solar power

[four sail]

Hello Everyone

My name is John and my Wife is Julie,

we just purchased our Hunter 25.5 and will be sailing her for the first time this weekend, in November we will be heading south down the Mississippi River to
either New Orleans or if we have to turning up the Ohio and heading to Mobile AL.

My question is about solar power requirements we are going to add at least 50 watts of solar charging capability to Four Sail so we have some of the ammenities of home microwave occasional hair dryer usage for Julie charging the electric shaver and so on no major loads...other than the microwave oven at any rate I have looked at the numbers for the onboard navigation and communications requirements as these will be on all the time and was just wondering will 50 watts do for the most part..

If you could fill me in on some of your experiences with solar and power requirements in general that would be very helpful

Any information would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance
Respectfully
John and Julie

 

[four sail]

Thanks for the response

At this point I plan on running 2 12volt group 27 batteries with 225 hours of
reserve, as well as a separate engine battery for starting the outboard..
the batteries are rated at 225 aH on a 25 amp draw...I expect real world to be around 180-200 on a 15 amp draw

we will be running a 2000 watt inverter but only when the microwave will be in use (or hair dryer) we were hoping for about 10 minutes a day of microwave use
and the actual real power monster appears to be the hair dryer...

I will be connecting the above to one 50 watt panel and a 30 amp charge controller and will have a smaller panel to maintain the charge on the starting battery we can definitely do with little to no microwave usage and no hair dryer usage until we hit the dock if need be truth be told I could live without both but a happy wife makes for a happy trip..

Unless we are running any of the above items the only thing on the list will be the VHF and the GPS/depth maybe occasionally the laptop..

at any rate thanks again for the response and I look forward to any more info


Respectfully
John and Julie

 

[Dennis W.]

Battery Reality

John, I hope you have a wonderful trip. The reality of your two group 27 (deep cycle?) batteries is this. If the bank is rated for 225Ah it was probably based on a 20 hour draw down. If so at best you actually have 112 Ah available for your use without hurting the batteries at a rate of 11.25 amps for up to 10 hours. Less amp draw = more hours. Your 50 watt panel will be able to replace about 20-25 Ah per day with good sunny weather. The balance of recharging will need to be from some other source

 

[four sail]

would 110 be a bit better suited

Dennis thanks for the well wishes on the trip and I appreciate your info
after the last two responses I have raised the chips and I am now looking at
110 watt system, no sense in having to constantly worry about for the real necessities, and the wife and I have talked and we have both realized now that
certain amenities will be out of reach for us, at least for now

so what do you guys think better off all the way around with the 110 watt system

Thanks again for the info it is greatly appreciated

Respectfully
John and Julie

 

[David in Sandusky]

Getting comfortable with the stove.

We have a microwave we use when hooked up to shore power. But my morning routine (I am always first up, and make the coffee and breakfast) is not dramatically different when we are on the hook, and using our alcohol stove. Some things may take a little longer, but you are cruising, right?

I have no idea if this works, but how about sitting in the sun to dry the hair? We usually have lots of sunshine while cruising.

On Lake Erie, we have to find spots to anchor out. There are multiple marinas in most of the ports. I bet you'll be surprised how many of our stops will have shorepower.

David
Lady Lillie

 

[John Nantz]

Excellent resource: "Forum Archives"

If you'd like lots of solar power inforation a really good place to start looking is in the "Forum Archives". In the past few years there is almost always a discussion thread going on about solar power.

Go to the menue bar at the top of the page and select "Message Boards" and then the dropdown menu "Forum Archives". The rest will be fairly self explainatory.

Solar Power: Quiet! 25 year guarentee, typically, for 90% of rated output. Never have to make a special run to a fuel dock to buy gas for the generator. Never have to smell the gas fumes from the Gerry can. Never have to worry about the safety of the gas Gerry can, etc. What is there not to like?