AN ELECTRIC PROPULSION UPGRADE: Part One

It's been a busy summer for me so I have not been on BIANKA as often as I was in past seasons. But, I finally got around to installing the new upgraded motor controller. This is one of advantages of electric propulsion i.e. is the ability to upgrade various components of the system. The original controller gave me eight trouble free years of operation. But, at the beginning of last season after the boat was launched I went to leave the dock and had no power from the controller. I spoke to Dave at Annapolis Hybrid
Marine about it. He mentioned there had been a few of these mysterious failures of the Navitas 400 controllers and as a result they had changed controller brands. Though the new controller they install does not fit in the same box as the older Navitas TPM 400 controllers.  So as I saw it I had several options (which is another advantage of Electric Propulsion) :

1) Was to keep the current controller box and buy a new NAVITAS TPM 400 controller to replace the dead one. This would be the cheapest remedy. But, even though the original controller gave me eight years of trouble free service there was no guarantee a replacement would do the same.

2) Buy a new box with the new upgraded Sigma controller. This would effectively give me a brand new Thoosa 9000 system. Since the controller is the heart of an EP system. Only the motor, batteries, and a few other things like the Speed control, battery charger would be original.

3) Dave at Annapolis Hybrid offered another solution. If I did not have to use max power of my current system they could fit a smaller controller in my current controller box which would save me the cost of the new controller box. I never did have to pull max amps from the controller so this would probably work for me.

After thinking about it over the winter I decided to buy the new upgraded controller and box. Even though I probably would never draw max amps from the controller I did not like worrying about limitations of using a smaller controller in the current box.  Likewise since the original Navitas controller died suddenly that would also be in the back of my mind while cruising. So buying the new upgraded Thoosa 9000 controller seems like the best way to go.

I'll be showing the installation upgrade procedure in the next Post.