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Old 12-12-2018, 02:26 PM
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I hate to be a downer, but this just is not going to work. The Atomic 4 is from a pre-electrical age almost. Not only is it incapable of being made into a genset, it has a really marginal system to drive the alternator too. Back when the basic layout was conceived getting 20 amps out of a generator was really something.
You can, given some time and fabricating skill, make a crank driven alternator setup. You will be then be at the same level as almost any modern engine in a boat. You might get 100+ amps charge instead of the 50 or so we are all lucky to max out at. That will make charging your batteries easier. You are still very very far away from anything resembling electric propulsion. Trying to make an A4 into an actual genset is not actually impossible if you have an unlimited budget for fabrication and experiments, but it is kind of like trying to convert a microwave oven into a tractor - cheaper and vastly easier to buy a tractor
* I used to do this stuff for a living and there is no escaping the laws of thermodynamics. Things that require a lot of power to run need a lot of power supplied to them and batteries - even the newest ones - are vastly inferior to hydrocarbons as a way to store energy. Trying to make an air conditioned boat that runs off batteries is a losing proposition and a request we got ALL the time.

Last edited by joe_db; 12-12-2018 at 02:29 PM.
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