Induction/Expanded Electric vs Propane What Would You Do?

[StuM]

Originally Posted by coopec43

I agree with S/VJedi a bread-maker uses very little power. A small amount of power for 20 minutes to mix the ingredients into a ball Thirty minutes later 15 seconds of kneading and then an hour later baking for the last hour at 470 watts.

https://www.rpc.com.au/information/f...ppliances.html

Depends on what you mean by "little power". 470W is an appreciable drain on a small battery bank.



If you mean "little energy", your description fits the 300-400 Wh (30 Ah @ 12 V 0) generally quoted and that is not negligible.

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

A bread maker uses almost no energy at all. During dough rising it uses zero Watts.

Any device using electricity to create heat, certainly if enough to actually cook something, by definition use a lot by alternative energy standards.

There are little 12V "cookers" don't use too much, but they're just for warming up pre-cooked single-serve dishes.

[coopec43]

Originally Posted by StuM

Depends on what you mean by "little power". 470W is an appreciable drain on a small battery bank.



If you mean "little energy", your description fits the 300-400 Wh (30 Ah @ 12 V 0) generally quoted and that is not negligible.

I accept what you are saying but if you only have a "small Battery bank" then (in my opinion) you should not be thinking of going electrical.

But then if you had even a 1 kVa generator (and solar) that could be different if you only wanted to run (say) a small toaster, kettle, bread-maker....

[john61ct]

Usually the fridge is the biggest Ah draw by far over 24hrs, and pretty common for the to stay under 20Ah per day in moderate conditions.

30+Ah per day for just one non-essential device is **huge**, by normal alt-energy standards.

Of course, ICE on demand and LFP banks are game-changers, enable all these mod cons on a big boat.

But let's not start pretending an electric galley is suddenly a normal thing regular cruising **sailors** should strive for.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Of course, ICE on demand and LFP banks are game-changers, enable all these mod cons on a big boat.

But let's not start pretending an electric galley is suddenly a normal thing regular cruisers should strive for.

That's it in a nutshell John.[emoji106]

You need space and reserve bouyancy for solar, large deep cycle batteries, heavy chargers and inverters + storage space for the electrical appliances and backup generator

Just Not practical on a 30 footer.

If you live full time onboard your boat and have the space for the above, it needs to be built in and convenient to use

I can't imagine someone having to pull out a portable generator to supplement their electrical galley as having found a good solution.

[coopec43]

[QUOTE=Pelagic;3045119]That's it in a nutshell John.[emoji106]

You need space and reserve bouyancy for solar, large deep cycle batteries, heavy chargers and inverters + storage space for the electrical appliances and backup generator

Just Not practical on a 30 footer.

If you live full time onboard your boat and have the space for the above, it needs to be built in and convenient to use

I can't imagine someone having to pull out a portable generator to supplement their electrical galley as having found a good solution.[/QUOTE


On a 30 footer the idea of going electric would not make sense. On a yacht that size putting two gas bottles on deck and then adding a generator, a big battery bank and solar panels would be a worry.

[s/v Jedi]

Okay let me rephrase that: for an all-electric boat, the energy consumption of a bread maker is very low. I agree with 350Wh for a loaf of bread. This is 20 minutes of solar output on a 1kW array.

There is no better way than that, even for a 30-footer. If you have a 30’er and chose to go cruising in that boat, it is the choice you made. Let’s say you think solar is for idiots and you go with propane. Now you have to preheat that oven to 450 F then bake the bread in there for 35-45 minutes. That oven is 35% efficient at best, the amount of propane used is staggering, the amount of moisture released into the cabin is mold paradise and the amount of heat put into the cabin in the tropical cruising paradise is mind blowing.

Maybe it’s better to store big loads of bubblegum bread in the bilges... I hear it’s cheap and stores well in bilges for years

[john61ct]

some just make do with hardtack

[coopec43]

Originally Posted by john61ct

some just make do with hardtack

I suppose we could all be like Jon Sanders who has just headed off on his eleventh circumnavigation. He has no refrigeration!

https://www.fsc.com.au/news/jon-sand...-farewell-bbq/

[CatNewBee]

Let me summ it up a little.

Household appliances, be it induction hobs, convection ovens, espresso machines, washing machines or whatever are not constructed to save power and usually are not watt sensitive.

They draw a lot when they need to heat up, but most of the time they just stand by or use low power.

There is no way to run them on solar and inverter only, grid tied inverter would not deliver enough stable output.

If you want to go electric, you need a beefy storage tha can at any time deliver a lot of power and can sustain this if necessary for a long time. You also need a powerfull inverter, that can take the hit and transform the energy needed not only for a single appliance, but for the mix you may run in parallel.

I consider the 5kVA inverter and the 1000Ah bank a minimum for relaxed usage without serializing or postponing tasks too much.

The system is self-sufficient for off-grid usage during the summer in the med for cooking, refrigeration and food storage for 8 weeks, 1h daily water making of 100l of water, navigation electronics and entertainment, power winch usage, autopilot, eventually washing of clothes with the washing machine, on very sunny days even making hot water or baking fresh bread. This works only if you are a little cautious about your usage and turn on the inverter only when needed, otherwise you loose 100+ Ah per day for the standby alone.

You always can quick recharge the battery within 2 or 3 hours with the generator if necessary, but you usually won't need to.

A/C and heating is a different beast, needs way more power, for short usage on battery it will be OK, but not for continous operation. Here you need a generator or shore power.

[spiv]

Chotu,

I haven't read all the posts (jumped page 2.....) so apologies if I repeat something.
These is my own story....:

12V fridge 16yo, installed by Lagoon when new, still going well and I have no intention to replace it.

I removed the gas stove and replaced it with a two plates Induction from Ikea (99EU), a 3 way Panasonic microwave/grill/oven and a kettle.
I already had toaster and other gadgets.

I installed 1400W of solar, 900Ah 12V "Traction" battery pack (heavy, but the best bang for your money) and 2x 3000W Inverters (240V).

I connected the stove and microwave to one of the inverters and all the other loads to the other.

The stove has 9 settings (+ an additional called P for powerful), on 9 (1800W) it boils water quicker that the kettle, 1Lt in less than 1 min. Then it keeps boiling on 5, simmer on 2 or 3.
We use a pressure cooker to cook even faster.

It all works beautifully, but I cannot obtain all my power from the solar installation (yet). throughout the summer, I only had the battery fully charged on those rare occasion when I had shore power. So I had to run an engine when cooking and even after to rigenerate some power.
I did not want to have a genset, but at the end I bought a 3kva gasoline (cost, cost and cost the driver....) to help with generating power.

The microwave, if used as an electric oven, say to bake a cake, just uses way too much power, so I have a baking problem....

I still have to install on board my energy monitoring electronics, so I cannot give you more details on individual power consumption or generating, this will happen in the new year.
My guess is that I need at least another 800/1000W of solar, mounted as aft as possible, far from the mast and boom.

[Chotu]

These are some really good data points in the last couple posts.

I think I've been too overly optimistic about the size of the solar array and it not raining for a week straight. Do I want to have to rely on a generator or hundreds and hundreds of extra pounds of batteries to cook?

I think the answer, for me, is leaning toward "no."

Weight and reliable cooking are at the top of the priority list. Thinking a bit more clearly thanks to a rainy week and some of these real wold posts, I'm going to stick with propane because it's always there and weighs very little.

Annoying to go get propane every month and a half, but maybe you just fill it on the large provisioning days.

If I switch to electric refrigeration, which is easily doable on my current solar setup, it'll be 6 months between propane fills, like JohnCT was saying.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by Chotu

These are some really good data points in the last couple posts.

I think I've been too overly optimistic about the size of the solar array and it not raining for a week straight. Do I want to have to rely on a generator or hundreds and hundreds of extra pounds of batteries to cook?

I think the answer, for me, is leaning toward "no."

Weight and reliable cooking are at the top of the priority list. Thinking a bit more clearly thanks to a rainy week and some of these real wold posts, I'm going to stick with propane because it's always there and weighs very little.

Annoying to go get propane every month and a half, but maybe you just fill it on the large provisioning days.

If I switch to electric refrigeration, which is easily doable on my current solar setup, it'll be 6 months between propane fills, like JohnCT was saying.

Sure, stay with propane.

Electric is not the right thing for everyone. It is doable and works great, but you need to do it right. If you have a working propane installation and you are happy with it, stay with it.

You can even go for diesel stoves and ovens. They are great too.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

Sure, stay with propane.

Electric is not the right thing for everyone. It is doable and works great, but you need to do it right. If you have a working propane installation and you are happy with it, stay with it.

You can even go for diesel stoves and ovens. They are great too.

True. But I don't have any diesel so... That's out. 2 fuels is plenty already. Ha ha.

[john61ct]

All this sounds very sensible, pick the low hanging fruit first.

Later as you are more au fait on your electrickery, maybe beef it up incrementally and get one or two most-useful electric cooking devices, see how you go reducing propane consumption further.

But don't eliminate it until you know you can comfortably, or maybe just keep the topside BBQ for bad insolation weeks.

Originally Posted by Chotu

I think I've been too overly optimistic about the size of the solar array and it not raining for a week straight. Do I want to have to rely on a generator or hundreds and hundreds of extra pounds of batteries to cook?

I think the answer, for me, is leaning toward "no."

Weight and reliable cooking are at the top of the priority list. Thinking a bit more clearly thanks to a rainy week and some of these real wold posts, I'm going to stick with propane because it's always there and weighs very little.

Annoying to go get propane every month and a half, but maybe you just fill it on the large provisioning days.

If I switch to electric refrigeration, which is easily doable on my current solar setup, it'll be 6 months between propane fills, like JohnCT was saying.