Triskel power generation system on Distant Shores III

[tanglewood]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

.

Most current cruisers its my belief don’t need and won’t benefit from a system such as this, this is for the “Power users” that want shore power capability at anchor and or don’t want anything to do with Solar.

And I would contend that “power users” likely have a generator and large output alternator, or can easily upgrade to such an alternator, and get all the benefits for a fraction of the cost and complexity. They just get no real benefit from the control system.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Any alternator controller I know of only “knows” voltage and only controls voltage.

I'm not talking about internal workings.

Balmar MC-614 "small engine" mode and "belt manager" are common examples.

Obviously designed for set and forget, not dynamically adjustable under way.

But I bet Al Thomason's open source Very Smart Regulator / "Smart Alternator Regulator" project*can be adapted to do so if it doesn't already in the current revision.

Pretty sure it already has shunt integration for going to Float based on endAmps.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Balmar
..
all you need to do is flip a switch and engage small engine mode

Sorry jumped the gun there. Are you saying those alts settings can easily be controlled remotely?

I thought they involved using a sliding magnet. . .

[a64pilot]

I’m pretty sure that small engine mode is wired in.
Idea is I believe that I have a small engine and the alternator is hogging it down, but I NEED power, flip a switch and engage small engine mode.
I think. I have a 165 amp alternator and it’s not enough to bog my motor down, so I didn’t really look.
Then I believe all of Mark Grasser’s alternator controllers have a force to float switch. Flip the switch at any time and your charging voltage goes to float voltage. It’s idea is I’m leaving the Marina fully charged, and don’t want to keep my bank in absorption for hours, with it fully charged.
However it would of course also unload the engine quite a bit most likely.
Oh, and the magnet is a touch, hold and release thing. A little red dot on the controller shows were the proximity switch is, and the controller comes with a neat little screwdriver / magnet, but I think pretty much any magnet will work, and most mechanics have a magnetic retrieving tool.

[a64pilot]

Yes, small engine mode is hard wired in, seems to be just tricking the temp sensor.

[john61ct]

Better than nothing certainly, gives 0 output, ~50% output, then temp regulated / whatever the bank wants to pull.

Still, worth pursuing with thomasow at some point to get finer granularity.

[FlyingScot]

With my limited experience, I don't see why anyone would want more run time and cycles on their main diesel. If your generator breaks, you can still make some power from the main + alternator. Most importantly, you still have the MAIN!
If your main breaks, there is no plan b. You lose power and your main.

Just heat cycling the motor, fast warm up, big load, then cool down causes wear and tear despite the low actual hours per use. On the extreme end, running the engine 6 times for 10 minutes is much harder than 1 time for an hour.

Nigel has a stellar reputation and literally wrote the book on keeping things simple and reliable. His endorsement makes me do a double take on this. But I still don't see the logic. Without knowing an estimated cost, I assume it will not be cheap.

I'm adding a big(ish) solar setup and will have small Honda for backup. The NL 6KW generator was seized when I bought the boat, so I yanked it, losing about 600 pounds with battery and case. Adding more chain and a larger anchor up front instead.

[jkleins]

Originally Posted by FlyingScot

With my limited experience, I don't see why anyone would want more run time and cycles on their main diesel. If your generator breaks, you can still make some power from the main + alternator. Most importantly, you still have the MAIN!
If your main breaks, there is no plan b. You lose power and your main.

Just heat cycling the motor, fast warm up, big load, then cool down causes wear and tear despite the low actual hours per use. On the extreme end, running the engine 6 times for 10 minutes is much harder than 1 time for an hour.

Nigel has a stellar reputation and literally wrote the book on keeping things simple and reliable. His endorsement makes me do a double take on this. But I still don't see the logic. Without knowing an estimated cost, I assume it will not be cheap.

I'm adding a big(ish) solar setup and will have small Honda for backup. The NL 6KW generator was seized when I bought the boat, so I yanked it, losing about 600 pounds with battery and case. Adding more chain and a larger anchor up front instead.

I am not sure that is the use case for this system.

I kind of imagine that you start your engine and idle around the anchorage picking up the anchor and getting out to where there is wind and a straight shot to wherever you are going and by that time you have put a bunch of electricity in storage. You sail to your destination and by the time you motor into the anchorage/dock and set the anchor, etc you have put the equivalent to a couple hours of generator run time into the 48v battery system. You also still have your other house batteries to use in the regular way. Then when you might normally run your generator for heating water, charging battery, running whatever you want to pull a pretty high load you tap this storage. If you eventually stay somewhere where you need more then this you crank the main and run it for an hour or two and top off that storage system as well as the house bank and you are good for how ever long you want to remain quiet.
You could do this with a large lithium bank and big alternators but if you think about this system just basically replacing the generator it does have some utility in my opinion. You can store a lot of batteries in my generator footprint.

Jim

[MaCro]

Victron has posted this Blog entry regarding the Integrel system:

https://www.victronenergy.com/blog/2...r-on-steroids/

[rom]

Originally Posted by Colin A

I don't think this system is using field voltage to control alternator output. It mentions permanent magnet generation. In which case it becomes pretty hard to regulate voltage. so My guess would be the voltage regulation is done inside the smart box electronically. The voltage from the alternator generator likely moves around quite a bit. Also I know permanent magnet generators can usually make more power at lower RPM which is why you see them in some wind gens.

A brushless alt uses PM and has field. (a small PM rotor motor provides field to a standard alt on the same rotor, basically). You are implying that the smart box would open or close circuit the alt ouput, that would be interesting !



But it looks like a +/- field at the input of the Integrel alt. And it doesn't look like a brushless alt to me, more something like a regular 28SI. So what's the story behind permanent magnet ?

[a64pilot]

The AH-64 had dual AC Generators of 60 KVA capacity.
They used a PMG to generate power to excite the field, the PMG current went through a GCU or generator control unit that would control voltage output.
Of course it was three phase 115 VAC, 400HZ and not rectified to DC, but it’s easy to use a GCU to control a PMG, just like a alternator controller.

[tanglewood]

I spent some time at the Integrel booth at METS yesterday. Here are a few takeaways.


- They are really geared towards the mid-range sailing vessel, though not sure what that actually is. He said elimination of a 10kw generator. A number of people here have said that eliminating a generator on their boat would be appealing, so that seems like a fit.


- Of the performance numbers they report, some are measures and some are predicted. Fuel burn is measured and comes from J1939, but presumes/requires an engine with that capability. Generated power is measured based on the net output of their system. Prop load is predictive, based on calculated prop loads,. This is just like the prop load curves on engine performance sheets, all of which are calculated.


- I asked how it's better than just putting a large frame alternator and more traditional regulator on an engine? After all, you get the same increased loading, and better efficiency. Their shtick is that you can't put a large frame alternator on the typical Yanmar sail engine, so can't get the high output any other way. Based on discussions in other threads, this does indeed seem to be an issue with smaller engines. Their operation at higher alternator voltage, remote rectifier, and careful management allows them to extract 3-8kw from an alternator that fits.


- They claim a significant specific fuel consumption improvement even when generating power at anchor via heavier loading at low RPM. They also claim better specific fuel consumption that a small gen set outputting out a similar 5-8kw. I'd want to see this validated.


- They agreed that for larger engines the benefits aren't there. Too small a difference in load to matter. And larger engines already operate at significantly better specific fuel consumption across the board.

[john61ct]

Would be great to nail down "larger", define the top and bottom of the "suitable" HP range, compared to being able to use an old-school firetruck alt + external VR.

From a **value** POV for poor / cheapskate owners, the ability to explicitly dial up/down the amps output (HP diverted from propulsion) "live" while underway, is really the big missing piece.

Even if that were just an intuitive manual process.

[tanglewood]

Originally Posted by john61ct

From a **value** POV for poor / cheapskate owners, the ability to explicitly dial up/down the amps output (HP diverted from propulsion) "live" while underway, is really the big missing piece.

Even if that were just an intuitive manual process.

I’m not clear on why one should care, presuming the Integrel will back off on charging to prevent engine overload. Not exceeding max power is all that matters, I think.

[john61ct]

You misunderstand.

I meant, for those of us that want to gain some of these capabilities, but would never buy the actual product.