First sail of the season (pictures)

[Sumner]

Walt glad to see you got out again. Hopefully we are close to going out also. Wish you lived closer!

Here are two pictures of solar panel mounts I got off the Internet. Sorry, but I can't remember where, but I wanted to save them as I thought this might be a good way to mount a solar panel and have it get sun and also be out of the way......

....I like to know what others feel about the pro's and con's of mounting a solar cell like this.

If the owners of these boats are on here how has this arrangement worked for you?

Walt do you have any long range plans on how you want to mount or not mount the solar cell?

Thanks,

Sum

 

[MrBill_FLL]

Sum, I saw something similar mounted on the stern rail of a mac, a few months back, didn't get a good look but it looked more square, and also looked like it rotated in the middle.

I;ve seen the the solar stick at boat shows and its about the nicest setup I've seen

http://www.solarstik.com/overview.php

http://www.solarstik.com/marine.php


rotates in 3 axis

 

[Sumner]

Sum, I saw something similar mounted on the stern rail of a mac, a few months back, didn't get a good look but it looked more square, and also looked like it rotated in the middle.

I;ve seen the the solar stick at boat shows and its about the nicest setup I've seen

http://www.solarstik.com/overview.php

http://www.solarstik.com/marine.php


rotates in 3 axis

That is pretty neat, but I was disappointed in one aspect. When I say it I thought that with the3 axis setup that it would auto track the sun during the day. That wouldn't be all that hard to do with some small motors.

c ya,

Sum

 

[walt]

solar panel

I think to some extent, you have to consider two uses for a solar panel. First is charging when your not using the boat and second is charging while your using the boat. Normally, my main use is to charge up the battery during the week so that everything is all set for the one day a week I do use the boat. Where you put a panel to charge while your not using the boat could be different from where it would be while using the boat.

I have a single permanently mounted 20 watt panel just in front of the mast on the starboard side. The cable feeds through the "skylight" in the head area. Where I park the boat in the summer, this panel gets good light so for the most part works for me. Note - when I said I used 20 amp hours for the weekend, this was not correct. The 20 watt panel was operating the whole time and I was down a net 20 amp hours over the weekend. I have a second 80 watt panel that is not fixed on the boat that I pull out and place "somewhere". The 80 watt panel was stored in the boat the whole weekend. Both panels are wired to use the same 10 amp charge controller.

I dont know how large of a panel you need but a couple things to keep in mind.

First is that any sort of partial shading is going to reduce the output. I have a charge monitor and havent done detailed experiments but it looks like just leaving a rope draped accross the panel (maybe slightly coiled) can reduce the output 20% maybe even 30%. The shade of a boom or mast just on 10% of the panel surface I would guess could reduce output by 50% or even a lot more. So you should try and have every bit of area of the panel in the direct sun for as long as possible. I mostly worry about this when the boat is parked and its charging the battery when Im not using the boat.

Second is the angle to the sun. The easiest install is to just have the panel facing directly upwards. When the sun is high up in the sky (like during the summer), this works fairly well. I thought I was using the 20 watt panel mounted flat on the deck of my boat to keep the batteries charged during the winter but this January discovered that I was hardly getting any current out of the panel. The sun was just too low in the sky with the panel looking sraight up to generate much current.

 

[Sumner]

Re: solar panel

Thanks Walt for the input. We want to end up with a setup that will recharge during the day on the water. At home I have a trickle charger on the battery. I have sleep apnea and use one of those machines at night that I need to have a battery for, so I need to keep the battery charged on a daily thing. I'm adding a second battery to the boat, the battery that I carry in my teardrop trailer(will be able to change it back and forth) and I can usually go 3 nights with it on the machine, so I could live with a bad solar day or two.

I use to dry camp in the AZ desert for a couple weeks at a time with a popup camper in a pickup and had two batteries in it and just a 40 watt solar cell and it would keep them charged up during the day so that we could run the blower on the heater at night. I would reposition them a couple times a day.

When we get one for the boat it will probably be a 70 watt and I like the way those were mounted on those boats. It looked like they were out of the way when under sail. I guess since we have no experience sailing that what I'm interested in is do those mounting locations look to be good ones while on the water, out of the way, etc..

Thanks,

Sumner

 

[walt]

Your probaby familiar with "amp hours" but regardless, this is just the amps some equipement uses for the number of hours the equiepment is used.

Amps are typically the unit of measurement with batteries systems like we have because amps into the battery is closest to amps out of the batteries (not so true of watts in vs watts out). So if you have for example a fan which uses .5 amps when its running (or 12.3volts * .5 amps = 6.15 watts) and it was on for 8 hours, you would have used .5amps * 8 hours = 4 amp hours.

How many amp hours you will get with a solar panel varies from day to day, month to month and varies with location (this link shows the variation at different locations/months http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/solar-insolation-levels/

I use a scaling number of between .2 to .4 to determine about how many amp hours you will get from a panel each day. To get an estimate of the amp hours, just multiply the scaling number by the rated watts of the panel. For example, a 70 watt panel might produce between 70*.2 = 14 to 70*.4 = 28 amp hours. These numbers are only very rough and somewhat suspect as they are based on posts Ive seen on the internet with little info given but are somewhat useful to give you a ballpark idea.

Since the output of the solar panel can vary a fair amount, having a lot of battery capacity is in my opinion a good idea. I suposedly have 200 amp hours (at least when the batteries were new) and to some extent, on my fiive day trip to Lake Powell, I just lived mostly off the battery capacity.

Probably again tellling you something you already know but with the 70 watt panel, you will need a charge controller.

 

[walt]

My only comment about the panel in the back...

I have a hank on jib and plan to keep the hank on jib because during the summer, I raise the mast a LOT and Ive had both roller furler and hank on jibs and its no doubt easier to raise the mast with the hank on.

One of the first times sailing the boat, the jib halyard clip came undone and for one reason or another, the halyard rope had moved enough that I could not reach the halyard clip so no more jib use that day. I pretty much had to drop the mast to get access to the clip (no way would I climb a Mac mast..). My boat is always set up so that I can easilly lower the mast even out on the water (gin pole, baby stays plus crutch). Plus, to get under the bridge at Bridge Marina at Yellowstone, you have to lower the mast.

So maybe the solar panel brace back there could also incorporate some sort of mast crutch (which attempted to not shade the panel)??? I also have a barbeque back there and the swim ladder and easy use of both of these is important to me.

 

[Sumner]

.........Probably again telling you something you already know but with the 70 watt panel, you will need a charge controller.

With my 40 watt I didn't, but knew I would need one with a larger panel. Do you have a recommendation? I've also given some thought to using two 40 watt panels, what do you think about that as an option and if I did that would I need a controller. It seems that the 40 I had was self-regulating or something like that.

We just bought 6 of the stick up LED lights, so won't be using the battery for them. Possibly at times an anchor light, a marine radio, an electric water pump and we are thinking of later getting a Sirius Satellite Radio, but would have small speakers. So all in all except for my CPAP machine we will be pretty light electric users. At Powell we will probably have the outboard running enough that we will keep the batteries up, but we are hoping to sail some place where we won't be using it much at all. I'd like to know how much the auto-tillers use? They are only a thought if we get to go to some place like Florida and a long ways off, but I'm still interested to know what kind of drain they are on the battery.

Thanks,

Sum

Our Mac Pages

Mac Links

 

[walt]

Since I can have up to 100 watts of panel hooked up (for a max current on the order of 6 amps), I bought the Morningstar SS10-12
http://www.infinigi.com/morningstar-ss1012-sunsaver-10-charge-controller-p-832.html

It is a PWM type of controller. Some people will recomend a MPPT type controller. The MPPT type controllers get more usable power from the panel but also is more expensive and the delivered power is going to be more sensitive to temperature and partial shading. Im just fine with the PWM type controller for this application. I think the MPPT is a bit of overkill here (I also have a MPPT controller in a different solar application).

Ive also used this one for lower current panels (used with my 20 watt panel for several years) - works fine. Also an PWM type.
http://www.infinigi.com/morningstar-sunguard-4-charge-controller-12v-p-837.html

Edit - two 40 watt panels works fine also, just parellel the inputs into the charge controller. Two 40 watt panels actually should be less sensitive to partial shading than a single 80 watt panel.

 

[raymacx]

Walt glad to see you got out again. Hopefully we are close to going out also. Wish you lived closer!

Here are two pictures of solar panel mounts I got off the Internet. Sorry, but I can't remember where, but I wanted to save them as I thought this might be a good way to mount a solar panel and have it get sun and also be out of the way......

....I like to know what others feel about the pro's and con's of mounting a solar cell like this.

If the owners of these boats are on here how has this arrangement worked for you?

Walt do you have any long range plans on how you want to mount or not mount the solar cell?

Thanks,

Sum

hi
you can also hang your inflatable (small size) from the solar panel mounts

 

[MrBill_FLL]

Sum, I would at least consider an alternate power generation source.

I'll bet you could rig a 1 wire 65-100 amp altenator (Delco) to your flywheel, (crude but effective),

or a wind generator (noisy)

or a small 2 or 4 cycle gas powered generator w/ a larger A/C battery charger.

on thing you'll find out is the mac's tend to 'swing' at anchor, so (I;d guess) its sort of hard to get a perfect angle to the sun at anchor. and as walt said, less than perfect settings for the panels really cuts down on the amps.

Walt is getting (most) of his power when docked. I bet he would get much less amps if moored or sailing.

 

[walt]

I would agree, Im getting most charging when docked where I have some control on the shading of the panel (and can hook up the additional 80 watt panel which I only need if Im going to the boat everyday and let the amp hours get down somewhat). Also, a 20 watt panel is not really about supplying the power you need on a daily basis, but it makes things simple if you sail for example one day per week. The panel placed high behind the bimini would probably do well even if moored. Im not sure how much power Sumners sleeping apereratus consumes (do you know?) but Im guessing that with a 70 watt panel placed in a good spot, you cant have a "electric ice chest" but otherwise, you will likely have excess power.

Regarding the auto pilots like the Raymarine ST1000, you can look at the manual here: http://www.raymarine.com/ProductDetail.aspx?SITE=1&SECTION=2&PAGE=87&PRODUCT=193

According the manual, this autopilot uses .5A to 1.5A depending on boat trim, ect. This isnt all that bad, maybe about 1/2 what a car stereo would consume. Just running some numbers, lets say a 70 watt panel (in a good spot) generated 70*.2 = 14 amp hours during the day (probably a conservative estimate). Assuming the auto pilot consumed an average of 1 amp, you could run the auto pilot for 14 hours and be even.

 

[Sumner]

Sum, I would at least consider an alternate power generation source.

I'll bet you could rig a 1 wire 65-100 amp alternator (Delco) to your flywheel, (crude but effective),

or a wind generator (noisy)

or a small 2 or 4 cycle gas powered generator w/ a larger A/C battery charger.

on thing you'll find out is the mac's tend to 'swing' at anchor, so (I;d guess) its sort of hard to get a perfect angle to the sun at anchor. and as walt said, less than perfect settings for the panels really cuts down on the amps.

Walt is getting (most) of his power when docked. I bet he would get much less amps if moored or sailing.

Bill I've given serious thought to making my own generator with a 1-wire car alternator like I have on my truck powered by a 2-4 hp small engine. Even with one of the 60 amp ones, you wouldn't have to run it long to put a charge in a battery if you don't have the sun. I wouldn't be concerned about having 110 off of it as everything on the boat would be 12 volt and you could still run an inverter off of the battery if you had that need. I think I could put one of these together for under $200.

I'd put this....

( HF -- ITEM 97964-0VGA )

overhead valve 2 1/2 hp for $99 and this....

(http://www.carparts.com/autoparts/I...Id-100000325666/Pr-p_CATENTRY_ID:100000325666)

.......60 amp alternator for $54 and I could charge batteries real easy. HF also has a nice......

(HF --- ITEM 66619-0VGA)

.......... 800 watt generator for $130, but then you would still have to hook it to a charger to charge your batteries and it wouldn't charge the battery as fast as this setup and we don't need the 110 volts the generator puts out.

Walt the CPAP machine is about 4 amps on 12 volts and I usually use it 4-6 hours a night.

Thanks guys for the ideas and the auto-tiller info,

Sum

 

[Doug J]

Tiller Pilot Power Consumption

Interesting thread you guys. I'm reading and learning a little. Walt you seem to know your stuff in this area, thanks for all the info!

I don't think I'll get that fancy with my boat. I have a little Sunsei 7.5w panel, that I currently just lay on the deck in front of the mast. They do sell a nice mounting device that can be attached anywhere and can be adjusted to any angle toward the sun. I think I'll likely get that. I keep my boat at home on the trailer, power plugged in all the time, and use a Guest 10A(5/5), to keep two batteries topped off.

About the power consumption of the tiller pilots, I have a Simrad TP10, that's working well for me. It's the less expenssive model, which does not have the NMEA ability to interface with a GPS, but that's okay with me.

I checked the owners manual, put the following in your browser, then search for keyword TP10.
cs.simradyachting.com/Index.aspx?PageID=92&CategoryBrowse=Browse%2C7&FilesGallery=Download,269

Current Consumption Standby – 60 mA, (Typical) Auto – 500 mA​

Raymarine ST1000
Current consumption: • Standby: 40 mA (90 mA with full lighting)
• Auto: 0.5 A to 1.5 A depending on boat trim,​

helm load and sailing conditions


My TP10, I think cost me about $200 off ebay.
The Raymarine ST1000 at WM $450 (but that's WM)

 

[MrBill_FLL]

Sum, homebrew lawnmower genset:
http://www.theepicenter.com/tow082099.html

fair prices, If I didn't already have 3 gensets I'd build one. lol.

not a big fan of 2stroke generators....

honda is worth every penny, imo, but I'm still struggling on where to run it on a mac...

I know I've seen a OB w/ a 1wire ALT. had a slot cut on the top of the cover for the belt, and bracket was from below... but since it not practical for salt water, didn't really study it.

I'll Becha you could fab something.... ;D