Harnessing the Power of the SUN | Boat Upgrades
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- čas přidán 8. 09. 2024
- Installing solar panels on a sailboat is something every cruiser has on their project list. Solar panels make life aboard so much easier and more enjoyable when you can make your own electricity. After owning our boat for nearly 1 year, we finally take the plunge and install our very own MAXEON 415 WATT solar panel, DIY STYLE!
Looks good I hope all's going well have fun be safe keep us posted😊
Thanks Murph! Hope you're doing well!
Looking good,
A dodger is one of next years projects for me. Although a hard dodger is more suitable where I live.
I am just thinking out loud here,
If Josh is ever bored, he could probably engineer a basic system giving you minor adjustments at the push of a button to raise or lower one side aiming it more towards the sun on longer crossings.
This could help stiffen your dodger up a little and would also allow you to lower the panels a little in a storm.
We'll definitely be monitoring how the panel does angled away from the sun and how it holds up to stronger storms. Your idea might be in our future!
@@thegreatescape2022 I think you will be okay without aiming it towards the sun unless you switch to an electric motor.
And you would need more panels then anyway.
I have 3 - 100 watt panels at anchor, or stack one of my panels on-top of another while cruising reducing it to 200 watts.
If I charge all my devices at night, and run my electric cooktop my system is usually fully charged by noon.
It's of course a good idea to use higher energy items like my cooktop during the daylight hours whenever possible taking some strain off the batteries.
I should note, my boat is 50 years old now, and has never had refrigeration or AC.
@@sailorstu do you have lithium batteries to help support your output? We're thinking we will switch to lithium for the house batteries this winter
@@thegreatescape2022
Right now only Lead acid,
I may add a couple Gel to my system.
I am holding off on any big battery purchases at the moment, and waiting to see what happens with the Salt batteries recently introduced.
It sounds like they may have 4 times more capacity than Lithium, at a fraction of the cost.
Plus much more environmentally friendly.
The only problem at this time is there doesn't seem to be any available to the general public yet.
@sailorstu I haven't heard of those before, I'll have to do some research
Why did you not get 4 400w flexible solar panels for this installation? Amazon less than $600 and lite weight.
Thats a good question! We weighed the pros and cons of flexible vs rigid and ended up going with rigid because it maximized our wattage per area and generally the life span of rigid is longer than flexible.
Another side pro of one panel vs 4 smaller panels is less wiring/connections to fail in future, and less systems overall to fail. The downside to this is if we have an issue with the one panel, we don't have any other panel to keep at least a little charge going. We'll see how we like just one panel over time and might add another in the future.