 great all right no building outside let's see what else can I do okay I've got this boat here I've got this motor on oh let's go inside I'll explain that boat was originally gonna have a 24 volt electrical system like everything else I've built because when you have it all the same you can use the same parts or everything however I was donated a 48 volt motor so I designed the electrical system around that made it a 48 volt system six months later that motor died does not work at all anymore this is why I don't like brushless motors brushed motors you just change the brushes brushless motors if the electronics go out anyway so I found a backup motor which is also a 48 volt motor however it's a way overpowered motor it's like 20 horsepower so if I run that from the batteries it's gonna have way too much power it's gonna drain the batteries really fast it's gonna rip the transom off the boat you know if it held together the boat would go super duper fast just not for very long which is useless to me so I was thinking what if I run that 48 volt motor off 24 volts and I'm gonna check the math on that right now oh and the way I've been running this motor is I'm running it just off the solar panels so the solar panels have a limited amount of current they can output so it won't over it won't you know crank the motor up to full speed it just limits whatever the solar panels can output which is like way way underpowered for the motor and I think I suspect I might actually be able to make the motor go faster just on the solar panels by reducing the voltage which would increase the current because I think I'm just wasting tons of voltage all right it's a 48 volt motor at 80 amps I check the specs if I cut the voltage in half on the motor it's only going to take 40 amps which would be a thousand watts which would be roughly you know a quarter of what the maximum is which is fine now the way these two things are my two solar panel options right now I've got to set it up to 48 volts at 28 amps and I'm wasting tons of voltage because I don't have I don't even have enough amperage to to make up what what it needs for 24 volts or what it could use at 24 volts now if I switch to 24 volts I get 56 amps and 40 of that can definitely go in so 40 is hired in 28 I'm gonna get more power and in reality the solar panels are a little more than 24 volts or like 28 so it's gonna be closer to this although even if this is a little bit over that just means when a little cloud gets in the way I won't slow down yeah I should definitely switch it to 24 I'm gonna get much better power out of this motor plus I'll be able to run it off batteries without tearing the boat apart of course I can get a speed controller to it worry about that after I might be able to run it just directly off 24 volts anyway I don't have to worry about that right now I want to switch the solar panels and the batteries and everything to 24 volts I'm not gonna be able to do the solar panels in the rain however if I can get all the batteries disconnected I can bring them in here draw out somewhere on the floor the size of the area they can go in and get it all rewired and blah blah blah cut the batteries were there yeah alright these are in 36 volt packs and then I have 312's because I cut one of those in three to make 48 volt sections but now since I want 24 I can pair up those take this cut a 12 off there then I'll have a 24 cut those two so I have a 24 24 and then two 12 for another 24 okay cutting them is a little bit messy okay now these solar panels well I've got some sun out that's two solar panels connected in series electricity is coming in that red and you know going through the solar panel and going into the other solar panel and then coming out that way or vice versa I don't know which direction it's going so I need to have instead of this wire just connecting them I need to have four wires coming out of this going in the direction of those white and red ones so I need to disconnect all that nonsense yeah so my wires I have to come in here and then once they get under here then I can put some blocking diodes so the electricity doesn't accidentally go back into the solar panels I did have my blocking diodes over here five of them I'm gonna need five more since the solar panels aren't connected in pairs anymore they're all going to be individual so each each solar panel needs its own individual diode now and the diodes just protect the solar panel from electricity going the wrong way like into it burning it out okay so you don't forget Jamie connect the negative from the solar panel to this end up here and then this end will go to wherever batteries or motor and stuff that's the last connection on the solar panels when I've got a sunny day presuming I connected everything I should be able to run this motor pretty good directly up the sun the batteries aren't in yet yes batteries this is one of the problems with modern technology like it always works great when it's working but then there's always problems so much maintenance anyway a bunch of the cells are dead so I have to go through and deal with that later right now it should work directly out the sun I've got a lot of signs let's go test the funny thing is I never had any battery problems with lead acid batteries they don't have as much I got my drill back in they don't have as much energy however I mean they're so low maintenance and supposedly lithiums last longer I don't know man when you include all the all the problems they can have you know a nice thing about having no batteries it's like a hundred pounds less weight in the boat at least so I can carry more cargo and I don't actually use the batteries that often anyway when I could use them I haven't been able to since my original motor broke all right let's just shut up and test this out all right I have a switch to connect each pair of solar panels so I need to test each one individually one at a time to make sure they're one is connected right and then my switch is up here twice as much current going through them and make sure they're not overheating I feel fine tiny bit warm maybe yeah it's hard to even tell I did make them out of copper tubing just pretty thick definitely heavier duty than I need them to be I love like old technology like this that's really robust like I could drop that whole switch thing in the ocean pull it out and it would work just fine you know clean it up same thing with like lead acid batteries if I had lead acid batteries I could drop them in the ocean fish them back out you know wipe them off and we'll still work but like the lithium phosphate and one tiny scratch and the thing is like explode I don't explode although I hear sometimes I do I don't know yeah keep your diapers on them all the time the technology we're building today it's just not built for men don't stuff good you know could go through a bit of a bit of adventure and come out of it with some scratches but still totally work I'm not giving up on the batteries but kind of leaning more toward getting lead acid batteries next time I need them although with this boat the the pedals work so well the motor when I'm going although even on the longest distances I ever go I have pedaled the whole way there and back even in bad weather so it's not like I can't do it I can definitely do it so I think yeah I might just go with this for a while no batteries up here just leave it empty save the weight it's pretty cloudy now and I haven't noticed any slowdown in the motor it's having a little bit extra obviously you know in full sun I'm wasting a bit of energy but in real life conditions things are not perfect all the time SAP because I have some some styrofoam to pick up because people have been collecting it for me and apparently there's a pretty big load I'd rather go with an empty boat and pick up some food and a few other things could go today except it's a little bit late to leave pretty happy with that wasn't anything spectacular going on wasn't super fast or anything but a good long-distance speed it felt very reliable we'll see you when I go to town right now I'm not using the middle row of solar panels just the side ones just because I'll deal with stuff later this is all temporary stuff like I wasn't even planning to operate on this boat at all until after I get my my big project done