What this project is about.

The Sternwheeler Ruby is a merging of two fairly different concepts that are extremely important to me. Renewable Energy and Messing about on boats.

We are located in Corvallis, Oregon just a few blocks from the Willamette river which flows south to north through the lush and beautiful Willamette valley.

Ruby is designed to recharge her own battery bank overnight ( winding up the rubber band so to speak) . When end tied at a dock or anchored out in the current the paddlewheel will slowly turn transforming the propulsion motor into a generator. Ruby's system is optimized for propulsion so I don't expect stellar electric generation but it should be something. Obviously a system optimized for electricity generation would perform much better.

In essence Ruby is a proof of concept for a surface mounted water powered generator. Not a new concept, decidedly low tech, but highly practical particularly for the Pacific Northwest. Most importantly it is the most environmentally benign method of hydro electric.

This concept can be designed to supply a couple kilowatts for remote applications, all the way up to a megawatt for municipal applications, and unlike solar or wind this is steady electric power 24/7/365. Rainy days...bring it on!

P.S. Ruby was named after my Grandmother whom I lived with every summer when I was growing up. I helped my Grandfather and Grandmother build a log cabin at their property high up in the Santa Cruz Mountains, CA. They taught me the "no bull shit" way of approaching life.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Fern Ridge Lake 7/23/11

Took Ruby and the family down to Fern Ridge for a endurance test run and WoW!!!




We crossed the lake at about 3/4 hull speed or about 4.5 to 5 knots, about the speed of the sailboats all around us. I logged the amp draw as displayed on the spyglass display and it was reading between 9 and 12 amps!?!?!?! Yes thats what I said 3/4 hull speed, boat fully loaded, drawing just around 10 amps.

Thats phenomenally efficient for electric propulsion.

 The solar panels were producing 11 to 12 amps, of course thats only 12v but still...

I simply could not believe this so I later put my clamping amp meter on the battery cable coming off the 72v bank and sure enough the spyglass was right on within a tenth or so.

So we powered all around the lake, anchored and swam several times, over all we were out there for about 6 hours and when we finished we had only used about a quarter of the battery capacity.

Halfway through our day we got pulled over by the water cops and given a full shakedown. They were very impressed and ready to let us take off when on of the guys asked if I had a fire extinguisher which I had forgot to install so we got a nice ticket and fine. Sucks but it didn't put a damper on the day as everything was going so well.

All systems and fittings held up well. The boat was amazingly easy to tow, launch, and retrieve. Over all the test was a ripping success.
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