Capt. Mike,
I am planning a similar backup with a Honda generator. I was surprised to find that the on-board chargers, in general, are so inefficient. Minn-kota's MK 460, a four bank, 15 amp charger is the best I have found, so far. They told me it draws 8 amps at 120v ac and the ac must be sinusoidal, which I think the Honda EU series is. This means 960 watts in and 750 watts out, about 78% efficiency. Other vendors were more in the range of 60%. I was hoping to use the Honda EU1000 (for size and weight) but that looks like it will be calling it too close. I would think that with today's technology, we should be able to get closer to 90%. Did you find anything better? I will be charging a series of eight 6 volt wet cells.
Ned
On Jan 29, 2010, at 9:22 AM, Mike wrote:
From: hardy71uk <p0054107@brookes.ac.uk>
Subject: [Electric Boats] solar canal rambling
To: electricboats@yahoogroups. com
Date: Friday, January 29, 2010, 12:44 PM
theres an extensive canal network here in UK. I've often thought it would be great to do a leuisurely trip . stopping for a while to explore an area whilst charging batteries from solar panels and then moving on. The problem would seem to be that if charging over say a week or two that the batteries would most of the time be only partly charged . Is this a fast way to kill lead acid batteries or would a slow charge resist sulphation?
I'm guessing that a better regime would be to just do a few miles per day using a small depth of charge. Any comments?
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