Hi Ronald if you read Model Boats magazine John Parker drew plans for a solar powered boat (Sarik). It is a tourist boat with a long awning which has solar cells on it. He lives in Melbourn Ausrtalia and we are in frequent email contact.

Roy

Looking at the capacity of solar cells, the only drawback is the amount of real estate needed for them.

A 6v 1200ma battery pack is only a few square inches and can be hidden under the deck. Whereas the area required for a solar array with that amount of voltage and current would be almost a square foot and would need to reside on the deck top.

Maybe a solar powered RC aircraft carrier with a solar cell flight deck could be an option. 😊

Chris

Actually Chris, the use of solar panels might be an excellent option for certain types of projects.

I was intrigued by the concept of solar panels harvesting from the sky but also from the light reflection off the water, as Hans talks about in the video.

The reason why I mentioned this topic is it intrigued me and am hoping to get some feedback from others. Which you have done, thank you for your response. I hope others will respond.

Ron

Actually, I am not closed to the idea at all. Just considering the amount of power to fully support the motor and electronics.

The system would need to have enough overhead capacity to ride through a cloudy sky, or passing through a shady spot without stalling.
On could argue then to add batteries to the system for this, but then is this solar powered or solar battery charging!

Just some food for thought.

Chris

John Parker emailed me regarding his design in the January 2019 edition of Model Boats (UK

I don’t get these magazines, so if someone has it, please look at it and share with the rest of us.

John did provide me with some information but without his permission, I will not place it in this discussion.

I felt my ears burning so I thought I'd better join your forum and post a public reply.

As Roy has mentioned, my name is John Parker and I write a regular column for Model Boats magazine called Flotsam and Jetsam.

The solar powered RC boat I designed for the magazine took the form of an old wooden ferry with solar panels on its roof. It was designed above all with efficiency in mind - long slim hull for low drag, large propeller, 300 kV brushless motor. There are 15 solar panels on the roof, each rated at 2v 0.25A connected in series-parallel to give 10v at 0.75A (i.e. 7.5W). Scale is 1:25, size about 854 mm x 152mm and weight about 3.25 kg.

It has two modes of operation, solar powered only or solar with battery back-up. There is no problem in mixing with other boats on sailing days - the power is enough to drive it at 'hull speed'. On solar only I believe it would be able to keep moving slowly in light overcast, but be stopped dead in heavy overcast. Of course, the sun always shines in Australia so I haven't been able to test that out!

John

Thank you! Thank you for sharing with us your knowledge and support. May we all learn from your depth of knowledge.
We are fortunate to have you as a member in this web site.

Thank you Roy !

Thanks for the welcome, I only hope I will have the time to participate properly.

It seems to me a catamaran configuration is best for a solar boat - good stability while providing maximum surface area for the solar cells without the drag of a wide hull. Many full-size types are like this, but it raises the problem of propulsion in a model. You wouldn't want the power loss and complexity of a long drive shaft or outboard arrangement, so perhaps a slim brushless motor in each hull would be best.

Hi Yabbie 1 and welcome John. I hope you enjoy the posts and ideas floated.
I am in Woy Woy at the moment having survived the chaos of Kingsford Smith airport yesterday, Saturday. It took 2 hours to clear through usually only 30 minutes. We had to wait as previous flight delays had an aircraft occupying our gate when we landed so kept waiting 20 minutes before letting us out.
Security is much quicker but the baggage hall was just chaos with not enough staff to check our bits of paper.
All the best
Roy

Roy are you close to Mooney Mooney?
Woy Woy’s name must have an interesting story to tell about its origins?

On Google Earth you can see the Central Coast does have other “normal names” to our ears. Brooklin, Gosford, Empire Bay, Erina.

Try not to get to board. You wish to trade your backyard and view with mine?

😀

Ron,

My current view isn't much different than yours.
Two days ago, all the snow had melted and I was out doing yard work.
We are currently 10 hours into "the Blizzard of the Century" as the local newscasters have dubbed it.
Churches canceled, highway travel not advised, people rushing to stock up on groceries, etc. ....
Supposedly going to get 12"-18" out of it. So far, it has produced only about 2".
Unless things pickup, it's just annoying enough to have to get out and shovel ... again.
Maybe it'll travel East a thousand miles, and you will reap the joy of a blizzard??

Oh, and Roy, I AM jealous of where you are right now. Just not sure I could tolerate 25 hour flight.

Dave B

Hi DWB. Apparently the Brits are the top long haul flyers statistically. All to do with family connections all over the world. Being from an ISLAND you can see the last 3 letters are DNA, so already built into us and we do things as we like! And you exagerate, it was only 23 hours 50 minutes! 😀😀😀😀

Coming back is a bit longer. I arrived as always 'nackered' but our son collects me and all is well again. He has a very large model railway which is always growing, but mainly in complexity. Looks like sailing is on in his 40 foot yacht I used to be crew but now just a helpful passenger.

I hope you survive your blizzard but sometimes the predicted weather patterns fade early on. In the UK it rained for the first 2 months of the year, the changes in global weather is not always what is expected, but science says the more water vapour available over the Atlantic the worse the storms will be.

There are still skeptics about and no amount of bombs or fires will dry off the air!

Take care.
Roy

Roy,
It's 23:50 for you.

But, for me ....
Most popular route Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport (MSP) to Melbourne Airport (MEL)
Average flight time 26 hours 4 minutes
And depending on where in AUS, there is about 17 time zone difference, so one arrives 2 days after departing 😮
Not saying I won't, I just need to build up my airline tolerance first. 🤣

Dave B

PS Enjoy your visit. Model Railways and 40' Yachts sounds dreamy!

Hi Ron yes I recognise the names, we often sail into the Hawksbury river, it is a National Park with free mooring and very nice, Jarusalem Bay where we moor up and go swimming.

We are having lunch at Cottage Point on the Hawksbury river in a week or so.
We take the dog and me for a walk on the beach and pass Mooney Mooney en route. Erina has a big air conditioned shopping Mall, you can go for the day in there!

Woy Woy means 'much water' and the photo is of the narrow inlet about 200 yards across of the water flowing into Brisbane Water, 64 square miles of sailing and fishing. Further down from us it narrows to 600 feet wide and there is a bridge called the Rip bridge and it is well named as the average amount of water with the tide over 5 hours is at maximum 200+ tons per second and it is 120 feet deep. I made the mistake once of going under it on a paddle board it is dangerous.

Everyone has a boat or yacht here and some of the larger motor boats are so ugly! Marinas galore. We are able to easily sail down the coast to Sydney Harbour which is an enormous area and go further in to explore the water ways. The picture is of the previous yacht with me at the helm about to sail under 'the bridge'

When sailing out to sea and the Hawksbury river we have to navigate the many sand banks through the channels and it takes about 25 minutes zig zagging through. The beaches here are near perfect no stones underfoot and sometimes completely deserted.
Gosford is an industrial town but I know the hospital well having had 2 visits one a stroke and the other the next year, an operation. I was treated very well, possibly because my daughter in law is a Consultant doctor there?

It is the middle of the night here as jetlag has stiked again, but going back to bed now.

To finish we have roll up solar panels on board and they top up the batteries a bit, but usually the boat batteries are put on charge the night before sailing.

Regards
Roy

To return to the topic...

A trimaran layout would be a logical one, with the central hull providing propulsion via a conventional motor and prop without the need for the complicated gearbox or twin motors of a catamaran. The outriggers could be attached by struts running underneath the overhead solar array. A 750mm x 300mm solar array of ten 150mm x 150mm solar panels would provide around 30 watts for a really good performance.

Yabbie1

I began this journey with the idea of building a Cygnus GM21, but I had no line drawings for the vessel. I contacted Cygnus company owner, Mr. Pete Meredith, who responded by providing me with some drawings.

This morning he sent me drawings of another one of their vessels, a Cygnus GM19. I had not requested it but there was in my mail.

You just never know what you might receive when contacting a company asking permission to create an RC model of one of their boats.

I have a contact with a fella who creates 3D printed models. I may enter into the realm of doing a custom project. I already received permission to create it from Mr. Meredith.

I hope you build that little fishing boat Ron, I found its story quite inspiring. I think the solar array would need to be something like 600mm x 300mm in size to make it worthwhile.

With enough interest there could be solar boat races and solar vs sailing boat races, where the solar boat would make up lost ground during the upwind part of the course. Different classes could be defined based on power generated or size of solar array etc.

Yabbie1

Your solar panel recommendation:
300mm =11.811 in
600mm =23.622 in

Rounding up 12” x 24

John, the Cygnus GM21
21ft length x 8 ft beam
6.55 metres x 2.44 meters

A 1”:1’ model is 21”x 8”

If the model is to represent the one pictured, the model will need to be much larger to receive a solar panel 12x24

1.5”:1’ will equal the 8” beam

The length would be 31.5” x 12”
Scratching my head about those numbers. 🤔

The point is, you need to consider the type, number (and configuration) of solar panels you are going to use BEFORE deciding on the scale of the model, otherwise the chances are you will not have a good fit on the available area and the performance will be poor.

In your case, I looked at the overhead photo and saw there were eight roughly square solar panels. My first thought was that 150mm x 150mm panels looked a good candidate for a model, hence the 600mm x 300mm roof area for the eight panels. But there are many different sizes available and if you can find a size that can be arrayed to fit your roof area nicely then go for it, but more likely you will need to vary the size of your model to get an optimum fit.

I see there is a 136mm x 110mm size, eight would need a roof area 544mm x 220mm, that might suit your model better. The other thing you will need to bear in mind is the electrical configuration. These panels are rated at 6v 0.33A each, so 8 of them could wired to give 12V at 1.3A or 6V at 2.66A in series/parallel (16W) for which you would get a suitable motor. Note that in this case, even if you had room for one more solar panel, it would be unusable without another one or three panels to pair it up with.

See: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32905776528.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.42.140e3293J5nhwL&algo_pvid=39ceffd8-5072-4e2b-8818-588a4721ed85&pdp_ext_f=%7B%22order%22%3A%22886%22%2C%22eval%22%3A%221%22%2C%22fromPage%22%3A%22search%22%7D&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch%7Cquery_from%3A%7Cx_object_id%3A32905776528%7C_p_origin_prod%3A

See what you can come up with juggling these three parameters.

Yabbie1

John, have you considered also placing any panels under the open space for gathering the reflective energy off the water?

No Ron, I have never thought of doing that. It would be worth doing a simple experiment to see if you can capture worthwhile energy. The extra panels would need to be connected in such a way that they don't effect the power of the main panel when they are not capturing much reflected energy. Perhaps they could be wired independently to just put some charge into the receiver battery only.

Yabbie1

Yes I have. I used a dory style hull with a 15w panel linked to a charge controller and I think a 18650 battery. Ran a 180 motor with direct shaft to a fine pitch 2 blade aluminium propeller.



I had a 1s battery for receiver and rudder servo. Steering was my only function.

On a blue sky day it would be potter around very slowly though was relaxing.

I have plans for a ocean going solar boat powered via Arduino with a tracker onboard. She would literally be set free and the motor would be for mild tracking adjustments. Once she gets closer to a shore somewhere I'd go recover her

Any photos of your vessel?