2.2 Battery Selection
How do I determine the capacity of the
battery pack needed?
Battery is the new form of "fuel" for electric
propulsion outboards, you never need to go to
gasoline station to refuel your outboard
anymore. You only need to recharge your
batteries at home or docking place.
Once you've chosen an electric outboard that
properly fits the weight and efficiency of your
loaded boat, the next task is to size the battery
bank that will store the energy to drive it. The
size of the battery bank will depend on the amp
draw you plan to regularly place upon it and the
range of miles you desire to travel. It is not easy
to know the current draw before you try it as
each boat is different from others in hull shape,
length, load, speed and daily operation hour you
want, not like electric cars which is fixed for
each car model in factory. Our expandable
battery module will make your life much easier
to determine how big the battery bank you need
to meet your purpose. You can just invest one
battery module first to test boat performance
with electric propel outboard and find out
accurate amp draw for your special boat setup
in different speed. After initial boat trial testing,
then you can easily figure out how many such
battery modules required to get the boat speed
and travel duration you want. You can easily
parallel connect multiple expandable battery
modules to form a larger capacity battery bank.
Each battery module is light weight for one
person to carry around. You can always buy
more standalone modules as you need them.
Each module has its own battery management
system (BMS) and charger.
We choose the most safe LiFePO4 battery cells
for our expandable battery modules, the materials
used inside cell will not cause any fire or
explosion. The quality of cell is very consistent
and can last more than 2000 charging cycles. Its
C-rating is 3 times, that means a single 48V50AH
module can output 150A continuously. That's why
you can just buy one or two battery modules to
test the outboard motor performance and amp
draw.
Why we choose 48V system for outboard motor
and battery pack, because it is safe for human and
easy to pass local government regulations.
Of course, you can always use other type of
batteries you can find locally, as long as its output
voltage is 48V, and capacity is enough to drive the
electric outboards.
