Adding Solar

[BOAT]

HEY! If I hook up a bunch of batteries to my Solar Cells and pump the electricity INTO the cells will they make photons? With light come out of the solar panel?

[paula_ke]

Yes. When the sun goes down, current will flow back through your solar panels. So much that the cells will heat up and eventually fail resulting in possible photon emission. Only works once. After the magic photons and smoke is released there is no putting the magic back in.

Captain Paula

BTW, best reason why you don't wanT to do what Boat suggested is in this thread. Scroll down to betwixt post. http://www.edaboard.com/showthread.php? ... &p=1587039

[BOAT]

WOW!

[Starscream]

Yes. When the sun goes down, current will flow back through your solar panels. So much that the cells will heat up and eventually fail resulting in possible photon emission. Only works once. After the magic photons and smoke is released there is no putting the magic back in.

Captain Paula

Yeah I thought about that problem, but TomF put me on track of a good turbo encabulator that will address that problem, and others.

[vizwhiz]

Oh how awesome! With a turbo entabluator, your cardinal grammeters will be synchronized!!

[topcat0399]

Oh how awesome! With a turbo entabluator, your cardinal grammeters will be synchronized!!

Synchronized cardinal grammeters are well known to cause discombobulated keelson rivets.
Everybody knows that (eyeroll)

And turbo entabluators went out with astrocronoplaaids in 1872.

Get with it!

[Starscream]

Synchronized cardinal grammeters are well known to cause discombobulated keelson rivets.
Everybody knows that (eyeroll)

And turbo entabluators went out with astrocronoplaaids in 1872.

Get with it!

Check the New England Journal of Science January 2018 issue: there have been recent breakthroughs in the field of micro-turboencabulatry that have addressed the Keelson Rivet issue. Actually, with the new 2nd gen phase regulators developed by IBM for use in quantum microcomputing, the core stabilization issues have been solved. I am going to wire one up in line with the new ACR once I figure out if it can be used with a dual-battery charger.

[Sumner]

....the new ACR once I figure out if it can be used with a dual-battery charger.

Nothing witty to add , but I added a ...



... 50 amp Sterling Pro Charger to the Endeavour this year and it can charge up to 3 different battery banks. Instead of having it connected to the start bank and house bank separately I have it wired to just the house bank and the ACR takes care of sending current to the start battery. They specifically say you can send all the output to a single bank if you want to. Your battery charger might be capable of doing exactly the same thing.

I feel the ACR is a good setup for a 'start' and 'house' bank setup but still if you can wire the batteries together all the time they will charge more efficiently, discharge under load more efficiently and last longer. The main reason is that tied together you won't draw them down as much as using one at a time so they will last longer. Also charging you will be topping off one larger bank vs. going through the slower topping off of two different batteries under different charge states.

I think that if you can pull start the outboard there is definitely no real down size to having the larger bank with them wired together properly like I posted earlier. If you worry about starting the outboard...



... consider having one of the battery packs aboard to give you peace of mind. I carry mine on both boats as it takes up very little room and use it to inflate the fenders, our bicycle tires at the boat yard and for testing things where I need an easy 12 volt supply,

Sumner

============================
1300 miles to the Bahamas and back -- 2015

The MacGregor 26-S

The Endeavour 37

Trips to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

[Seapup]

Nothing witty to add , but I added a ...



... 50 amp Sterling Pro Charger

One of those and your choice of 800-1000w generator and you can get more amp hours in under an hour (on a drained bank) than 100W solar setup gets in a full day.

Iota makes solid chargers for not much money too. 55A 4 stage $140

https://www.solar-electric.com/ioten55amp12.html

Not the same as solar by any means, but a realistic option for the user who mostly day sails/weekends and only takes that one week long trip every summer.

[kurz]

Thanks Sumner, good info there.

I watched the video on the parallel vs. series shading problems but I'm not sure if it tipped me off the fence on one side or the other. OK, it's better if one panel is shaded, but not a huge difference, and what about cloudy days and low solar angles? At 45N I'm not sure if my main problem is individual panel shading or just lack of direct sunlight. I'm still leaning towards series for that reason. I'm planning to mount the flexible solar panels on the bimini top, without being able to adjust their orientation, so they're going to get a lot of bad angles while sailing.

I like the idea of the Automatic charging relay on the controller. I've got to study it a bit to see how it wires up with the Perko selector. Thanks for that link.

Do I understand correctly that you plan to use the flexible solar panels and mount/dismount it after/before evey use on the bimini?
Well for me it would be too much hassle. Im happy with my two 50w panels sitting on the mast arch now for more than 5 years.

[Sumner]

Nothing witty to add , but I added a ...



... 50 amp Sterling Pro Charger

One of those and your choice of 800-1000w generator and you can get more amp hours in under an hour (on a drained bank) than 100W solar setup gets in a full day.

Iota makes solid chargers for not much money too. 55A 4 stage $140

https://www.solar-electric.com/ioten55amp12.html

Not the same as solar by any means, but a realistic option for the user who mostly day sails/weekends and only takes that one week long trip every summer.

Over the years working on the Endeavour and living on her in the yard we've had only the start battery on the boat since I didn't want to buy the 4 house batteries until we were ready to actually get on the water. I've also used a car battery charger in the yard to keep the single battery up since we have been using the 12 volt fridge all these years and other 12 volt applicances/lights.

I wanted to add a true 'marine' type charger for on the water just in case we were on a trip and somehow lost our 480 watts of solar. I looked at a number of marine chargers and finally settled on the Sterling. We have a Honda 2000 on board so could do as you mentioned if we needed to charge the batteries with something other than solar. Hard to part with the cash but it is a really good charger and recommended by people who have a long history with boats ( https://marinehowto.com/installing-a-ma ... y-charger/ ). I could of gotten a smaller one but if we had to use it wanted to run the Honda the shortest time possible.

We used it in the yard and at the same time added the the 4 6v batteries for the house bank. It is a first class charger and I'd recommend one to anyone.


http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... index.html

We have been out close to a month now and the solar has meet all the demands. So far the batteries are topped up early afternoon, even on cloudy days. The fridge, CPAP machine, fans, lights and two computers have been running a lot and the solar has kept up fine,

Sumner

============================
1300 miles to the Bahamas and back -- 2015

The MacGregor 26-S

The Endeavour 37

Trips to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links

[rsvpasap]

I have a ProNautic 1250P which is the same as the 50 amp Sterling Pro Charger. Before I got a slip with electric, 99% of my charging was done with a Honda EU2000i. A Ground-Neutral Bond jumper plug was required. Were I doing it over again, I would probably get a 60 amp charger. The Honda EU2000i will readily support that.

[warfin]

I mounted an 80 watt solar panel on the hatch and ran the cables down through the stainless steel grab/support tube which goes from the ceiling to the galley. I bolted and sealed a small alloy "jiffy" box above the tube, on the deck, mounted two water proof compression unions (in the side of the box), drilled holes in the top and bottom tube flanges/deck and ran the + and - cables to the battery circuit via the regulator mounted externally on the galley wall.
Hey presto! The battery circuit maintains 12.5v, but then I live in sunny Queensland.

[Highlander]

Has anyone added a GFPD devise between their solar panels & MPPT controller in the event of a ground fault due to say chaffed wiring which seems to b the biggest cause of ground faults as I read it

J

[Sumner]

Has anyone added a GFPD devise between their solar panels & MPPT controller in the event of a ground fault due to say chaffed wiring which seems to b the biggest cause of ground faults as I read it

J

Have you seen one? I just did a search and the only ones I found were for very high voltage solar arrays.



I have fuses on the six 80 watt panels on the Endeavour but they only are there if there was a short in one panel or the wire going to it and the output of the other 5 panels went to that short. Can't really fuse a single panel as you select a fuse to protect a wire and the panel would never output enough to blow that fuse as the fuse would have to be sized larger than the panel's output,

Sumner

============================
1300 miles to the Bahamas and back -- 2015

The MacGregor 26-S

The Endeavour 37

Trips to Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Canada, Florida

Mac-Venture Links