E-tec Gen 2 300hp

[Badone]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Thanks kc and Scottar.... Jaw dropping! As the dude says..." I need to get one of those"

[kc]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

The older I-pilot units tend to wander about a bit on "spot lock" but new units are promoted as holding within 1 foot . Big call and too soon for me to tell. Mind you 10 foot of wander when you are fishing in 200 foot of water is not noticeable. I have only had 1 day out with mine, fishing in steady current and breeze and it is the bomb! I also fished a fair bit up in the shallows on the reef edge and it did seem pretty stable. I had an 80 I-pilot on my boat which was a little short on "grunt" as well as having a 60 inch shaft which was just a bit short and prop would cavitate as the bow pitched into oncoming waves and was always fighting for traction in anything but calm sea conditions. The 72 inch leg is prefect in this regard.

[Fed]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

The interesting question is the time interval, seconds, minutes, hours or days?
Here's a picture from a stationary boat on dry ground transmitted to marinetraffic.com, wouldn't you spew if your spot lock drove your boat into the shore because the GPS system decided to tell it was in the wrong location.
Looking at the scale I not sure I'd trust it close to obstacles, if my take on how it works is right it could move by itself up to ~25M.
Love the idea of push button anchoring though.

[scottar]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Not "could" Fed - will. Unless you are running a differential correction system, all gps units wander to some extent. Atmospherics play a part in this. That said, the spot lock is probably just as "accurate" when holding a boat in position as an anchor with any length of rode and is a damn sight quicker and easier to sort out if things do go a bit awry.

[kc]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

I still chalk up my only serious boating accident to GPS error and here is a shot of my cruiser, apparently sitting in the middle of the runway at Hamilton Island airport, when here was me thinking I was safe and sound in the marina.

[Nick H]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Hi KC, how many knots of current is it good for. ( you may have already said but i can't see it there)
Cheers

[kc]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Hi Nick,

I am still in "test phase" with the new Minn Kotta but so far fantastic and the push button deploy and stow feature....Wow!!. I had an 80 lb with 60 inch shaft on previously and this was both a bit short of grunt and the shaft length on the unit was a bit too short for the bow height of my boat as that when it pitched, bow on, into any waves and the bow lifted, the props came clear of the water and cavitated badly cause the boat to lose traction and then the motor had to work even harder to hold position. Yesterday was a sloppy northery and big tides and I fished almost 100 miles out. Motor worked non stop for about 8 hours with no drop in power. At times current was too strong to fish in yet motor seemed to have no problem holding position into both wind and tide. I would have guessed the tide at a good 2 knots but in 25 meters of water I was flat out getting to the bottom with very big sinkers and motor did it easy with no cavitation thanks to the 72 inch shaft. Should be heading out for an overnighter next weekend. Will mean 2 full days of fishing time on the electric so this will be a real test of battery life. So far a very big thumbs up for a 7 meter vessel with a lot of windage the 112 does it easy.

[Lovey80]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Great report mate.

im interested in what options there are for on-board charging the 36v bank via a VSR from the 12v engine alternator? Some of the electro geeks may be able to chime in. Is it possible to do? If so can you have it so a dual engine set up had both engines contributing to the recharge? Is it possible to wire up the bank so that the 36v bank runs the electric then the rest of the boat electrics are run off one of the single batteries for 12v or would there be a short?

big weekend and my brain is moving far to slowly to think it through lol.

[kc]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Be interested to see what feedback this question gets Lovey. I did ask the question of my dealer who thought it might all be a bit too hard. My Minn Kota work off a stand alone 3 bank battery feed and need to be recharged via a 39 volt charger, which, in itself, was a challenge to find. Next weekend will give me an indication of battery life and I guess if I was doing a few days out I would take the charger and a little Honda 2 KVA inverter and run the batteries up at night when on (real) anchor. That said, If I am thinking more than 1 night I would be taking the cruiser in any case and towing the fishing boat behind.

[scottar]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Great report mate.

im interested in what options there are for on-board charging the 36v bank via a VSR from the 12v engine alternator? Some of the electro geeks may be able to chime in. Is it possible to do? If so can you have it so a dual engine set up had both engines contributing to the recharge? Is it possible to wire up the bank so that the 36v bank runs the electric then the rest of the boat electrics are run off one of the single batteries for 12v or would there be a short?

big weekend and my brain is moving far to slowly to think it through lol.

It will be possible - just a case of how much you want to spend. I wouldn't take power from one battery within the bank to power the rest of the boat though. While it would "work", a better way to do it if you really wanted to use the electric batteries as a house bank, would be through a voltage converter so that all the batteries were being drawn off equally. Ultimately though it would not be as efficient as simply having a 12 volt house battery as there will be losses incurred in both the charging and then the conversion process

[scottar]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Be interested to see what feedback this question gets Lovey. I did ask the question of my dealer who thought it might all be a bit too hard. My Minn Kota work off a stand alone 3 bank battery feed and need to be recharged via a 39 volt charger, which, in itself, was a challenge to find. Next weekend will give me an indication of battery life and I guess if I was doing a few days out I would take the charger and a little Honda 2 KVA inverter and run the batteries up at night when on (real) anchor. That said, If I am thinking more than 1 night I would be taking the cruiser in any case and towing the fishing boat behind.

The Honda is probably the safest way to do it kc given the way Evinrude provide their battery charging (not 100% sure with the G2 but the G1 is electronically via the EMM), If you were to set up charging for the electric bank, I would suggest making sure it is current limited so that the EMM is not trying to charge potentially 4 drained batteries continuously. What amp output is your charger ?

[kc]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Puts out max 20 amp at 36 volt and little Honda seems to do it easy but never had to charge batteries from low. Just gave it a try out with almost full batteries. It is a fair lump of a charger and was hard to find.

[Triple]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Can this do what you want?
https://www.############.com.au/Ster...-Spots-BBW1236

Or

http://www.yandina.com/troll36info.htm

[scottar]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Both of those would work Triple. The Sterling Power Procharge BBW1236 will also limit the input current to 25 amps. Also did a bit more research on the G2 - they have removed the charging gear out of the EMM (a good thing) and maximum output is 50 amps. Still means it will take a long time to charge up if you are charging a flat electric bank along with a depleted house bank and supplying running current for onboard gear.

[Lovey80]

Re: E-tec Gen 2 300hp

Did some searches last night. Minn Kota make an onboard charger that can top your start battery from the engine up at 12v then when it reaches 13.6v flick over and charge your 36v bank.

these guys sell a similar product and apparently buying two of them you can double up in the charge from dual engines if you have them.

https://www.############.com.au/Ster...-Spots-BBW1236

i think though that for KC's application, if he is going out with full house banks and using this product (or the MinnKota one) if he's currently spot locking for 5 hours and only losing 25% charge then the top ups it would get in between spots would provide a very long life out of the batteries. I think you'd either have to be doing a hell of a lot off fishing out of the one spot or very little running during the day for the bank to complete discharge.