# Electric Outboards



## DDS (Oct 16, 2007)

Anyone have any experience with any? Ray, Briggs and Stratton, anything else? Rays seem great but damn that's alotof batteries. Dothey all take that many?

I'm in the process of building some decking on a jon boat but need some experienced opinionson elctric outboards for a reservoir rig. Looking for speed and lit weight and couldn't care less about price.

I know Rays require 10 batteries but acces and trolling motor batts but don'tknow anything any others.

I'm looking for battery count and run time and experience on certain motors being worth it or not.


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## Jim (Oct 16, 2007)

Hi DDS,
Welcome to the forum! Im nost sure about your answer, But If you have a link to the company that makes that setup it would be cool to see. I cant even begin to imagine 10 batteries on a boat...That must be cool...heavy but cool. Fast and silent I assume?


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## Captain Ahab (Oct 17, 2007)

Welcome DDS - I googled Ray Outboards - pretty cool stuff. One motor give 570 lbs pf thrust!

We need to look into this


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## dampeoples (Oct 17, 2007)

There are lots of motors like Ray's, if you google far enough, there is even one that's only slightly larger than a transom mount tiller model, but boy does it fly  

They also recommend using 6V batteries, for the greater amp gain, not sure if the overall weight is lower or not, but it might only be 5 batteries if they were 12V


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## bassboy1 (Oct 17, 2007)

From what I have seen on the many elec only lakes and tourneys kinda sorta near me, it seems that a gang of 24 volt transom mounts is actually a lil better than an electric outboard. But, unless you are planning on planing an elec. only boat, you don't need a lot of power. Generally speaking, it doesn't take much power to get to a jon boats "hull speed." That is the speed at which it is no longer efficient to run at displacement speed, and the boat will want to plane, if given a bit more power. More often than not, an elec motor, no matter how big, will not get a boat to plane. Once you get to the hull speed, any more power you give it, before planing, is just wasting power.


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## Nickk (Oct 17, 2007)

good info there Bassboy, those electric outboards are brutally expensive. Like $5k and up.


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## dampeoples (Oct 17, 2007)

Yeah, they are high, and some of the companies won't even answer calls or emails 

There is a formula for hull speed somewhere on the net, before the club server crash, I had it stored, but it's got to do with the length of the boat that's actually in the water, and some other stuff I can't remember


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## DDS (Oct 17, 2007)

I fish mostly in an electric only reservour outside of Baltimore. Some of the boats have the Ray setup as they are according to most the best but they are also over $7G for the 60 volt, which is apparently the only one worth having, according to the Ray dealer. I've also found an electrical engineer about 20mins from my house that designs and build reservoir electric outboards that can get up to 14 knots on a 16 foot factory designed Lund Bass Boat.

Then again there are a ton of the 16' tracker jons with custom built decking. I'm looking for something 16' but atleast 70"wide if not wider. Lund and Loweboth make options that are 16' and 75" wide with the modified V Hull which cuts water with a shallow transom. So now I just needto pull the trigger on the motor and then get a console if possible.

Does anyone know if you can add a console to a jon boat? If so, where would I get one? I can always do tiller style if needed or the whole stick steering but I would prefer a console.

I've sent out some feelers to get an idea of battery count for these electric outboards and will post the results when I get them. 

According to the Ray (www.rayeo.com) dealer near me they us ten 12v batteries for the 60 volt motor and have each set of 5 on a transducer to swithc from one group to another when the batteries get low.

The others I am reading about offer the same advice that one group of batteries will get you by for a half a day but running power over 60% will destroy battery life by lunch time. It seems like the Briggs and Stratton option is amazing but it is their site which is bringingme to this conclusion.


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## dampeoples (Oct 17, 2007)

AK McCallum has consoles.

As far as battery life, anything that large is gonna suck juice, which is why folks don't use them! 10 60lb batteries is already over the weight capacity of most boats once you get in it, so the other options, which I can't find, looked way more attractive  Then again, they never answered my calls, money in hand, so I dunno.


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## duroboat (Jan 16, 2008)

I think anyone interested in electrics should look at 
www.torqeedo.com German made high efficiency package can run from Lithium Ion batteries or standard 12 volts single or in series for their 6HP

I have tested the 2hp I am waiting for a chance to test the 6HP

a video of the 2HP test can be seen at https://video.google.com/videosearch?q=duroboat+tender

<embed id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="https://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-2742774328418153217&hl=en" flashvars=""> </embed>

at this page from the duroboat website you can see 29 16 ft Duroboats that are powered by Ray electrics. Specs on these boats are the same as on the duroboat website for 16 footers except they were modified to add larger battery boxes and some conduit under the decks. they are unpainted due to retrictions on Contra costa Reservoir. I understand they perform well.
https://www.duroboat.com/experience/ResortandWorkBoats.htm
see third picture down from top.


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## dampeoples (Jan 16, 2008)

Are you a dealer for these motors? I've been interested in one of these motors for quite some time, but they all seem to fall short on my exact needs, which is an acceptable power to weight ratio. Some of the Ray models seem like they would plane my rig (1436 Smokercraft), but at the expense of too much weight in batteries.

I've seen other motors that seem to be the same, but in a smaller package, but they do not return calls, or seem to be alive.

How fast is that boat going in the video? Kind of hard to tell without some background reference, the choppy water is misleading!


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## fishhog (Jan 22, 2008)

if their batteries work that good then what would they be like for a 24v TM? anyone know ?

Fishhog Sr.


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## Home Grown Basser (Jun 27, 2010)

i would need somthing to plane a fisher 1675... That would be hard. Ill just stick to my yamaha 60 tiller 8)


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## bassboy1 (Jun 28, 2010)

Home Grown Basser said:


> i would need somthing to plane a fisher 1675... That would be hard. Ill just stick to my yamaha 60 tiller 8)



Um, this thread is 2 and half years old. #-o


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## russ010 (Jun 28, 2010)

bassboy1 said:


> More often than not, an elec motor, no matter how big, will not get a boat to plane. Once you get to the hull speed, any more power you give it, before planing, is just wasting power.



have you seen some of the boats with the electric motors run (one's that have like 4-6 batteries)? They definitely get up on plane... didn't believe it til I saw it first hand. I'm pretty sure both boats were 16 footers


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## bassboy1 (Jun 28, 2010)

russ010 said:


> bassboy1 said:
> 
> 
> > More often than not, an elec motor, no matter how big, will not get a boat to plane. Once you get to the hull speed, any more power you give it, before planing, is just wasting power.
> ...



Never seen that. Wow. I guess the opportunities are endless. Once you get the boat to plane, adding speed isn't near as hard, so I bet some of those guys could fly (relative to the other electric only folks, at least). 

I wanna see that. Where should I go, and when should I be there? :shock:


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## ScottMD (Jul 1, 2010)

DDS looks like we are neighbors. I fish the Dundee river, Patomac and most rescently Prettyboy. I was blown away the first time I fished it and have been hooked......... so much that I took off my gas motor and put on my home made "golf cart" motor. I haven't used it yet but can't wait to get it in the water to see what it will do.

I fished Liberty when I was a kid, used to get dropped off in the morning and picked up in the after noon, use to spend all day fishing. My brother and I had a good set up for bait we would catch worms every night and keep them in a box in the ground and keep crawl fish in a fish tank ......we would have bait any day we want to fish. Werent to many places back then that sold bait.


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## pescatore (Jul 6, 2010)

Guy i am looking into modifying and old gas outboard into an electric one.
Anybody have experience in this?
ScottMD, could you post some pics of your golf cart outboard?
I am your neighbour as well I live donw by DC (kensington) I fish the Potomac and often little seneca lake(black hill) but i m tempted buy prettyboy and other reservoirs with electreic only motor restrictions.


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## ScottMD (Jul 8, 2010)

ok, sorry for the delay. It's been crazy round here lately. Here is a pic of my electric out board: 36 volt 1 1/2 hp, the connection from the gas outboard shaft to the electric shaft is made with touthed fitting. I'll try to find a pic of the fitting. A plate is attached to the top of lowere unit, then spacers are used to attach the electric motor to the plate. As for the wiring I'm still working on that part but think I will have it worked out in the next couple weeks.


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## ScottMD (Jul 8, 2010)

Here is a pic of a coupler you could use between the lower unit and the eledtric motor.
let me know if you need more info and I'll try to answer them. I would be interested if anyone has any pics of their wiring for one of these.


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## pescatore (Jul 9, 2010)

Thanks a lot! I have already found an old evinrudr 7.5hp as donor for the lower part... now I 'll start looking for the motor.
This guy on craigslist looks like has an outboard similar to yours...maybe you can ask him about the wiring...

https://baltimore.craigslist.org/boa/1828814849.html


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## ScottMD (Jul 9, 2010)

That looks like a pretty good deal.


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