not going to be possible because you sooner or later you will run out of fuel and the solar generator is not going to run it, but it will give you your basic necessities for sure in an ongoing and sustainable matter, that's a big difference, so something to consider but yeah Neal thank you so much for your question I really appreciate it, next question comes from Justin Burton, another subscriber thank you very much Justin, he says great overview Rick one thing I didn't hear you touch on though I may have missed it is that LiFePO4 batteries are a good deal safer than the traditional lithium-ion batteries, they don't overheat and catch fire subjected abuse versus a lead acid battery, they are also maintenance free don't give off toxic fumes and are much lighter for the amount of energy storage you get, now this is something yes I actually did touch on this at the beginning of the last video, but it is a point that we need to discuss on a regular basis because there's still a lot of people would you agree? that wonder about the difference between lithium-ion and lifepo4? you were one of them until recently you asked me the same question (yeah I was thinking about lithium-ion cheap ones) yeah (to save money and then I knew that maybe destroy my boat) but you did some research I think and then he started asking me some questions and I said the same thing you've got to be really careful with lithium ion lithium ion has a very high energy density, so you can pack a lot of power in a small space but when you start trying to cram power in really fast or pull power out really fast, they get hot and if they overheat too fast, it gets it runs out of control and all of a sudden the whole thing just bursts into spontaneous combustion and you can't stop it (exactly you can put it under water and still) it will keep on burning even underwater (crazy yeah) let's see, I mean companies like Tesla they use these on their cars because obviously the energy density and the weight are a consideration the LiFePO4 batteries weigh more and occupy more space, so you don't have that space in a car (yeah) and he's trying to keep the weight down obviously but the difference is if you do have this problem in a car you can open the door and step out and walk away from the fire and just let it sit there and burn (call the insurance) if it happens on your boat yeah you have a much bigger problem all of a sudden you know one minute everything is fine and the next minute you're committed to the dinghy or a life raft, there's no choice and you just sit there and watch the boat go down, that's not fun, so no we do not recommend nor endorse the use of lithium-ion batteries in a boat, I don't think anybody does that knows the difference, LiFePO4 is still more expensive, it's still bigger for the amount of energy that you can contain in a given space, but the safety factor completely nullifies all of those, so you don't have to worry about your boat exploding, spontaneous combusting or anything like that they just don't burn (don't try to save money with boat stuff) yeah that is one good point they say don't try and save money with boat stuff I agree on some points other points I disagree because sometimes they just raise the price because it's for a boat, and there's no justification (depends) but in products like this no it is definitely pays to do your research (yeah) you know you need to do your own diligence before you make any purchase in this market and even with the LiFePO4 make sure you get a reputable company because some of them have very good battery management systems and some of them are just not, I mean if your BMS system fails on you, now you are alone with the battery cells and there's no management system, there's no regulation as to when it overheats or draws too much power or anything like that, so the BMS system is a very very important part of it so research the components if you're getting drop-ins, make sure you know who's building it, what kind of reputation they have, what kind of warranty comes with it, all that kind of thing it makes a big difference guys I mean seriously this is not just your house we're talking about like a floating house, it's your lives, okay our next question is from islandonlinenews and actually yeah it's not a question it's kind of a statement, it says put the solar panels right on the dinghy dodger, but you know I actually have two solar panels for the dinghy bimini the only reasons that I haven't implemented them yet, well there's a couple reasons the first one is that once I have them mounted on there, every night we bring the dinghy up which means that right now unless I have a way to bring it up with the dinghy... sorry with the bimini in the upright position I'm gonna have to take the panels off every night to lay the bimini down (pain in the butt) yeah that's a bit of a deterrent, something you have to repeat every single day is a bit of a problem and we don't leave it down in the water every night, we want to keep the dinghy out of the water it's specific for well safety, so you know it's a precaution, so that it doesn't get stolen in the middle of night because typically if you leave your dinghy in the water, depending on the area that you're sailing in yeah as you know some areas are good some areas are bad, but... (it depends on your dinghy too) it depends on your dinghy (yeah nice one it's gone) yeah nice one's gonna be gone fast, but really they want the engine, a lot of times yeah if you have a standard engine, the Yamaha, Honda, you know Tohatsu, any kind of common engine that's very well known (Nissan) Nissan oh is that what you got? you have to be careful because a lot of times they'll just steal the dinghy to steal the engine then they'll sink the dinghy somewhere, but getting back to the point it makes it a little bit more difficult bringing the dinghy up out of the water every night which of course would make us lazy and possibly make a mistake and leave it in the water one night instead of bringing it up and then we put ourselves at the risk of losing the dinghy, so I don't want to do that also I need a more specialized regulator for the dinghy because the dinghy has a 48 volt battery but the solar panels that I can put on the bimini are not large enough to exceed 30 volts which means you won't get any charging because the charging source is a lower voltage than where the charge is being received in the battery, so you won't get any power put in there I'm looking into some devices that can help out with that, I've got a couple things on order to test out and see how they work, but again that's in the future, but good question or statement so thanks again islandonlinenews we always love to hear from you, so don't be afraid to leave your recommendations, we always appreciate them, next question this one from 8-bit Kid are you going to replace your main engine with an electric or hybrid one eventually? okay now this is a very big question and I know a lot of you have been waiting to hear what we've been decided on with our main engine we had that whole talk about you know electric or diesel you remember? (yeah) and what would you recommend? (diesel) yeah but why? you have diesel now obviously if you had to replace your engine right now what would you be putting in knowing what's on the market now basically (like you mean for electric? or or another diesel?) if you had the opportunity to start from scratch right now and say I'm going to put in anything I want if I can afford it, what would it be (diesel) and your reason? (with electrics you don't have enough range...)
(good question you got me why? what reason? I never think about it) I know a lot of people don't yeah they answer off the cuff, but nobody really thinks because there's a lot more to it than just making a simple decision, I mean for me I would love to say electric, beautiful! but how am I gonna power it, okay this is the issue for me I think electric is great if you live and you're a coastal cruiser you know living in an area where you just take your boat back to the marina every night and plug it in you can take it out every day on the weekends, whatever you got enough power, but if you're living as a cruiser on an anchor, you have to replace all of that power unless you're sailing constantly all the time where's the power going to come from? (exactly) there's only one place it can come from because you can't put enough solar panels on the boat to replenish 60 kilowatts, I mean I have an insane amount of solar on my boat as you guys know, but... (insane) even I can only generate 10 to 12 kilowatt hours per day on average, of solar power on average now that isn't gonna even cause a hiccup for an electric motor on a sailboat this is what I have right now is a 60 kilowatt motor, how many horsepower is your motor? (75) okay mine's 85 horsepower, yours is 75, so mine's like 60 kilowatts yours is around 50-55 kilowatts it's the same thing (55) but even if you run your boat at half throttle how fast can you go? (half throttle... six knots?) you can do six knots (yeah) and how many gallons of fuel you carry in your boat? (I have in the tanks inside 430) liters? (liters) so just over 100 gallons about the same as me, so if you could do six knots and you're using how much fuel do you think at that point? do you know? (uh it's around two liters per hour) so you have a range over let's say 1'000 miles (yeah) yeah you can't do that with electric if you have even 100 kilowatts, 100 kilowatt hours of lithium storage on your boat, okay? and you have a 50 kilowatt motor you could get two hours maximum at full speed, of course we're not going to use full speed because it's very inefficient, but even at half throttle, okay you're running 25 kilowatts yeah that means that you could run four hours at six knots, your range is effectively about 24 miles (it's nothing) no that's a big difference that's the problem it's like we said it's great if you're just going out of the marina down the coast a few miles, go sailing, come back to the marina plug it in again at night, no problem (in the middle of the doldrums) if you're in the middle of the doldrums and you're trying to you know move and get out of them, so you don't have to spend three weeks sitting there with no wind or you're sailing and you know there's a big ass storm coming after you and you need to get out of the way (yeah) you're not going to do that with electric, the only way you can do it with electric is if you have a big diesel to back it up for when you need consistent power, and that is the issue, because now instead of just having a diesel engine that does the job on its own you have a very expensive electric motor a very expensive bank of lithium, I mean do you guys know how much 100 kilowatt hours of lithium would cost even a today's dollar? you're still talking 30 - $40'000 even if you partially do it yourself, that's something to consider I'm sorry, for me if I have unlimited budget no problem yeah take it give me a 200 I don't care, but then you have to follow all that with a diesel engine big enough to deliver 40 or 50 kilowatts to keep the thing going (so you start in the same point again) yeah, but now you've taken that engine and put it in a reserve block somewhere and you're using an electric motor as your main power source driven by a diesel, now granted that might be a little bit more efficient I know, so a lot of people have said that that makes the system overall more efficient, but at a cost of what? this is something we have to consider as always a cost and I don't know about you, but I can't afford that cost because the average system for my size of boat is going to be a hundred thousand dollars minimum, for yours is going to be very close to the same a smaller boat no problem, yeah you could probably do it for 30 - $40'000 which is about the same cost as what you know our full diesel replacement is going to cost on this boat because a diesel 85 horsepower for this size of boat is in the neighborhood... you know depending on the brand that you pick somewhere between 20 to 26, 27, 28'000 okay, but that's the area that we are in and the engine that we just selected is right in that upper price range, it's a complete package though so that comes with the hydraulic transmission, with the 12 volt starter, with a backup starter, it comes with a 24 volt alternator for our main bank right now, so there's a few components in there but yeah we're just under $30'000 complete for the full system, whereas if we went hybrid, hybrid is a great option and I think it's gonna it's definitely gonna move us in a different direction within the next five to ten years but still the exact same order as what we just bought with the hybrid add-on goes from $30'000 between up to between 50 to $60'000, that's a big pill to swallow and that still doesn't include your lithium (yeah) you still need the ultimate power source which is the lithium, so for me that just makes it unaffordable it's not possible at this point, so I'd love to say it is, but I'm gonna have to wait until the technology becomes more evolved and more consistent, and the price drops just like what's happening with lithium now three years ago lithium was unattainable by most of us, but now it started to come down consistently in price and I think that we're going to see very affordable lithium in the next couple of years but to finally let the cat out of the bag to you guys, we have made a final decision and we are installing a brand new Beta Marine 85 horsepower turbo diesel engine, this is our selection and I will tell you why, there's a lot of manufacturers out there that we look at as very very good products, but I wanted something that was very close to what I have now, the Perkins which is completely mechanical (yeah simple) simple (that's what you need in a boat) fix it anywhere and that was my biggest priority I wanted something you know without all the electronics on it that we're going to interfere with being able to fix it in remote locations, because that's my biggest concern being in the middle of the Pacific and a sensor goes off or something all of a sudden you're blocked from your engine, like what's your engine? I got a Yanmar 75 horsepower without electronics) you got the Yanmar 75, but it's an older version before the electronics (yeah exactly) so you've been able to service it yourself no problem (I don't need to connect to the computer, nothing) no that's good, so that's the way a diesel engine should be, I'm sorry I know some of you believe in the computers and making them a little bit more efficiency by tweaking them here and there and it might make them slightly more efficient but not enough for me to justify the pain in the butt of being stuck in the middle of nowhere and not being able to service an engine and calling the dealer and they're like oh yeah you need to just fly one of our guys out to you and he'll plug in our computer and he'll tell you what's wrong, no I'm sorry that's not going to happen (yeah) yeah and that did happen to some friends of mine I mean I've talked about it before and it's not just one, but it has happened before where people get into these engines and you know I hate saying the names, but when you put all computers on an engine that is meant to just be mechanical and just meant to be dependable and run, you immediately create a big problem and when that problem... this is the worst environment to put a
major system on the boat that is dependent on those sensitive electronics, all these sensors I mean some people are lucky I get it, but yeah I just wasn't looking for that type of application I wanted something that no matter what I could get in there with a greasy pair of gloves and my wrenches and just take that sucker apart and fix it, me or somebody else you know if I can't fix it myself, but this Perkins I've had this Perkins I've been like this with this Perkins for 17 years now, we're acquainted, I've done everything on this engine myself, so I know it pretty well and I'm proud of the fact that I've been able to service it, so I want to carry on that trend as we move forward and that's what we're going to do with this Beta Marine, so I will say thank you very much to Beta Marine for making this possible for us, we've been working closely with them for many months now trying to figure out the best options, the best engine, the best accessories and also our auxiliary power that's going to be used on the Beta Marine which brings us to our next question and that is from Groove Train and I remember your name from a long time I think too, so thanks again for your comments they've been welcome all the time and Groove Train says after 40 plus years in the IT/remote power industry the best solution is one or two 300 amp alternators that uses the fuel and engine you already have, charge all your batteries in around an hour well Groove Train you nailed it on the head for us because that's exactly what we're going to do with this new engine, and we've already been in contact with my old favorite which is Balmer I'm sure many of you are familiar with Balmer I've been using them for what... almost 20 years, I have very very good luck and very much respect for this company, they have made workhorses for these engines for a long time and I hear a lot of these people saying this is something new to use your engine like a generator I've been doing it for 17 years with this boat alone, okay? I always had dual high output Balmer alternators on this engine, now granted the new generation of alternators is far more advanced and far more powerful, we are going to something that is completely different than a even last couple of years ago I wouldn't have dreamed it was possible, but I always had two alternators that were 120 or 140 amps, okay at 12 volts DC which is not bad it still gives you a sustained almost two kilowatts of output, okay, between the two alternators, but the new Balmer that we got I'm going to break that out in a future video, but you will see this is a very special alternator, and it is one of their brand new generation of 48 volt alternators and the first one they sent us is 100 amps at 48 volts DC that my friends is 4.8 kilowatts of output from a direct DC charging source that's going to be run directly from our Beta Marine engine (nice massive) massive (yeah) it's going to be a beautiful thing we had to have custom mounts made for it, this all came out of the UK and took time to put together and get it all sorted out and tested before they could ship it here and the alternator itself just arrived last week, so we've been drooling over that for the last little while but the idea is we need to test this one first, put it on the new mounts make sure everything works and if all is good then we're going to bring in the second alternator and double the output which means we will have a potential 9.6 kilowatts direct DC charging source at 48 volts directly into a brand new 48 volt lithium battery bank, LiFePO4 battery bank that's going to be around 18 kilowatt hours, so we're taking the whole thing to the next step the next level guys and you're gonna be along for the whole ride, I can't wait to share more of this stuff with you, but for now I'm gonna leave it at that, I can't begin to explain how much we appreciate you guys and you're still here watching and paying attention and learning from what we're doing and how we're doing it and yeah we're going to be going sailing again soon don't worry we've been doing a lot more sailing recently now that Ricardo's getting you know of of age enough that we can actually take him out and not worry about him, so he's been a regular little sailor it's amazing, we took out some friends a little while ago and everybody was sick you know just friends from the island yeah I want to go sailing, I want to go sailing! the realities of sailing, not for everyone, poor little guy another one bites the dust no, little Ricardo was the only one who wasn't puking in a bucket, but anyway we're gonna call it right there for today guys, I can't tell you how much we appreciate you for being here and still watching and listening and learning and following along with us as we you know we're taking it to the next level, we're getting ready to sail again soon too, but for now you guys have a great day, stay safe out there, and we'll see you in the next episode (bye bye! ciao!) ciao guys! uh-huh, we had a forced intermission, the Gopro overheated shut off, and this little guy turned on hey you woke up huh? yeah you had a good nap and then you were like I'm ready to play! I'm ready to play! who's that? you see all the people? say hi! who's that? you see? uh-huh say hi everybody! hi everybody! I don't feel like sleeping anymore, so I'm up with daddy yeah I think daddy needs to take a break time for intermission hey bud, yep it's Richie time
2022-05-07