Solar Panel on H380

[Al - s/v Persephone]

I notice that my boatyard neighbor's H380 appears to have a factory-installed solar panel just forward of the seahood.Can any 380-driver comment on their experience with it, what its capacity is (looks small) and whether it's just a trickle charger or something more serious.I'm interested in installing a single 85W Siemens/Shell panel on my 05H36, and wondered if this H380 instalation would give me any tips on how to charge two separate batteries from a single panel+charger.Fair winds (or photons, as the case may be <g>)

 

[Don12364]

Solar Panel

Al,The identical panel was fitted to my H376 and was connected so that it only charged the engine start battery. It was a UNI-SOLAR MBC-262(690mm x 290mm). Unfortunately the panel failed in its second year and I discovered it was no longer available, so I replaced it with a SOLARA 160M (740mm x 450mm)- 45 Watts peak or theoretically 180 WH/day – see Barden UK's website http://www.barden-uk.com/ also available world wide.The location directly under the boom is not so clever though as it gets shadow for much of the day.My engine has always started instantly so, whilst I was about it, I connected the new panel to charge BOTH battery banks using a 5 amp diode in series with each battery. I also happened to have a charging regulator from a previous boat so I used this too.Since then the batts have always been topped up very well but the panel is not nearly large enough to replace a weekend's fridge usage off the house bank during the following week. My latitude is 51°N and I guess yours is about 42°N so you will get a little less energy.Your intended 85 Watt panel looks much better. Solar panels normally have a high open circuit voltage of 22 volts or more. If you insert a diode between the panel and each battery it hardly reduces the output. In my case with a 95Ah engine battery and a 360Ah house bank a regulator is not really necessary, but if you only use yours for engine start a regulator will certainly be required. My Delphi engine battery is still the original from 1996.PS:- For other readers, the Uni-Solar panel may be back on the market again as the manufacturer in Mexico was taken over by a competitor.

 

[Al - s/v Persephone]

Thanks guys. My tentative H36 plan:

My (tentative) plan is to install the SQ85-P (85w, 5amp-peak, 21"x47") panel on top of the seahood.I think I'll run the output through a BlueSky MPPT controller to the load side of my battery switch, so the current will offset the drain of my electronics (2 amps for RADAR, 2 amps for autopilot, chartplotter, VHF etc.), regardless of which 105AH group 27 battery I've selected. (I alternate house batteries, and always keeep one battery fully charged and unloaded for use in starting)I can use the bulk-charge voltage adjustment feature of this controller to account for the drop over the cables from the batteries to the switch.By mounting the panel's long axis athwartship, I should be able to keep it unshadoweed by pulling the traveller (and boom) to one side while docked.Since much of my sailing is SW-NE in the Gulf of Maine, I expect that at least some of the time the panel will offset the electronics drain under sail. The MPPT type of PWM controller circuit will maximize the charge per unit time for whatever photo-voltaic amperage I get.Anything I'm overlooking?