Has the all-electric galley come of age?

[Pelagic]

Today I was re-installing the Fire blanket in the Galley and started wondering, with an all induction cooking system and no open flame.....will it ever be needed for a hot oil fire??

[Adelie]

Are there other possible ignition sources?

[CatNewBee]

we stil have the blanket mounted on the side and the fire extinguisher under the sink, but never had an issue with induction cooking and overheating of pans and pots. The hob remains cool and controls the temp of the pots above, also turns off if something spills out.

Very safe indeed.

[owly]

I just finished reading / scanning the entire thread, and here are the take aways that are significant to me:


Induction is by far the more energy efficient external heating source, but consumes a
lot of power, though it's intermittent, so an 1800W burner for example will

not consume that amount of power continuously. They appear to cycle, rather

than ramping power down.


Pressure cooking is a huge energy saving method, often consuming 60% or so of the

energy used in open cooking


Insulation is the largely unsung hero here. Insulate the cooking environment and
you greatly reduce energy consumption weather on a cooktop or an oven.


Two products were introduced here that are well worth investigating. The insulated
pressure cooker.... which I cannot find listed anywhere, not even on the company
web site, and the Whirlpool combination microwave / convection oven


Propane really is a non-issue IMHO. I've used it for many years safely. While
I haven't taken propane international, many people have, and the matter of

adapters is easily solved with a kit of adapters.



Batteries are an expensive problem, and will be for the foreseeable future. LIPO
and other lithium technology batteries are not in my opinion "mature" yet.... your
conclusions my vary. They have impressive specifications, but they are very
complex, with processors in each battery.....how reliable are they really? Do I want
them on my boat? What happens in you are in a remote area, and have problems?


FLA batteries are heavy, and fairly short life, AGMs are better, but basically the

same technology in a more advanced version. The FLA should not even exist
in today's world IMHO. It's an obsolete technology that only exists because the

large manufacturing base makes them cheaper to manufacture, and the consumer
looks at the up front cost only. Experience shows AGMs to be much longer life,

saver, and more reliable.

The AGM is the "bridge" technology until Lithium or some other technology

really proves itself. LITHIUM HAS NOT PROVEN ITSELF.... and no argument
I've seen to the contrary is convincing to me.... Your mileage may vary.

more reliable.


Is the all electric galley ready for prime time.... That's a big NO. It may be for

some, but for most of us it is not.



The large and ongoing battery costs, maintenance and corrosion, system

complexity, etc make keeping electronics to a minimum desirable, at least for

the serious voyager... The marina slip queen may be different. The one feature
of electrical and electronic systems used on boats that stands out is frequent

replacement, and / or maintenance. Salt air is deadly!


H.W.

[john61ct]

I think it's obvious the answer is Yes.

But only if you have the necessary resources to implement it properly.

A lot of money being the major hurdle for many.

Perfectly valid to say, the benefits do not outweigh the costs, **for me**.

Or, can't be done on **my** little boat.

Or even a flat out I don't want that.

But none of these valid reasons have any bearing on the objective fact, that all of it is perfectly safe, feasible, even straightforward, for installers with the right knowledge and experience.

[Auspicious]

Originally Posted by john61ct

I think it's obvious the answer is Yes.

I think is is obvious the answer is NO.

Look up failure cascade. I'll wait.

Look up statistics on boat fires. Run the math on power consumption.

Do some hunting on cleaning smoothtop cookers. I'd rather clean stainless steel than glass.

Have you ever dropped anything on your cooktop?

It's certainly better than resistive electric but not even close to gas.

[CatNewBee]

First of all, it is false, the cells do not have electronics inside, they work the same way as fla batteries, it is a reversible chemical reaction.

The battery can be used without protection electronics, you only risk shorter life when going beyond the limits, lfp are less dangerous than fla, no spill of acid no boiling, no explosions.

Second, a electric galley works great, comfort like at home, efficient, cool when cooking, easy to clean.

You can use a pressure cooker, we have one pressure pot we can use on the hob if we want to. There are pressure cooker that have built in heating elements and contact grills, you can use any device of your preference - we chose a convection oven and a induction hob with 4 vario-burners among other electric gadgets - just like the devices in our kittchen at home - this is our choice and it works flawlessly on solar, battery and inverter. We have it, because we can - and because we want it.

This may not be the right solution for you - for us it was.

This thread was about the feasibility, challenges and practical experiance with lfp batteries and heavy duty home appliances on a catamaran.

I guess a dicussion thread about propane oven and a propane hob on a boat would be a no-brainer.

[bobnlesley]

About fifteen years ago and very early one morning - no idea why I was awake/up so soon? - we were in one of the cutesy anchorages at the NE corner of Sardinia and I was sat in the cockpit with a coffee pot and a cigarette when the rib/tender of a 100'+ gin palace began circling the anchorage. When I stood up to better see what he was doing/looking for, the rib immediately zoomed across and came alongside; the rib was almost as big as our 27' yacht. With his limited English, my equally sketchy Italian and the waving around of a couple of large vacuum flasks, it became apparent that he urgently needed some boiling water. This I managed to provide with I think three boilings of the kettle on our basic two burner hob - he ran the first full flask back across the bay as I waited for the third boiling to finish filling the second one.

Perhaps an hour later another crewman came across who was fluent in English and explained that they'd needed to shutdown the superyacht's generator plant for some repairs, but having kept it running until an hour after the last guest had retired for the night - airconditioners to run - the work had badly overrun and so they'd no power to the all-electric galley to make the guests' early morning teas and coffees. I had to smile at the thought of a multi million pound megayacht being bailed-out by what was undoubtedly the smallest - worth perhaps $10k on a good day - yacht in the anchorage. I smiled even more when he presented us with a case of wine in gratitude, no boxed-plonk that week, they even had corks in and probably cost more per bottle than we usually paid per case.

[owly]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

First of all, it is false, the cells do not have electronics inside, they work the same way as fla batteries, it is a reversible chemical reaction.

The battery can be used without protection electronics, you only risk shorter life when going beyond the limits, lfp are less dangerous than fla, no spill of acid no boiling, no explosions.

Second, a electric galley works great, comfort like at home, efficient, cool when cooking, easy to clean.

You can use a pressure cooker, we have one pressure pot we can use on the hob if we want to. There are pressure cooker that have built in heating elements and contact grills, you can use any device of your preference - we chose a convection oven and a induction hob with 4 vario-burners among other electric gadgets - just like the devices in our kittchen at home - this is our choice and it works flawlessly on solar, battery and inverter. We have it, because we can - and because we want it.

This may not be the right solution for you - for us it was.

This thread was about the feasibility, challenges and practical experiance with lfp batteries and heavy duty home appliances on a catamaran.

I guess a dicussion thread about propane oven and a propane hob on a boat would be a no-brainer.

The only lithium batteries worth considering seriously DO have built in electronics. This is necessary to maintain charge balance and prevent under / over charge. There are a number of references to this, and you will note that the link to a Utube someone posted here of a sailing couple who made the transition from FLA deep cycles to lithium batteries used such batteries....... This is for good reason. If you want max life out of these, they must be closely controlled. The earlier and / or less sophisticated batteries gave problems and did not live up the the projected life expectancy.



An all electric galley without some sort of backup is foolish for most of us. It depends on a considerable amount of high technology equipment....All of it operating in a salt air high corrosion environment that virtually guarantees connection issues. Life expectancy of any electronics on a boat is short as a general rule. You can back up the electrical system by having a generator on board, but that's not much consolation when you are 10K miles from home and face with having to start a generator each time you cook a meal....... that of course is assuming that your induction cooktop and convection microwave are not the failure point.


This technology may seem attractive to the condo cat set who vacation on their boat, but for the permanent live aboard voyager it's absurd. There is a saying about cruising being fixing your boat in exotic places.......The more systems you have, the more fixing there is to do....... This stuff is all fine when it's new (or should be).



It's a fun concept to toy with......I'd love to be able to run my induction hob on board to utilize surplus energy from solar and wind........... Just think about it though... do the math. That 1500 watt hob will draw 12.5 amps at 120 volts, switching on and off frequently.... At the battery bank that would be 131.6 amps, assuming 95% inverter efficiency.......... Just think about that... 131 amps switching off and on rapidly. That is a brutal situation for anything electronic.......Just how long will my fancy sine wave inverter stand up to that kind of usage? Maybe longer than I suspect.... I don't know, but I do know that this kind of technology is not readily available for replacement, nor is the expertise to repair it, in the third world. Just replacing a charge controller or a specific brand of lithium battery in a remote area is going to be an expensive and time consuming headache, not to mention an expensive sine wave inverter.

There may come a day when all this stuff is universally used and available...Frankly I don't care to be on the bleeding edge. I'm not an early adopter. I'll let you do that, and I'll read about your joys and sorrows with technology in your blog or posts on this or another forum. I think I'll stick to proven reliable technologies at this point, and let you pioneer the new stuff. It's cheaper, easier, and less of a headache to let someone else do the pioneering. I'll give you all the credit due for paving the way for the rest of us some day, but for now, It's propane for me.


H.W.

[owly]

Here is a BoatUS article on Lithium Ion batteries


https://www.boatus.com/seaworthy/mag...ry/hazards.asp

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by owly

The only lithium batteries worth considering seriously DO have built in electronics. This is necessary to maintain charge balance and prevent under / over charge. There are a number of references to this, and you will note that the link to a Utube someone posted here of a sailing couple who made the transition from FLA deep cycles to lithium batteries used such batteries....... This is for good reason. If you want max life out of these, they must be closely controlled. The earlier and / or less sophisticated batteries gave problems and did not live up the the projected life expectancy. ...

H.W.

If you read the thread, you may have noticed there is a bms in place, it is an extenal unit that manages the cells and can be overridden in an emergency. Plain cells are superior to batter8es with built in bms in this case.

We also have a second smaller inverter, an onan generator, two alternators and a watermaker. There are enough backup systems on board, even a Weber grill with propane, and we have a lighter plus matchsticks to light a fire on the beach.

No problem there in regard of redundancy and reliability.

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by owly

Here is a BoatUS article on Lithium Ion batteries


https://www.boatus.com/seaworthy/mag...ry/hazards.asp

This is an 6 years old article about lithium ion batteries like the ones in Tesla cars and mobile phones, We use the much safer LiFeYPO4 batteries, they are ways more stable and do not burn.

Every high energy storage can cause a fire, even lead acid batteries, propane, gas, diesel ot a pile of wood or papercharts.

[Chotu]

A question.

Where can I find small electric oven that can fit into a 3ft hole without any additional clearance?

Same question for a propane oven?

Also available to purchase inside the USA

[CatNewBee]

Originally Posted by Chotu

A question.

Where can I find small electric oven that can fit into a 3ft hole without any additional clearance?

Same question for a propane oven?

Also available to purchase inside the USA

I had to enlarge the opening to fit in the oven (see picture above) it is a standard european size unit.

The replaced eno propane oven is smaller and not so deep.

II bought it on Amazon.de.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by CatNewBee

I had to enlarge the opening to fit in the oven (see picture above) it is a standard european size unit.

The replaced eno propane oven is smaller and not so deep.

II bought it on Amazon.de.

Amazon.de. Exactly. All the cool small ovens are not in the USA. :/