Solar Charging

[tryhard]

Hi all,

I am looking for a little guidance on the subject of solar charging...

As background, I have recently purchased a boat & it is on a swing mooring.

the main bilge pump is connected to the house batteries which are 2 x 85 AH in parallel (170AH total)

I want to ensure that the charge to these batteries, is maintained as well as I can manage, whilst the boat sits on the mooring.

can anyone give me some guidance as to what sort of system I need (i.e 120 watt panel or 10 watt panel)?

Of course I am currently googling away to see if I can get guidance, but thought someone here may be able to offer help.

 

thanks

 

[Fishop]

Id be interested to know what you find out as well.

[dunc333]

they work great .the advice i can give is anything over 10 watt panel needs a controller which can cost the same as the panel itself .so up to you a small panel 5w to 10w dosnt need controller and it has to have a no reverse diode inline to stop reverse when the sun goes down which most panels have fitted as is and i find the 10 watt panel working great on my boat with no controller regards dunc 333

[Smasher]

A guy I know owns a solar power company, based in Newcastle, but give them a ring and get their advice. They're good & honest people.  There's a lot of cheap chinese junk out there so you wanna make sure you buy quality as well as the right size for your boat.

https://www.solaronline.com.au/

I bought a Roc Solid 120W portable panel for camping trips in my 4WD (dual batteries - 100ah deep cycle and an ordinary for cranking) and I can run my fridge and LED lights off the deep cycle indefinitely (as long as it's not 100% overcast).

http://www.roc-solidsolar.com.au/portable-solar-panels.php

You'll probably also want to look into getting a spinny thing that stops birds crapping all over it while its moored.

 

Edited July 22, 2017 by Smasher

[tryhard]

Thanks everyone,

after much reading on the interweb I determined that as I was not trying to recharge my batteries from 50% or less or run appliances a smaller panel would be ample for my needs.

I went to a well known chandlery retailer & purchased a 40w panel with shottkey Diode & a controller.

I believe that this will be sufficient to keep my 'house' batteries topped up even if the bilge pump needs to run occasionally.

I am yet to install it, so time will tell.