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hello everyone jeff cote here with

boatingtechtalk.com

we've got a question from a fellow voter

uh dan dan asks jeff our friends have

installed a mooring boy in front of

their house on vancouver island

we have a 30-foot

cnc mark ii

and had an opportunity to spend most of

this

most of the summer with them oh that

sounds awesome uh we did have to catch

the ferry back to the city a number of

times and have left the boat a number of

times when we returned we had a dead

starter battery and a very low house

battery i have been reading about the e4

and wondering if it might be a perfect

solution okay

well first thing uh first things first

before we get in

a solution

i would say that if you're using your

battery switches correctly and you have

healthy batteries and that would

probably be my first step

we want we want to first assess if your

batteries are good

because for me

when i'm hearing that question

you should be able to leave a boat on a

mooring ball or at a dock

away from shore power from a period of

time and i'm talking longer than a day

two days a week

maybe even a month

and if your battery switches are off and

all your everything that should be off

is off when you show back at your boat

you're at rest battery voltage and this

is assuming you don't have solar you

don't have wind you're not connected to

anything that is recharging your

batteries including a methanol fuel cell

which is an e4

your battery voltage you know if you

haven't been using the boat and the

battery switches are off should be about

12 6 to 12 eight right assuming you have

a 12 volt system and double that if it's

a 24 volt system so

before we go into the solution we want

to make sure that when you leave the

boat

the battery switches are off you're not

leaving the refrigerator on because that

would certainly explain low house

battery but let's assume that's all done

you want to make sure that there are no

loads on your battery or very little

loads on your batteries now of course

monitoring if you have a battery monitor

a battery monitor does draw power but

it's negligible you know you should be

able to leave your boat for a week and

come back and still have power at your

battery with a battery monitor

okay all right so now that we've put

that aside

what about an ethanol fuel cell

yeah

methanol fuel cell is a device certainly

that you can consider for a mooring ball

or for leaving your boat unintended

because effectively it's a battery

charger

uh with low output you know anywhere

between you know the maybe five four and

a half amps eight and a half amps

depending on the models

like for example the e4210

outputs about eight and a half amps

dc charging and it's powered via

methanol and it can turn itself on and

off and you can have all these different

settings and that would be a good way to

keep your batteries maintained and

topped off if ever you had a discharge

like for example on my own boat

i don't have the luxury of living or

having my boat where i currently work my

boat is in a more cruiser-friendly area

on the coast and so i don't see my boat

every day and i might not see my boat

actually now for over a month

so what do i do

well

i do have solar panels so solar panels

on my boat are a way for me to recharge

my batteries in case i lose shore power

so i have solar but sometimes it rains

forever here in british columbia or it

feels like that

so what else

well the methanol fuel cell what i do is

i set it on automatic and if ever the

voltage drops to 12.2

the methanol fuel cell will kick on and

actually bring the batteries back up and

actually then will shut itself off

so what i'm thinking about i'm always

thinking about layers of redundancy i'm

geeking out right i'm thinking oh what

happens if

and so

i do everything i need to from the

battery switches turn off all the loads

next i'm hoping that if ever i have a

problem solar every day is charging even

if i my shore power cord gets

disconnected or kicked off or whatever

some accident happens the circuit

breaker trips there's a power outage

and then the methanol fuel cell is

another option especially in the winter

months when there's not as much sun

and a methanol fuel cell would be a good

way to maintain the batteries when

you're off the boat but also and that's

the reason why we recommend battery or

methanol fuel cells for some of us

is to also recharge the batteries when

you're on board because sometimes we're

on board using the boat

we're using the refrigerator using the

water pump using the stereo using the

cabin lights and we don't want to run

the engine

and we're not temp like we're happy

where we are here right now there's no

tomorrow leaving somewhere else we're at

an anchorage or away from shore power

and we want to stay here for two or

three days

well a methanol fuel cell is a way for

you to have a smaller battery bank and

having that battery bank replenished

via methanol via the e4 to recharge now

it's not the least expensive device to

put on a boat

but what i always tell boaters is

consider this when you've exhausted

having a you know the largest battery

bank that makes sense for your boat

you've done solar and if solar makes

sense and you're a place where there's

sun

again that makes sense because that

power is doesn't come with a cost the

sun is shining and it is

what about next if if option a option b

don't work

then you're left with what are their

options and some of us don't have

generators on our boat and so a methanol

fuel cell is a cost-effective way

for boaters that are not living aboard

every day but are using their boat you

know on weekends a week here 30 days a

year 60 days a year whatever it is and

that sometimes they find themselves just

missing just that much of power

and the methanol fuel cell is a way for

you to replenish for instance

and in closing

on my boat i have an e4210 so what does

that mean

it's a methanol fuel cell that on

average outputs 210 amp hours assuming

that i can act that i need that there's

other models that are 150 140 80 70

depending newer models or remodels

because they're both coexisting right

now

and so you can actually have a mule a

fuel cell that is going to generate you

know let's say 150 amp hours a day

that's on for example on this as a 30

foot cnc mark ii

you could probably end up doing even an

80

e480 or e4140 and that would be plenty

for that boat

and an e4 is about this big

this wide

and about this high

so it's not that big

and you can fit it and it's light and it

doesn't make any sound

and very little vibration basically it's

like a cat purring again if you're

curious about e4

and you want to find out more we have a

whole section on our website just on e4

a bunch of videos just on e4 and lots of

articles just on e-force so if you're

like geeking out you're at the right

place

thanks for watching

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a few questions and you might be

surprised to find the answer right there

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