Can Electric Motors Power a Portable Wakeboard Winch?

[wakeboarder]

I'm looking for a little help with the electrical side to building a wakeboard winch. I have built gas winches before. A wakeboard winch pulls a rider at the same speed as a boat would only you have the freedom of putting this small machine anywhere there is a little bit of water to wakeboard in. It brings wakeboarding closer to skateboarding in that scence.

This site explains gas winches - http://www.ridiculouswinches.com/ridiculous.html

I am looking to make them lighter and in a backpackable form using electric motors instead of gas and either batteries or solar panels.

Any ideas and help would be great.

Can you run a 5hp electric motor off of a motorcycle sized battery? or smaller.

Also can you add two electric motors (say 2hp each ) to get 4hp?

Thanks,

Matt

 

[2milehi]

Not for long - 6.5 HP is about 200 amps for two batteries in series (24 volts at 100% efficiency). You might get 5 - 10 seconds with small batteries. And recharging them is another ball of wax. There is a lot of power per volume in an internal combustion engine when compared to electric power.

 

[wakeboarder]

Is it possibly to run an alternator to recharge the batteries? in order to keep it going?

 

[2milehi]

Sure - you will need an alternator that can generate 4.8 kWatts (at 100% efficiency) and that needs to be driven by something that can make 6.5 hp.

Or

Just use the 6.5 hp engine by itself because the design is getting complicated. If you want lighter weight components use a 2-cycle engine.

 

[wakeboarder]

Ya I need to figure out the battery option as we will be hiking in the woods for a week with this machine, rather not carry the gas.

thanks for the advice.