Electric Boat Test: Range of 275 lbs of Batteries

[00:00:00]this video is sponsored by Capital One shopping in the previous videos of my electric Boston Whaler series I restored this 50 year old boat and also built two electric outboard motors with 3D printed propellers for it and then I made it remote control and installed a drone autopilot so that it can drive itself in this video I'm going to see how far I can go on battery power alone and then this winter I'll be installing solar panels on it to do some long distance boat trips next summer so let's head out on the water we got a smoky blood red Sunrise got a boat full of crap I gotta get organized here I have just about every giant battery I own in here and we're going to see how far this thing will go today so I'm gonna get a waypoint Mission plan so we can start making progress the boat drives itself we're going to head out to Lake Washington and then try and go around Mercer Island and uh see if I don't run out of battery hopefully I make it if not I'll have to call in a rescue there's Seattle in the distance but we're heading that away oh the year was 2022 how I wish I had solar panels now every battery I own shoved in my boat all charged up for a full day float discharge the cells I was told we'd Cruise the lake for testing sake we'd burn no fuel shed no tears now I'm a sunburned man on a Lake Washington Pier I'm Daniel Riley Privateer we got some rowers going over there and we are about to pass through the Mont Lake cut so about 300 400 watts will get us 1.6 1.5 meters per second there GPS speed so that's pretty good that's like a a walking pace comfortable walking pace got some more rowers coming through so right now we're in steering mode um which means that I just am manually controlling the steering angle here but the boat is doing its best the autopilot I should say is doing its best to keep the heading pointed forward based on the magnetic compass you can see the steering servo there making a bunch of micro adjustments to keep us going perfectly straight going under the bridge oh bam they're going fast so once we get out to more open water then I'll put in the Waypoint Mission and go to auto mode and let the boat drive itself but in here I'm driving it manually it looks like it might be some sort of a race they got numbers on their bow like I had to yell at the other guy not to hit me going past the University of Washington Stadium there everyone who owns a boat knows that they're pretty much just Bottomless Pits that your money goes into and never comes out of I bought a lot of these components online and thanks to Capital One shopping I was able to save lots of money Capital One shopping is a simple web browser extension that is easy to use just install it on your favorite web browser and it automatically scours the internet for coupons and deals to save you money what does all that savings mean more boat parts for me it works across thousands of popular online stores like Target Amazon apple and more any available coupons that it finds are automatically applied to your cart at checkout it's that easy last year all the users of Capital One Shopping saved a total of 470 million dollars every little bit adds up I was looking at buying myself a new air fryer convection oven and thanks to Capital One shopping I saved fifteen dollars go to capitaloneshopping.com RC test or click on the link in the description to add Capital One shopping to your favorite web browser thanks again to Capital One shopping for sponsoring RC test flight and making big projects like this possible now back to the mission I'll give you a rundown on all the batteries I'm going to be using today but this is the newest one right here it's a duck battery 12s 8p lithium ion pack this uses molassell 2170 cells so this puppy's got a lot of capacity and it's got the ability to give a lot of current at once too my Motors here aren't capable of doing over like 3 000 Watts right now I need to upgrade those motor drivers but this would be a really good battery for a larger small electric vehicle like a like a big skateboard or a big bike or something like that so check them out if you're interested in these awesome 2170 cell packs I've also got all these EF Delta power Banks this one is the Delta Max and this one is the Delta Max battery add-on so this one has the inverter in it and this one connects um just to add extra capacity so this is kind of a terribly inefficient way to do it but I can't really get like high voltage DC output from these so what I'm going to do here is just plug in my uh battery charger here plug it into the AC output on these EF Delta batteries and then I'll just charge these 12s lithium batteries as we're going as they're being drained and this thing will do 400 watts and right now I mean we're only pulling like 200 Watts so this thing should keep these batteries topped off just pulling capacity from these big boys over here so that's a kind of silly way to do it not efficient but hey I can't get 48 volts directly out of those unless not without cutting this cable which I might try later but and then over here I've got these AO lithium big lifd p04 batteries these are great for an an RV or something like that they won't do a ton of current output but they got a lot of capacity and there's also a really sweet app they have where you can turn it on and connect to Bluetooth and monitor the batteries via that it'll tell you how much more runtime you have left based on the current draw and all that stuff it's pretty nifty these are 12 volt 100 amp hour and I've got two of them running in series there and then renergy hooked me up with this little lift po4 battery so I run this in parallel with these two in series and I can also charge this thing as it's draining with this boost converter over here that I threw together I'll talk more about that later and then over here I have this monstrosity three what the hell is this this is just a giant Bank of every success lipo I have this is a bunch of uh 6s 10 amp hour packs all the ec5 connectors are wired together in parallel and all the balance plugs are wired together in parallel too and I have some other random super puffy success packs just wired in with the balance lead only there's so many packs in parallel there that it's not really pulling enough current to melt these balance leads or anything like that so it's fine and then I have a charger in there also a little eye charger and I can plug that into the 12 volt output of these batteries so I can charge these as I'm draining them it'll only do 10 amps Max but hey it's something it's pretty silly obviously we're going from four I think these batteries are 48 volts DC so we're going 48 volts butt converter down to 12 volts into there boost converter up to 24 volts and then into the motors so all sorts of weird power conversions going on definitely not efficient but it's what we got beautiful morning coming up on the 520 bridge over here in the distance we're going under the 520 bridge now looks like they're building another Lane over there a Big Crane on a barge and another one on that side look at that you can see so far through the pilings this is a floating bridge but this section that we're under right here is not floating it just goes down into the ground but it transfers to a floating section way down there so now I'm riding the Waypoint mission to the autopilot if you haven't seen it here's the autopilot here in this little 3D printed case got a pixhawk 2.4.8 it's an old one but that doesn't matter just doing Simple Waypoint missions a here GPS and a little Telemetry radio and that's about it so the mission is uploaded this is a 42.6 kilometer Mission but I've already gone a few kilometers at least set mode to Auto there we go now we are in auto mode and the boat is going to the first Waypoint right there it's gonna be a long long day well okay I'm gonna take a nap just kidding that would be highly irresponsible unless I had collision avoidance which I don't what the hell is that out there oh wow those are big rowing boats so we've kind of been paralleling the shore here but we're about to hit another Waypoint which will turn and take us way over there it's really hard to see because it's so Smoky but I've never gone over that way before so this will be exciting and we're going to be in the very middle of the lake here so hopefully we don't break down there these motors are meant to be used underwater but I was reading some of the e-foil forms they're actually efoil Motors and some people are saying that you get corrosion inside so they were opening the motors up and filling them with mineral oil and then closing them back up and sealing everything so I have not done that yet I have not even looked inside my Motors but they were starting to feel a little bit different so I'm hoping that they're not going to fail today and strand me out here in the middle of the lake because I don't have a backup but there is dual redundancy so if one fails hopefully the other won't fail right after it pretty pretty good just putting along at 1.5 meters per second got some big roller waves out here well I think this thing will run all day long at this speed pretty good it was 25 miles to the turnaround Point how I wish I had solar panels now I turned around at the Renton Airfield but I never touched a steering wheel discharged the cells I was tall we'd Cruise the lake for testing sake we'd burn no fuel shed no tears now I'm a sunburned man on a Lake Washington beer I'm Daniel Riley Privateer okay we might have to pause the Waypoint Mission and go take a look and see what that thing is it's a weather station environmental monitoring out in the middle of the lake all alone must be lonely okay back into auto mode [Applause] so that is the city of Bellevue over there in the distance this might end up being more of a luxury real estate tour than anything look at that boat holy crap we might have to change course a little bit to avoid hitting these fishermen there's a tennis ball floating in the water I wonder why there's like 20 dogs over there on that beach smaller houses over here but damn that's still a pretty nice boat rogue wave coming up on the I-90 bridge here we'll see if my Waypoint Mission goes through the towers correctly or if we have to reroute not sure wow they have palm trees in their front yard I'm surprised those survive in Seattle oh we might hit that buoy scared the bird it's not turning yet I think it's the mission is going to go through these two okay didn't hit the buoy so we'll see if it threads the needle correctly here although there's another boat coming through over there so he might have to move for me I think this is gonna work wow such infrastructure we're kind of wandering here under the bridge the GPS probably lost a lot of satellites does it say oh it's back up to 14 now with a 13 but I think it drops quite a bit so I would say we're probably one third of the way done with the Waypoint portion of this Mission and the EF batteries EF Delta batteries are still at 75 percent full estimated 10 hours left of run time we're gonna have no problem going around this island and back I haven't even started to use any of these or all the big tote full of lipos up there or that thing just cruising along I mean we're only pulling like 200 watts to go 1.5 meters per second so we are just chilling 3D printed Servo doing its job just fine these propellers are entirely 3D printed out of petg this is V2 of the propellers the first version was three bladed and it had a steeper pitch so I reduced the oak we're turning must have hit away point yeah the first versions of the propellers were pulling too much current and the motor drivers were getting really hot so um I reduced to the sides these things run way smoother than the metal propellers that came with these motors and those ones were also oversized the stock stock metal propellers were oversized too they pulled too much current so these ones are much better unfortunately being perfectly smooth in the Air does not translate to being perfectly smooth in the water there's still a little bit of vibration if I feel the motor mounts and that's that must just be from an imbalance in thrust but that's a lot harder to get rid of but still it's way better than before I also had bent this push rod previously um it used to be M5 five millimeters thickness and the steering had so much torque that it just bent it so I upgraded to M6 so hopefully that won't Bend if you want to see how I built all this you'll have to go back and watch the previous video so now we're kind of Crossing this part of the lake from the west side over to the east side and then we'll follow that Eastern Shore down that way I'm going to increase the Waypoint Mission speed from 1.5 meters per second to 1.7 meters per second because at 1.5 meters per second we'll be driving for like 24 hours or more now I'm approaching the east side of the lake a lot of boats around here that's for sure at our new speed set point of 1.7 meters per second seems like we're averaging about probably 450 Watts love that tree I'm getting hungry what's for lunch today mmm we got chicken mush let's crack this sucker open there's rice down in there but it's separated it's gonna be hard to mix got some Curry action going on mmm look at that old fishing boat I've gone 12 miles so far I'm tracking it on Strava and a mission planner here how many kilometers is that 18 kilometers oh my God there's a stink bug I wonder what that big building is we can probably find out on Google here but we got some speed boats it's just an athletic center it looks like these are either trees or old Pier pilings that's kind of sketchy that seems like a danger for boats it's too deep to see the bottom that's just a freaking giant log that goes way underwater let's go explore some of these other ones It also says there's a cable crossing right here let me go slow through here it seems really deep right here those things just go way down under water it's so odd someone's growing pot in the top of that we must have used to have been some big Port here or Harbor here or something that was a free free rope warning hazardous waste site wow Lee where where would hazardous waste be other than under a water rogue wave [Music] a spoon works much better as a planing surface like this then like this whoa laminar look at that wow oh that's beautiful maybe I'll make a spoon hydroplane next so I think I might diverge from the Waypoint mission for a little while and go check out the airport over there there's a seaplane coming into Land look at this we're coming up on some Jets this is the Boeing airport where they do the finishing touches on all the Boeing Jets uh that is a big building so I'll just kind of parallel the shore here along this airport it's a squad of stand-up jet skiers interesting water scooters there's a lone Wing right there it's been taken off a jet Jets all along here so many jets whoa I better be careful it looks like it gets super shallow up here I'm gonna be going into the wind all the way home I sure do hope I make it I think I will I got I haven't even started using those yet or those still only using those and those oh oh I'm coming up on oh there's weeds really shallow right here I'm gonna turn off the props I need to I guess I'll just try and drive out of here really slowly a little manual mode and then just give her a little bit of gas oh yeah definitely some weeds Tangled in that prop oh they're vibrating a lot there's a seaplane Landing right here wow look at that landed right in front of those kayakers and it is a river Delta you can see the river flowing in right over there underneath that bridge I'll start the Waypoint Mission up again so now that we're going into the wind at 1.7 meters per second my current draw or power consumption rather is closer to 800 watts before it was only at like 400. it's bouncing around quite a bit but it's around 700 or 800 watts we'll see how these batteries hold up they're still only at 62 percent damn those are some nice houses over there oof we just hit a waypoint hard turn wow what a life just park your seaplane right on your dock right in front of your house so we're coming up on seaward Park in the distance so we're gonna kind of just skirt around the perimeter of that Shoreline and then wrap around ooh they must have some pretty good fenders on there when it gets really stormy out here there's some decent waves oh that's fun they got a little porch with a slide right there that's a crazy looking Bush right there I've got a lot less headwind on this side of the eye Island so now we're just skirting along the shore of seaward Park here still doing 1.7 meters per second but now our power consumption is down to like 700 Watts so we're still just running off these two guys and the two lithium ions and the lithium ions are at 39 but I'm actually not charging those right now there's some kids jumping off a tree over there with a ladder on it do it or no balls oh there he goes there's Seattle coming into view in the distance and then we're going to go under that bridge right over there they're just coming around the corner here at seaward Park the peninsula kind of getting hungry I wish I wish I could order a burrito delivery the two Delta Max batteries are still only at 54 percent I just started utilizing this one as well I think we're gonna be able to complete this Waypoint Mission no problem using just these and the duck battery and the skateboard battery so then we might just have to keep driving longer to see how far we can get once we switch over to all these we'll see I guess it just depends on how long I can bear to stay on this boat and this Bay behind me over here you're allowed to anchor for up to 72 hours so I might come over here and camp on my boat someday that'd be kind of fun filming these floaties go by give you an idea of what 1.7 meters per second looks like the water is so glassy right now it's just not really a lot of wind right here I'm really hungry I ordered a burrito that's going to be delivered to me so gotta get to that bridge that's where the delivery is happening I just bumped the speed up to two meters per second now we're pulling 700 800 watts this side of the lake is much less residential so park kind of all along here okay approaching the window here I think I don't see the delivery guy yet you must be up there hello anyone there oh there he is I see him hey that's Sebastian he's supposed to be writing software I didn't know he had his side hustle as a burrito guy that that was going so fast I couldn't catch that with one hand that was a serious impact I think it's gonna have some impacts damage oh I'm so good thanks Sebastian he even got guacamole in here damn the guy doesn't mess around now we gotta go pick up Sebastian and take him for a ride yeah and I'm just running these down and then I'm gonna switch to those I'll probably be driving like into the night I'm so surprised that you just called that house actually pretty all right oh look they're taking off again that plane just landed I know this but Sebastian here is a certified seaplane pilot oh yeah yeah that that could be you out there well it's not fit look at this guy cruising along that guy's got a mullet I don't know I would say the more square feet it has the nicer it is in my book because then there's more room for activities that's what I'm going for you just want like a quaint little aesthetic cabin no just like good architecture that's all okay well I don't know I like that architecture I like the ivy that is a flex piece house right there but they don't have a boat that's the problem they have some kayaks but that doesn't count but these people have a whole freaking house right on the water oh yeah this is Denny Blaine this is the other nude beach I didn't even realize that was a nude beach sorry man jeez there's an e-foiler this boat is powered by two of those Motors except Arthur just running way slower than his I have not yet been daring enough to test them at Full Throttle on 12 cells wow so precise [Music] thank you I wonder if anyone's ever jumped off that roof that's on the high-rise apartment buildings there there goes the Sun so Sebastian got off at the dock back there I'm now on Mile number 28. we still got plenty of battery left on the ones that we've been using all day I haven't even plugged in these other batteries yet so I'm gonna plan a new Waypoint mission that goes up north maybe to uh Kirkland or Kenmore it's 4 30 P.M and we're heading towards Magnuson park that is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association headquarters right there I believe so I know this whole design is pretty awful for what I've been doing with it today which is just going slow and uh trying to be really efficient these boats are made for stability at high speeds not efficiency at low speeds so ideally I would have like probably two canoes hooked together as like a catamaran so not ideal but eventually I'm going to try running these motors at Full Throttle I still haven't gone above like 30 throttle um and I hope to be able to get it up on plane and go pretty fast I'm not expecting it to be able to go very far running on the electric motors while it's up on plane moving quickly but but yeah I'm just trying to acknowledge that I realize this hole is not optimal I love it I love my boat okay imagine if I lived there I'd be paragliding down into the lake every day we are approaching Kenmore which is the other side of Lake Washington so I will have driven my boat all the freaking way across the entire Lake which is very long and Tall oh hey look there's another e-foiler I've seen I think like three or four of those out on the lake now pretty cool until you hit seaweed on above like 30 throttle I have it artificially capped in the autopilot so I'm sure if I really went to Full Throttle with these 12s batteries I could do something like that the tugboat pushing this barge is just throttling up they're probably headed back through the montlake cut that's awesome damn I want to go over there to the seaplane base but I also want to race this guy that guy's going pretty fast actually for a giant ass barge filled with sand so much power okay I'm gonna turn around I'm gonna do it let's see if I can catch this Tugboat dang I'm going two meters per second which is faster than I've been going all day and that Tugboat is out running me by a long shot so wow it is really shallow right here and I just hit the last Waypoint in my mission so the motor stopped and we've arrived at Kenmore Air that's a seaplane base as I was driving down this long narrow finger of the lake there were like probably five seaplanes that came in and landed right here overhead so this is it this is uh this is our turnaround Point let's get out of here so I ran the two EF Delta batteries down to like 10 and the duck battery and the other Eastgate uh lithium-ion battery and now I'm running it off the tote battery hell yeah and I've got the tote battery charging you can see the charger in there um at like five amps off of this power bank right here and I'm still using that ecoflow power bank to power the laptop and the cameras and stuff like that got some nav lights going got a little white light in the back there on a carbon fiber pole and then I 3D printed this nav light up front I'll show that in more detail later but yeah I'm just gonna run this battery down it might even get us home I don't know but I haven't even touched any of these one yet crazy oh that's sketchy there's someone driving at night with no light okay so I programmed in a new Waypoint mission that takes us all the way back to the boat ramp whoa we got a big orange moon tonight that is like a freaking Super Moon it is so tranquil out here at night there's just no one around the wind is calm the moon is out it's beautiful 500 watts I burned all day how I wish I had solar panels now my pet G props they turned a win Left nothing but bubbles in my wake discharge the cells I was told we'd Cruise the lake for testing sake we'd burn no fuel shed no tears now I'm a sunburned man on a Lake Washington Pier I'm Daniel Riley wow that's a super bright purple light coming from the UW Stadium weird we've made it to the Mont Lake cut heck yeah on our way home we're going through Portage Bay now there's a research vessel of sorts and what looks to be a big yacht over there coming up on the I-5 bridge ahead going under the bridge over and here we have downtown Seattle coming into view look at this someone put a buoy right there that goes like all the way almost to the middle of this freaking Canal I wonder why I almost ran into it that's weird never seen that before look at that there's another one right there someone just decided to make a freaking obstacle course out of the canal the line goes all the way under water so it's anchored down there so the tote battery is at 23.5 volts it's about half done 50 empty I have not even touched these two batteries we have not yet answered the question of how far this boat will go but we have learned that it'll go pretty far distance traveled 77 000 meters I don't really want to drive till 1am so I'm gonna head back now we're doing two point seven meters per second 3 100 Watts there's the super duper Yachts over there just pulling into the boat ramp here and our final mileage is 49.8 it's almost 10 o'clock so I'm gonna pull this sucker out of the water and go home so I calculated the theoretical range that I could have gotten if I used 100 of the capacity of all the batteries and it turned out to be 111 miles now it's bad for the batteries to use all the capacity so I would say that in reality I could have gotten probably about 80 miles or so this winter I'll be adding some huge solar panels onto this boat so with those I'll be able to drive faster and have unlimited range that will allow me to take this boat out to some of the really long lakes in Eastern Washington and do some boat camping next summer so I'm looking forward to that that's all for this video thanks for watching bye