— Solar Panel and "Charge Booster" for a Capri 22 —
I just placed the order for a solar panel and charge controller for my boat — about $600.
I ordered 85W Solarland (Kyocera KC85T Replacement) solar panel from eMarine and a "charge booster" GVB24-8 from Genasun LLC in Cambridge MA.
The charge booster is a type of MPPT controller that will take the output of a nominal "12 volt" solar panel and provide the various voltages to charge the 24 v battery bank (other voltages are also available). Their most frequent use is to recharge electric golf carts. Just what I needed!
This is the first year that it will be on a mooring and since I use an electric outboard (Torqeedo Cruise 2.0T) I need to have a way to recharge the batteries (210 amp-hour @ 24 vdc — 4 GC2 batteries where the cooler used to be). I will have limited access to shore power and hope to not have to use it.
DESIGN PARAMETERS:
• to be able to replace 40 amp-hours in normally 3 days (85 watt panel should do this
most every time)
• minimize the area and placement of the solar panel and not have it interfere with normal sailing
• keep the cost "reasonable"
BACKGROUND:
Last year I monitored the battery consumption for our weekend and Wednesday evening "Beer Cans". We were always running late on the Wednesdays and motor sailed at fast throttle. On those Wednesday evenings we would draw about 80 amps for 20 minutes reaching 5 knots. Returning would be more leisurely at 3 knots drawing about 20 amps. Even when we motor sailed around the Boston Harbor Outer Islands, we rarely dropped below 80% of full charge — often rarely dropped below 90% of full charge for docking and maneuvering through the mooring field and marina. This is also the portion of recharging batteries that needs to be done "intelligently" and rarely can be properly accomplished with a generator/alternator.
So, with the four deep discharge golf cart batteries, we have plenty of energy and lots of reserve. At the end of the sail, the batteries will need to have about 40 amp-hours (@ 24 vdc) replaced. The shore powered battery charger (ProSport 12, 2 Outputs, 12/24V, 12A Capacity) easily did this overnight. Most of the time the charger spent conditioning the batteries.
MOUNTING:
I will try out two locations.
• The size of the solar panel is small enough to fit on the cabin top and could potentially be quickly removed and placed into the cabin. This will have the least effect on the surface area presented to the wind. But, it also has probable issues with shading from the boom and interference with the boom vang.
• The second location is to mount it on a frame connected to the stern pulpits. See — http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/solar_panel — as an example of a professional mounting of solar panels
OBSERVATIONS:
• Small wattage solar panels are no longer readily available, especially if looking for an American manufactured one.
The size of the 85 watt Solarland panel is approximately 40" x 26" x 1.8". I had considered using two 40 watt panels but opted for a single integrated panel since I will be using the Genasun charge booster and don't need to have two 12 volt panels in series.
Once the panel and charge booster come in, I will continue the story...
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