zmk1962

Well for comparison our daily average consumption is 31kWh. Broken down as 17kWh Controlled Load (off peak) - no choice but to use that, and 14kWh Anytime usage. I mostly work from home these days - so thats my wife and I (+2 dogs at home)... two working adult children that represent a morning and evening load. The following is on ALL the time: 920L Fridge Freezer 415L Fridge 415L Freezer upright Bar Fridge 3 x TV, DVD, Apple TV etc on standby 2 -3 Laptops 1 x Wifi and 3 x Wifi extenders 50000L saltwater pool - pump and salt cell chlorinator (7hrs) numerous lights and ceiling fans and exhaust fans When we turn on the A/C (about 35yo Daikin) - it draws about 6-8kW ... so it really takes the average up. We ran the AC for 7hrs straight NYE as we had family over for dinner and it was too hot sitting outside - we used 79kWh that day, but solar whacked out 36 kWh and offset about half. So Baz's figures are not out of the ordinary. Cheers Zoran

Good stuff guys and a nice write up. What a top way to kick of the NY. Cheers Zoran

Nearly there Raiders. Wishing you all a fantastic, tight-line 2019 !!!!!!! Cheers Zoran

Well said BN ! Happy 2019 everyone. Cheers Zoran

Jon, fantastic photos again. You and your daughter are way braver than humble me fishing waters like that with sharks around. Hats off to you both - you know what you are doing ... about the only thing we have in common is the Canon down-rigger. Hahaha Cheers Zoran

Nice fish ! Cheers Zoran

Hey guys just be aware ... Tailor legal size is 30cm in NSW ... below that size you cannot use them for bait - dead or alive. I know, I know ... in the past I used to catch a lot of hairtail on a live tailor bait ... but them's the rules today. Cheers Zoran

Absolutely correct Jason ... thats the best ROI. My approach was, have solar cover the peak load heavy consumption devices... then since there was an "installation cost" amortise that over a few extra panels (no additional installation cost) that generated just enough (at 11-13c/kWh) to pay for my typical overnight consumption. I'm still left with the supply/connection charge (no getting away from being connected to the grid these days) and the peak and troughs in solar production due to weather and seasonal variations. You have to go in eyes open and work the averages. Cheers Zoran

Well thats what I meant... thats not them looking after a loyal customer -- that's you looking after yourself !!! They are just responding. BTW, I didn’t mean to talk you out of solar! But it only works in certain situations. Cheers Z

There's a lot to it for sure Donna, but its working for me - my $1600 quarterly bills are down to $255 last quarter, around $350 during the winter quarter. But as Sam and I have laid out above it has taken a lot of research and understanding to get the right outcome and to avoid being scammed. BTW, regarding scammers - heres a story from last week. I was working from home, there's a knock at the door. A young chap is there with a clipboard. In an excited voice he asks me have I heard about solar because it's a great thing and they are offering a zero dollars down, no out of pocket solar installation service ! I stopped him and asked him has he looked at my roof before he walked down the driveway? Ooops - so he changes tact. Hey are you happy with your solar. Yes I am very happy. Thank you. Goodbye. Next day I get a call from my wife, saying our neighbour has approached her about our solar, as yesterday a guy walked up to their door and said I was very happy with the solar system THEY HAD INSTALLED and I was recommending them. So our neighbour was waiting for this guy to return with the contracts - and just on the spur of the moment while waiting he thought he should check with us !!! Sound the alarm bells! I managed to STOP him signing and asked that he keep the contract for consideration ... guess what - they would not leave the contract with him! .... now thats a solar SCAMMER ! No wonder the industry has got such a bad wrap. Cheers Zoran

Sadly that has not been my experience. I have been with many companies for 30-40yrs (NRMA, NAB, Telstra, Origin, Medibank, Qantas etc etc)... often with decades of business across multiple simultaneous contracts..... yet the deal they are prepared to offer an existing customer is rarely if ever as good as the deal they offer to a new customer. They offer you the minimum to keep you being brand loyal and to stop you taking a serious look around - they know it takes time and effort on your behalf to change suppliers and they are relying on that - as you say all they have to do is to make you "believe" they are looking after you. They are exploiting basic well understood consumer behaviour. Do the hard maths or put them to the test - ask for that very special offer you see in a pamphlet or advertisement - and they very quickly tell you that "promotion" is not available to an existing customer. How is that rewarding your loyalty? Don't get me wrong, there are other ways than "best price" that companies can look after you ... often after being with a company for a while you are familiar with their processes and may actually prefer how they get things done - that may have value to me as a consumer that I am willing to pay for over an above the cheapest price. But it is a conscious decision that I have made because I have compared them with an alternate, vs just relying on them looking after me because of brand loyalty. Also as technology evolves, many old processes can be rationalised and if I or my suppliers are not keeping up - then ultimately I will end up paying more than I should -- as in the case of Origin being unable to give me any insight into my energy consumption. In the end it always a case of caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). Cheers Zoran

Hi Luke, I check my insurance situation prior to installing the solar. I'm with NRMA, the installed solar panels fall under my "building fixtures" definition and are assumed to be included in the total value insured - just like a satellite dish would be or TV antenna or roller door or whirly bird(s). So no extra insurance steps required. ...and like with everything there is just the basic excess to pay per claim. Cheers Zoran

Well said Sam ... you have filled in many of the missing bits! Thank you. Yup north facing roof is best, west is second best and you also need to consider the tilt of your roof relative to the path the sun travels across the sky... My roof orientation is NOT perfectly ideal -- I lose about 1.7% efficiency - I could get that back by having each panel angled to perfectly face the sun's average seasonal path ! A credible installer will advise you of that ! As it stands this is the orientation of my system Nth Array 1 Tilt: 23.0° Azimuth: 24° Nth Array 2 Tilt: 23.0° Azimuth: 24° West Array Tilt: 23.0° Azimuth: 294° Excellent point re warranties (make sure that your payback period is WELL within your warranties !) panels warranty 25yr inverter warranty 10yr monitoring - 10yrs included in installation cost Finally... if you don't do your homework you will lean to buy cheap and it will most likely be a scam ! Cheers Zoran

Good call and put it down to experience. I pulled the pin on a trip out today given the forecast. Next time !! Hahaha -- please explain? Cheers Zoran

Happy to report that NONE of my 26 panels were damaged. 19 North facing and 7 West facing. The storm hit the Hills district from the North West ... so my panels bore the brunt. No damage. Cheers Zoran

@Berleyguts has pretty well described my house - quite large two storeys, 5br place with ducted 3-zone A/C, faces east, afternoon sun on living areas, saltwater pool etc. Typical quarterly bill around $1100-1600. Over a couple of years I did the halogen to LED swaps, installed roller shatters on western windows (also helped against hail storms), installed pergola/carport on northern side (shades most of the lower level rooms on that side). Installed ceiling fans in all bedrooms and living areas (a bit of circulating air = big difference in comfort). I had traditional yellow bats in the roof as insulation - but found the roof void still got extremely hot, so on went 3 large whirly birds. But even though I lowered my consumption 30% my power bill stayed the same as the energy retailers increased prices >30%. Next, I bit the bullet and retro-insulated my roof and subfloor - using a Kingspan retroshield product (foil on both sides sandwiching 8mm of high density foam). The shield is installed so as to leave an 80-100mm gap between the roof tiles - the foil reflects 95-98% of heat before it gets in to the roof void. The foam does the rest of the insulation. MASSIVE difference. Even today with 38C outside the downstairs area is 20C. Upstairs warm 25C but tolerable - but we do not live upstairs during the day. The installation of the retro-shield is a B*ST*RD OF A JOB ! I vowed to my self I will never DIY again (7 full days in the roof and 5 full days subfloor) ... but it was worth it. By shielding the roof and the subfloor I pretty well have the house like an esky. Wintertime heat stays in, summer time heat stays out. This further dropped our energy consumption - but again all benefits were eaten up by the energy retailers jacking up prices. So the last step for us for to take a serious look at this solar thing. I agree with @GoingFishing unless you go in with some knowledge you will most likely get scammed. First thing to realise is that not all solar systems are equal. Apart from the obvious high quality solar panel vs cheap panels consideration, there is a huge difference in performance that comes from the design of how the panels are connected together and where and how the inverter technology is placed in the system. This article best summarised these points to me: https://solaray.com.au/enphase-micro-inverters-vs-string-inverter-even-unshaded-roof/ Frankly the only way anyone got real value or payback on the older style single string (single inverter) systems given how they perform was with the crazy high FIT (feed in tariffs) that were being paid in the early days. These FITs are long gone from the energy retailer offerings. Which brings to mind that if you are considering a solar system your benefit is TIED to how your energy retailer treats you. If you get the inferior solar set up (they are offered really cheap on TV and door to door) and stay with the wrong energy retailer - its a SCAM! So my first step on the solar path was to look around at different energy retailers approaches to solar and secondly try and get a clear understanding of our household (4 working adults, 2 dogs) 24hr energy consumption - morning, day, evening, overnight. (Remember you cant generate solar power during the night and my gut told me the battery technology was still not there...!) I found my then current energy retailer (Origin) was completely focussed on lock in contracts armed with an array of unintelligible discount offerings - none of which I could assess as I had not clear idea of my consumption. I found a retailer (Mojo) who as part of the transition to them would install a smart meter which was accompanied by an App that fed back to me my household consumption by the hour for each 24 hour period. for the month, for the year etc. The App also let me sample real time what my house hold consumption was - so if I manually turned on the pool pump I could see the increase in consumption for the pump. Similarly the patio heaters, the washing machine, dishwasher, ladies hairdryers, curling wands, bathroom heaters etc etc etc. I figured it was worth swapping just to get an understanding of our energy usage pattern. Over a few months I developed a profile of power use for the morning and evening peaks, the daytime and overnight. The App also converts these to $/c at the Mojo rates - Peak Load power is sold at Mojo whole sale buy price approx $0.26/kWh and offpeak at $0.13/kWh ... there is no uplift (so no discount offered). Mojo also offer two solar FITs $0.20/kWh for the first 2000kwh (first 5kWh per day) and $0.10/kWh for the remainder. Since we do not have gas in the street, our overnight was dominated by offpeak hot water (supplied at a cost of 13c/kwh), and the fridges and freezer and pool pump/chlorinator (supplied at a cost of 26.6c/kwh) ... remember just because it runs at night does not mean its offpeak - it has to be hard wired into the offpeak circuit to get the offpeak rate - and all these devices were not! I then figured out which devices I could move to run during prime daylight hours - without changing our lifestyle !!! Moving devices such as the pool operation to run during the day was a dead easy process of changing the timer. Starting the family washing mid morning vs evening was an easy decision for us - most things have timers these days. All this helped me size our solar system so that all our peak load, heavy devices use was covered during the day. I upped the size a bit to generate a little extra that I could sell back to the grid to partially cover the overnight load which I could not change. eg generate 5kWh extra @ $0.20 = $1.00/day credit. So here are some numbers for our household : overnight it costs me about 7kw of hotwater off peak = $0.91. The distributor activates the controlled load (off peak). I have no choice when they activate this but I have to buy this. The rest of our household TVs, LED lights, Fridges consumed $0.25/hr evening.... then dropped to $0.17/hr overnight ... so 7hrs overnight = 7x 0.17 = $1.19. Plus offpeak = $2.10. Plus 2-3hrs TV say all up $2.50 each night. We installed an 8.5kW micro inverter system in mid winter 2018 (26 panels, 26 micro inverters). Each panel and inverter works independently and can be monitored independently. If one panel breaks, I have lost 1/26th of my generation capacity etc. At this stage I am yet to get a full years worth of data... but frankly I could not be happier. We all know November was a very rainy month - not the best for solar production - heres my Nov report from Mojo App (this is the energy retailer report which takes into account offpeak costs)... infact my last three month bills have been $67, $69, $119 = $255/qtr. A far cry from the $1600 previously. Heres a sample from my Solar system control module... which cannot see offpeak ... it tracks energy consumed (orange), energy generated (blue) ....dark orange is purchased from grid (consumed)...you can see evening peak we started the oven etc., dark blue is exported to grid (sold)..... Light blue is solar generated that was used to service the light orange consumption. So far my projection is that I am saving about $3-3500 pa.... on a cost of $13000. So a 3-4yr payback. For us it was an easy decision to make the the solar investment as we planned to stay at our place for the next 10+yrs. A few final comments on Batteries. Yes we could install a 10kw battery (about $10000 today). This would handle our overnight load. But at best it would save us $2.50 per night. ... $10000/2.50 = 4000 nights = 10.95yr payback. All battery systems today degrade - infact it is highly likely that we would have to replace the battery system during the 10yr period. Franky I don't see a battery solution adding up fo us for some time. At present, I'm leaning more toward adding a few more panels and generating a few more credits (use the grid and energy retailer as a ca$h battery) ... but I'll wait to see how I go for a full 12month cycle to get experience with all the seasonal variations. ... It would be good to see how much I can put into the ca$h battery over summer! Anyway, it has turned out to be a very long post, I hope this helps at least set out that not all solar systems are the same, and you really need to get across your own usage pattern, and your energy retailer offerings to get the benefits. Cheers Zoran PS - a colleague of mine installed a nearly identical solar system as mine at the same time- guess who did the negotiation for both. He was with Origin for 3 months (offering a flat FIT 10c/kWh + with various discounts) and I was with Mojo. At the end of the quarter we compared our bills. He is now with Mojo. PPS - I DO NOT WORK FOR MOJO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hi @Fishop you are pretty well describing the "simpler" set up that I mentioned above. Running with 1+2 selected is the same as running with one bigger capacity battery. While this charges both, there is no redundancy until you separate/isolate the batteries and maybe thats why the other fishraider did not recommend it. But that is also why I suggested installing a Voltage meter so that at least you can monitor what is going on. With engine running you should see 14 - 14.4V indicating good charging is in progress. If you see less you know something is wrong. Since I have installed my Drum Anchor Winch I actually run with 1+2 all the time as the winch manufacturer recommended to have the capacity of two batteries online to spread the current draw. Also, given my experience with losing a battery and nearly frying the electronic components on the motor, I feel that if one of the batteries drops a plate, I'll have more plates online to absorb the charging current. As per the post that Dave quoted, I have also installed a 3rd battery which is my backup motor starter - call me anal but ......sh*t happens!. Cheers Zoran

Hi All, just catching up on posts... been very busy with work and getting things in order before an overseas trip. I thought this topic brought back memories of a deja vu discussion... and sure enough @Sigma had quoted that post - I just reread it and boy did we cover a lot of ground - just about every eventuality. Thanks Dave, I think that post is at a level where it deserves to be pinned ! So applying some of that discussion to @richard2234's set up -- This is a classic 2 battery set up. It will work, nothing basically wrong with it, but its probably most important that @richard2234 understands its limitations. There are basically two reasons why you have multiple batteries - 1. redundancy (to ensure you can power essential services - start motors, run Nav lights. If you are offshore I would also add to this essential services list - bilge pump, VHF radios, GPS - why GPS? well basically because the first questions you get on the radio are identify yourself and what is your lat/long location). 2. capacity (to ensure you have enough electrical power on board to run all the gear that you want to for as long as you want to. In essence this is the easy consideration as it just a matter of calculating the combined current draw of all the devices you run simultaneously and how man hours you want to run them for - then ensuring you have a battery or set of connected batteries big enough to handle that load). @richard2234 I understand from your post that you want to start venturing offshore (not too far out). To me that puts you in the offshore category regarding powering essential services eg you would be in more danger 100m offshore drifting toward rocks with a dead battery then being 10km offshore. Offshore is offshore. In your set up, the battery switch mainly controls which battery will be used to start the motor and which battery will get charged from the running motor. All the electronics are hard wired to run off battery 1. Battery 2 is dedicated to being a start battery. If you analyse your set up from a redundancy perspective. Battery 2 dies, you use the isolator switch to swap over to battery 1 and start the motor - but you have to make sure battery 1 has sufficient charge. So with all the toys running off battery 1 you could end up with insufficient charge to start the motor (my EFI motor needs minimum 8-10V run the EFI pump - without this minimum charge I cannot even pull start it !) So you need to think about how you will monitor battery 1 charge ( install a Volt meter on the dash?) and then manually handle switching to ensure its charged when the motor is running. Or will you install a modern VSR that does the charging automatically for you. Now let's consider if battery 1 dies. You lose all electronics. In your set up - you lose essential stuff like radio, GPS, bilge pump. (Your diagram does not show where your Nav lights are wired - so perhaps they are gone as well). The only way I can see you getting these working is if you switch the isolator to 1+2 and start your motor. But the concern with this is what was the nature of that battery 1 failure? If it was a dropped plate like in my case, the dead battery 1 would rapidly drain your battery 2 as they are connected. In severe cases a shorted battery may even explode if its being charged. To overcome some of these issues you might consider a simpler set up - eg I have moved all my toys and devices to run off the Feeder pole from the isolator switch - and I have a large capacitor in the wiring to suppress electrical noise. I have also wired in a Volt meter to run off that Feeder pole. So it tells me either the battery charge or the charge coming out of my motor when its running. I have two identical batteries (Century Marine hybrids - strong CCA and reasonable performance on deep cycle use). I run off 1 until its drained (hardly ever happens) and then switch to 2. They are identical batteries. You use deep cycle batteries to get better lifespan if you are going to continuously drain them close to flat - but I got 10yrs out of one of my marine batteries using it as above. I have also wired into mine a charging circuit so that I can easily plug in a trickle charger when home on the driveway to keep both batteries fully charged. I often run out to the fishing grounds with both batteries 1+2 and switch to 1 when there, keeping 2 as a full backup. Alternatively, consider adding a modern VSR arrangement that actually let you charge and run of either battery. Please talk to Yamaha as the answer may be manufacturer and model specific and also switch manufacturer specific. In my case, I have checked my isolator switches and there was definitely no connection when moving between switch positions. Just turn on your nav lights and switch between the positions - my lights switched off in between. Also regarding my motor (Merc 200hp EFI) the answer is definitely NO - do not run without a battery attached. I was running on a single starter battery which had a catastrophic failure (dropped a plate causing an internal short). In effect I had no battery connected for the short time it took for the engine to die - yet there was a huge concern whether the current that was generated by the motor charging circuit (which had no where to go) had created a spike that damaged the ECM, the VRs (voltage regulators) and other electronic components. The recommendation from Merc was to stop the motor before switching between batteries. ------------------------------------- Ok thats all I have time for at present Be back later. Cheers Zoran

Man-o-man... just catching up on posts.. Nice day out but what a shame regarding the catch!! But I bet you enjoyed to ones you managed to salvage - they would have tasted all the sweeter! Cheers Zoran

Thanks Sam .... What was the water temperature? cheers Zoran

Yes as @Welster said - but make sure you have good waterflow, the squid will discharge ink several times before they clear them selves.... you want good waterflow through the bait tank to clear the murk quickly otherwise it will compromise the longevity of the yakkas.... and also yes... sometimes the squid latch on to a yakka ! Cheers Zoran

Nice one @antonywardle ! Lots of great information there.... Cheers Zoran

Merry Christmas Fabian ! .... hope you can still read this🤪. Cheers Zoran

Lovely tokens guys and great report. Wonder what caused the “pop” ! Sounds very much like a shark variety. Cheers Zoran ps - my Christmas Eve has been spent reworking some contract terms !! You win.

Hey @MikeTan you're question is so broad that it would take a book with several chapters to start to address it - and I don't think anyone will have the time to write down the shopping list of options that you can pick and choose from. Perhaps break it down for yourself (and us). Consider what exactly you want to rewire at this point in time and start to develop your own design for the Caribean - write down a list of what you want the wiring to support on your boat and then we can discuss each item as to what it needs to basically work and what options you have to optimise it. Also think about how you want the wiring to work: do you want a central switch panel for all devices, a central fuse or breaker box etc etc. So as a starting point are you talking about stripping out all the wiring out of the whole boat and starting fresh on: engine starting and control looms (how many motors), bilge pumps (manual, auto switch or both), navigation lights, deck lights, live bait tank, radios, sounders etc. Are you considering multiple batteries - how do you want to run with them. Are you considering having the ability to charge the batteries when back at home - additional charging circuit? Are you considering heavy current draw devices - electric marine toilet, anchor winch, electric thrust motors ? Etc Etc etc. For each of these, if you use the search facility you will find a wealth of info and topics that have already been covered in FishRaider. Yes tinned marine wire is recommended for marine applications. Cheers Zoran