As usual, James gives sensible advice. I would look into a single 200 to 240w panel and a decent charge controller. You will not get 200w from a 200w panel, except under uptimum conditions, meaning sun directly overhead, clear sky, no sails or masts or shrouds or stays or halyards or topping lifts or stanchions or lifelines or people or pets or flappy birds or eclipses to interfere with perfect reception of solar rays. Are you in the tropics? Oh well. Expect a 200w panel to put average 100w into the system from midmorning to midafternoon, and if you get more then you won't be disappointed. But let's say you get 120w, which with perfect conversion gives you 10a at 12v, enough to sustain a gentle placid speed in your catamaran, I am sure. As a range extender, it would work well, maybe doubling your range on a good day. But a 200w panel is big, possibly what you would call kinda heavy, and mounting it on your cat where it is never shaded could be a challenge. Often guys will mount a panel on the pushpit rail but you probably don't have one. You could make sort of a hard bimini and preferably one that overhangs the stern, and concentrate your solar array as far aft as possible. Should still be less than the weight of a passenger, so kinda okay, but keeping the weight and size down is important on a very small boat, or where a lot of solar charging is needed. That rules out HF panels. Now if you had a 16' flatboat or something and wanted shade first and a little bit of solar second, HF, being pretty cheap, might be a good place to shop for a pick it up and install it now, all in one, turnkey system on a budget, to carry overhead.
| Reply via web post | • | Reply to sender | • | Reply to group | • | Start a New Topic | • | Messages in this topic (8) |
No comments:
Post a Comment