The Official "What Did You Do To Your Mac Today" Thread!
- Thread starter Sock Puppet
- Start date
Hey Walt, do you have any close-ups of your solar panel mount? I need to t0 get that done pretty soon.
This is only a 10 watt panel and the mounts came with the boat so I dont know where to get them..
So far, I have used the boat from Sunday to today (Friday) with just the 10 watt panel and the outboard charging system (9.8 Nissan with the "rectifier/regulator" which actually works fairly well) and this morning I am down just 10 amp hours. That is the most down I have seen all week. This is with watching Saturday night live on TV in the boat on Sunday, using the auto stereo every day, GPS depth finder, VHF radio, charging the cell phone, charging an Ipad, LED lights.. I have just one battery (two six volt cells) and a battery monitor.. worked flawless.
If you dont have high loads like a fridge or spend a lot of time on your computer (Internet), you just dont need much power . That 10 watt stays on the boat all the time and is mostly there to keep the batteries topped up.
So far, I have used the boat from Sunday to today (Friday) with just the 10 watt panel and the outboard charging system (9.8 Nissan with the "rectifier/regulator" which actually works fairly well) and this morning I am down just 10 amp hours. That is the most down I have seen all week. This is with watching Saturday night live on TV in the boat on Sunday, using the auto stereo every day, GPS depth finder, VHF radio, charging the cell phone, charging an Ipad, LED lights.. I have just one battery (two six volt cells) and a battery monitor.. worked flawless.
If you dont have high loads like a fridge or spend a lot of time on your computer (Internet), you just dont need much power . That 10 watt stays on the boat all the time and is mostly there to keep the batteries topped up.
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I believe the panel I have is 10 watt. I have a dual battery set-up and don't have any real loads. I may try it out this summer and see how it works. Thanks!
Another thing we really got to try out this week is this two chamber ice chest. One chamber holds the ice, the larger chamber holds the food and there is a standoff in the food area to keep things above the ice melt.
I kludged on a comforter folded in half to add some extra insulation. Its easily folds back to get in the chest.
During 5 days, I added two bags of ice ($4 total). I cooled 24 pop cans from room temp, kept a 12 pack of beer in there plus daily meals out on the lake. Each day I would open the drain and let out maybe a pint of water per day. All the food stayed dry and clean even on the last day. I think it worked reasonably well.. By the morning of day 6, all the ice was melted and I easilly drained all the water out of the chest, wiped it clean.
There is a fan that can circulates air between the two chambers and I never turned it on. The natural circulation kept everything in the food chamber cool. I think the fan might come in handy for a "turbo" cooling mode where for example I want to cool some beer cans as fast as possible - at the expense of melting the ice faster.
I kludged on a comforter folded in half to add some extra insulation. Its easily folds back to get in the chest.
During 5 days, I added two bags of ice ($4 total). I cooled 24 pop cans from room temp, kept a 12 pack of beer in there plus daily meals out on the lake. Each day I would open the drain and let out maybe a pint of water per day. All the food stayed dry and clean even on the last day. I think it worked reasonably well.. By the morning of day 6, all the ice was melted and I easilly drained all the water out of the chest, wiped it clean.
There is a fan that can circulates air between the two chambers and I never turned it on. The natural circulation kept everything in the food chamber cool. I think the fan might come in handy for a "turbo" cooling mode where for example I want to cool some beer cans as fast as possible - at the expense of melting the ice faster.
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We had a 15 watt panel on the Mac way before most people could spell solar, and although I got the "high output" alternator/generator for the Honda, I never installed it, and never used the motor for charging. Same as Walt, it seemed to keep up just fine with the requirements at the time.
Hey Walt, Those mounts are SeaStow railmounts. I just bought those same mounts for my 60 watt panel though I'm going to try it with just one mount. Two seems to be a bit of overkill but we shall see. I'm hoping it will make it easy to dismount the panel for travel. I purchased mine from Fisheries Supply when they had them on sale for $24.00 a pair but you can also get them from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/SeaStow-72669-Rail-Clamps/dp/B008EPC0RO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1424574195&sr=8-1&keywords=seastow+rail+clamps
My outboard is a 2010 Nissan 9.8 and the electrical diagram shows a "regulator/rectifier".
I dont know how it works.. but it seems to work well. After I had the battery down a little (lowest I got down to was about 13 amp hours when I put the boat away), I had the outboard just over idle and it was putting out 5.5 amps. My old 1990 Honda 8 hp would not put out anywhere near this until some high rpm.
But. the Nissan cuts back charging when the voltage gets near 13.3 volts and I just never discharged the batteries enough to really take advantage of what the motor would put out.
The attached drawing is for that outboard and normally you would just see a rectifier but this one shows a rec/reg.. and somehow it seems to work nicely other than cutting off at 13.3 but that may have something to do with the outboard being on one end of the boat and the batteries on the other.
Yes, Girl Scout cookie Thin mints. I dont eat them but there was a gang of girl scouts at the entrance to a store in Lake Havasu.. I didnt want no trouble.. so I bought a box..
I dont know how it works.. but it seems to work well. After I had the battery down a little (lowest I got down to was about 13 amp hours when I put the boat away), I had the outboard just over idle and it was putting out 5.5 amps. My old 1990 Honda 8 hp would not put out anywhere near this until some high rpm.
But. the Nissan cuts back charging when the voltage gets near 13.3 volts and I just never discharged the batteries enough to really take advantage of what the motor would put out.
The attached drawing is for that outboard and normally you would just see a rectifier but this one shows a rec/reg.. and somehow it seems to work nicely other than cutting off at 13.3 but that may have something to do with the outboard being on one end of the boat and the batteries on the other.
Yes, Girl Scout cookie Thin mints. I dont eat them but there was a gang of girl scouts at the entrance to a store in Lake Havasu.. I didnt want no trouble.. so I bought a box..
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Yesterday, my brother and I launched my new to me 1985 Mac 25 for the first time. I bought it in November and have spent the last few months fixing up a few things and reading up lots on sailing. We launched at the St. Marks Fl. City launch ramp. Mast raising and setup went smoothly. Motored south against a south wind toward the St. Marks Lighthouse and open water. Raised the main, unfurled the jib, and for the first time and with many tangled sheets without benefit of an actual sailing class I was at the helm at a blistering 3 knots under light breeze. It was a great day, and the learning process has started. I am going to be taking some formalized sailing instruction soon, but just needed to get out for a shakedown run and add to the list of projects to accomplish. Definitely going to look into gas struts for the pop top, not that we bothered raising it yesterday. Just a really great day to be out on the water. Looking forward to many more. I expect that I will pop onto the forum from time to time with new questions.:dance:
