Solar panels

dutch123 · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:28 am Post subject: Solar panels

Anyone mount a solar panel setup on their 22 cruiser that they care to tell us about? I'm looking at putting a panel on either side of the handrail on the cabin and being limited for space 40 watts output Is about max for the size of panel I would like to use, is it worth the hasle and expense?

tomherrick · Guest

Solar panels are in the general plan for my boat down the road. I saw some panels by GANZ at the IBEX show last week. They seem pretty tough and well made.

www.cbcamerica.com/ecoenergy

Captains Cat · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 10:19 am Post subject:

Lots of chatter on the TugNuts site about solar panels. It's a factory option now, maybe on all boats but at least the 27 and 29.

Charlie

Aurelia · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 10:21 am Post subject:

Another location to consider if you have a radar arch is to mount it horizontally on and above the arch using four legs of equal length. I plan to move mine to that position soon. It will actually be floating above the radar dome and is a 30watt polycrystaline panel running through a Sunguard 4.5amp charge controller to our house bank or dinghy battery. It really make a difference for anchoring or charging while moored to a bouy and basically offsets our use of the fridge in moderate temps. It is worth the effort of you have off-grid charging needs or anchoring habits and a fondness for power. I would consider the battery or battery bank size in choosing the size of your panel and consider something over 20 watts for sure. Much less than 20 will have a hard time with anything more than a maintenance charging task and if you have a group 27, 85 AH battery or larger, that is discharged down to 60% and you put a 5-10 watt panel on it, the panel will not push enough power to effectively re-charge the battery. I would generally consider anything less than 15watts to be a charge maintainer and panels of 30+ to be capable of recharging batteries typical of our boats.

Figure roughly 5 watts per 100AH of battery capacity for floating/maintenance purposes only. And work up from there...

There is enough "equipment" load on our boat that our 30 watt panel can not quite maintain all 370AH on board unless if I leave the house switch on and let those little loads add up coupled with cloudy weather. So switching off the house loads is required for a safe charging/maintenance margin at 12+watts per 100AH to be maintained.

Sea Wolf · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:52 am Post subject:

If one built a rigid cockpit cover (rather than canvas), the entire cover could be available for farming solar panels.

Joe. Teeth

Discovery · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 12:02 pm Post subject:

An old pic of the solar panels on Discovery. There are now 6 panels, for a total of 90 watts. Dedicated to the Norcold Refer. and a Waeco Freezer. Charges 3 group 27 wet cell batteries.

Brent

Pat Anderson · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 3:54 pm Post subject:

There is some good information here, not from me but others. I am ultimately thinking of putting 4 30 watt Solartech panels on Daydream.

dutch123 · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2011 11:37 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the info, looks like I have some planing to do before I spend any money. Ideally I would like to build a tilt mount to get optimum sun exposure. Looks like it's going to be a winter project.

colobear · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 12:26 am Post subject:

We have one 20W panel dedicated to the two group 24 house batteries. It has worked flawlessly until I checked yesterday and found both batteries completely discharged. On checking the panel lost all power somewhere in between the sunforce 7W controller and the batteries and shows an odd reading on my digital voltmeter. I contacted the manufacturer today and will keep you up to date.

petterwilliam · Joined: 31 Oct 2011 Posts: 2

There are many different ways that panels can be mounted on the roof. Solar panels can be both homemade and professionally installed.

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joandainty · Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 1:46 am Post subject:

Hello everyone..I am new member to this forum.

rogerbum · Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 9:41 am Post subject:

More spam - this time courtesy of the get solar for less website domain owned by
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colobear · Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 1:01 pm Post subject:

An update on the problems with our 20W panel. Haven't heard a word from the MFR (HQRP) but with a little more research the problem appears to be in the controller. The panel has been putting out expected voltage/amperage for the last several days but the voltage drops to the weird (1) figure off to the left on my digital voltmeter as soon as I measure beyond the controller. I'll contact the controller MFR (Sunforce) today.

colobear · Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 1:16 pm Post subject:

Yet another update Rolling Eyes

I checked the panel output a moment ago, just the panel, not through the controller, and it shows 16-19V for a few seconds and then drops to what looks like a 1 two decimal points to the left of zero. I'm stumped and will continue trying to get the MFR. It looks like the controller may be OK. Angry

petterwilliam · Joined: 31 Oct 2011 Posts: 2

Solar energy is an outstanding way to cut electrical bills by using an ever-constant power source. Solar panels will produce all the electricity you need for a great outdoor experience.

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