T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] Grape Solar panels?

Monday, June 9, 2014

Re: [Electric Boats] Grape Solar panels?

I have heard mostly good things about Grape solar. Home Depot and Amazon also sell that brand and there web sites have reviews.

On Jun 9, 2014, at 7:04 PM, "Ken Rogers ken@OmegaAtomizers.com [electricboats]" <electricboats@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Has anyone bought any solar panels from Grape? Costco has been selling Grape for about a year now but I have not tried any from them yet. Here is a sample of their mono-crystal package that is on sale right now. http://www.costco.com/Grape-Solar-400-Watt-Off-Grid-Solar-Panel-Kit.product.100111497.html They also have much less expensive poly-crystal panels. Any first hand opinions on quality and value?

I'm considering buying some panels now to put on the house roof, and then move them to the 40' retirement catamaran in a few years when we cast off and sale over the horizon.

Kenny Rogers

Fort Worth TX

27' Stiletto with dual 80# minkota thrusters

On June 8, 2014 at 7:28 PM "James Sizemore james@deny.org [electricboats]" <electricboats@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Yes you can run both motors off one pack, I run two 360 amp motors off of one 48 volt pack.

For bend-able solar panels it would be hard to beat Grape's price/power density:

http://www.grapesolar.com/images/pdf/small-off-grid-manuals/PhotoFlex-100W.pdf

You can run as many chargers and inverters as you want off one pack as long as they all have the same high and low cut-offs.

Running 48 volt inverters at the very top of their voltage range may cause issues, I would download the manual and see how they handle over-voltage, some inverters would auto shutoff when used outside of there voltage range.

I'm truly impresed with the Rayeo System 500 60v systems and their claims as to uptime and reliability. My question is can I run dual System 500's from a single large 60v pack or would that be wise to do for redundancy sake? Weight at some point does become an issue.

I don't want a small lithium pack in amp hours either. This will be a work boat when it is finished and it needs to support as it's primary function a 400' capable light work class ROV. So any lithium batteries bellow 400 amp hours are ruled out. This also rules out some of the more common manufactures and leaves Balqon.

If I could do a single pack of 1250 amp hour batteries similar to deny.org I would be estatic. Considering deny.org did 1000 amp hour batteries driving two motors at 48v from two packs I believe and augmented with 3000 Watts solar the project is going to work regardless.

As long the Battery voltage never exceeds 62 vol ts then you can use the 48 vdc version of XP.

http://exeltech.com/products/inverters/inverters-below-2k-watt-xp/xp-specs/

Again the question arises can I run more than one inverter off a single 1250 or lesser amp hour pack?

The ultimate in terms of ah and price and weight is of course the 1250 ah from Balqon viewed here http://www.balqon.com/1250-ahr-lithium-battery/ and http://www.balqon.com/store- 2/#!/~/product/category=2736691&id=30729664
20 cells would cost us 1800 pounds of weight - too much I believe to pack around but still if it was doable it would be the most desirable solution especially if we could run both the motors from the same bank and the house systems. The price at $22000 is the best weight to ah conversion available today and a bargain considering the bank would be hard to deplete conversly charge as well. Running two outboards from one bank no problem as max discharge <1250 amp continuous .

How would I charge such a bank with both solar, generator and inverter charger?

I have had quotations from different companies and while they all look interesting at the outset none seem to really fit with what I'm trying to do with this project especially when it comes to choice of electrical motors. I don't need 300 or 400 pounds of converted outboards hanging off the back of the cat making her squat into the water or even 150 pounds of a single 30 hp converted motor (then I'd loose the benefits of dual outboards). Sure the extra power would be nice to have but this boat will never exceed 6.7 knots and the extra amps from 22kw motors running 96volts seems like overkill to me.

While I like the idea of a 60 Volt system 48 Volt ultimately would be simplier in the long run all around. Can the Rayeo System 500 be configured to run at 48 Volts and still retain it's horsepower rating? Can the sytem 500 at 60 Volts be configured to run at more horsepower with a bigger motor? I mean so far as product dependability and reliability and construction Rayeo has it in the bag and everyone else is just missing the point - plastic really! I don't even want to bring up the T word in this conversation - I'm not going there.

The boat is in Vancouver and I have every five weeks five days to work on it in person if anyone knowledgeable and motivated by money or otherwise is inclined to assist with this project I'd be more than happy to reciprocate with Visa. Also I welcome any suggestions and recommendation s from the list.

Arden