I’ve got a decent pumping setup with Axis1150 and a small kiteboard. Wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction regarding a lightweight efoil setup.
I’m envisioning not needing the power to get up and riding, rather doing dock-starts, thus the power rating need not be as high as the equivalent wet start, and the large high aspect foil needs very little to keep going.
Familiar with RC planes, e-skates etc, but I’m guessing I’ve maybe missed something. Perhaps a start would be the smallest power unit from the community?
That’s a new track. @JetboardCologne has written interesting posts about efoil setups for sub 60kg riders: small and (really)cheap Flycolor ESC + 6374 outrunner motors.
If you want to collect data, a VESC might be useful.
This motor assist for SUPsurfing might inspire you. The battery should be bigger though.
'Mini motor for SUP surfing
Any thoughts on this parts list? I don’t think I’ll need 50% of the power in Parts List A, but the price difference seems so minor between A and B that I feel like I could just go with A and have headroom for adding extra cells as necessary?
6S lipo battery ?
Comments: Same as this this “bolt on” thread, seems 120A ESC appropriate for the 6384 motor. Pulling 60A to get onto foil and 30A to sustain.
Parts list B: Atlernative spec, smaller motor and ESC.
Prop - will need to modify I guess? Make it smaller? Pitch surely is fine for 100-140kv motors?
Foil with all parts - £1300 2nd hand, currently using this.
Would greatly appreciate any feedback. Key struggle for me is to match prop/motor/esc/battery as I’m used to RC planes where you pop it into a calculator and it will give an estimation of compatibility.
Did you ever make any progress with this? I was thinking of trying something similar. It seems like most of the full power builds once people are up they back off of the throttle significantly, so starting with a smaller motor and only 6S might work? It is certainly way cheaper than going 12S with a big motor.
For example, here’s one interesting inspiration for low energy efoil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyHxnw3pyBc Plus it has the added advantage of being quick release, instantly functional and versatile.
However, this type of jet propulsion (SCUBAJET) has very low efficiency, the e-foil will probably have very low speed and acceleration (or suitable for very light riders, up to 50 kg). Therefore a conventional propeller is ideal, but not an FR, Manta, Flite etc.
I am now also considering a similar propulsion system (with a battery capacity of 84 Ah or 105 Ah). So yesterday I sent a 3D CAD file with a modelled tube (with a better hydrodynamic shape than SCUBAJET has) to a company that makes fibreglass tubes (on a rotary winder) to offer me a price. If the price of the tube is affordable, I’ll get right to modeling the other parts.
Interesting video from rctestflight showing APC RC plane props showing 100% improvement in efficiency on already very efficient propeller designs. I wonder if these would be a large improvement on the efoil props in circulation today for
3.5 m/s ~ 12.6 km/h at about 400w (I think, videos are long…)
That seems quite slow, but the world record pump foil speed pumped for 3.44 hours, covering a distance of 44.46 km, so ~12.9km/h. The interesting thing is that the power will be quite low, < 200W input from the pumping or less. New record slightly faster 54.8km/4hours = 13.7 km/hour
I wonder if these props would be interesting if the power curve was optimised for a slightly higher mid curve speed to improve the efficiency.
Is there any consideration for optimising efficiency for setups?
