solar panels

[huwcross]

I've a couple of small solar panels on my narrowboat (liveaboard) and have seen a few bigger ones on boats. has anyone got one and how do you get on with it?

[Rivers]

I've a couple of small solar panels on my narrowboat (liveaboard) and have seen a few bigger ones on boats. has anyone got one and how do you get on with it?

I have 5 40watt panels on our boat they are great in the summer,didnt run the engine for a week and we have a 12v fridge,but not so good in the winter.

[NB Willawaw]

It depends on the size of the panels.

Of course, every little bit helps and I think they are more contributory than windgens on the canal, but

it is not a cheap way of getting energy and they aren't as green as many people think.

 

What they are good for is keeping your charged batteries, topped off and running a bilge pump, etc

on an unattended boat at a mooring.

[Bones]

I have one 80w panel and it works a treat for me. In summer I run my fridge and in winter I don't. I did notice this summer that it wasn't so good for running the fridge as it was over clouded more than usual during the summer months. I love them - saves me having to run the engine for any power. (but I am a low power user... although I have just installed a radio)

 

 

edit: I live on my boat all the time.

 

If you do a search on this site you will find the topic of solar panels has been discussed several times, and you might find some useful bits in there...

Edited February 2, 2009 by Bones

[mrsmelly]

I've a couple of small solar panels on my narrowboat (liveaboard) and have seen a few bigger ones on boats. has anyone got one and how do you get on with it?

 

Hi

 

I have 2 80 watt panels which r great in summer if we ever get one I have quite a power hungry boat and they cut my charging by about 50 pc in summer and still throw an amp or 2 in in the brighter winter days.

Dont get ripped off tho. Several of my friends paid top money for theirs and I took a risk off good old Ebay and got the same product giving me the same input at only 239 pounds per panel.

[ditchcrawler]

It depends on the size of the panels.

Of course, every little bit helps and I think they are more contributory than windgens on the canal, but

it is not a cheap way of getting energy and they aren't as green as many people think.

 

What they are good for is keeping your charged batteries, topped off and running a bilge pump, etc

on an unattended boat at a mooring.

I have been thinking about getting 2 and connecting them in series just to maintain my domestic batteries while the boat is unattended. I was hoping to size them so they don't require a regulator. They would be feeding into a 24 volt 200 Ah battery bank. Any thought, or would it be better value just to change the batteries more often?

Brian

Edited February 2, 2009 by ditchcrawler

[mrsmelly]

I have been thinking about getting 2 and connecting them in series just to maintain my domestic batteries while the boat is unattended. I was hoping to size them so they don't require a regulator. They would be feeding into a 24 volt 200 Ah battery bank. Any thought, or would it be better value just to change the batteries more often?

Brian

 

Hi Brian

 

I am no expert but I think u need the little regulator thingy to maintain the right voltage and they do them for 24 volt just the same as 12. The regulaters r very cheap and the wiring up is very easy so its no problem.

[Pretty Funked Up]

most of the biggies seem to put out between 15-17volts so a regulator is a must.

[Rivers]

most of the biggies seem to put out between 15-17volts so a regulator is a must.

Try www.sunshinesolar.co.uk 40 watt panels are £145.00 they are a good bunch of people and next dat delivery.

[haggis]

There was a thread on this a month or so ago started by by Mitch on Soma I don't know how to link to previous posts but it was called Solar P.V. - Is it me or them? I don't think Mitch was very impressed!

Solar P.V. - Is it me or them?

 

Haggis

[BlueStringPudding]

I wangled 5 x 10W BP Solar panels for the princely sum of just £28 each, which I thought was pretty good. (£2.80 per Watt) This was through a private sale from someone from Ebay who'd sold one but I didn't manage to win it - despite that they let me buy the rest of them at the same price as the first! I think they're MV rather than PV.

I wired them up and the weekend and despite it being overcast and despite the fact that they weren't tilted towards the sun but just laying flat on my roof, they still managed to be charging at 1A.

They're covered in snow at the moment but I think they'll perform quite well in the summer. I'm hoping they churn out 3-4A in the sun.

If I ever have any money I'll add to them. I'm never rich enough to buy a fat 80W-er in one go.

[ditchcrawler]

most of the biggies seem to put out between 15-17volts so a regulator is a must.

I don't think I want a big one (stop sniggering at the back) I just want to maintain the batteries, not recharge them. I was thinking of something with an output of about 1amp.

[DaveR]

Time will tell, I have a small 5w job on my domestics. This is standing inside the window of the boat - admittedly facing South.

 

I have been away from the boat for three and a half months and will be back at the end of this month. I will report on how it has done.

 

This unit is a 40GBP one from Maplins so I don't expect too much. I will disconnect it from the batteries and by the time I have had a coffee I will check the voltage on the batteries - anything else I need to do to get a good reading on their state of charge?

 

Dave

[Phil Ambrose]

I've a couple of small solar panels on my narrowboat (liveaboard) and have seen a few bigger ones on boats. has anyone got one and how do you get on with it?

I live on my boat and I fitted 5 X 100watt panels giving theoretical max output of 40amp/hr. 2 panels dedicated to my Mikuni blown air heater and 3 feeding the domestic bank. The bank of 2 feed 2 x 110 through a cotroller likewise the domestic bank of 6 X 110 are fed through a seperate controller. We are quite power thirsty as my wife said " if we live on a boat I aint camping" We run a 100 ltr fridge and a 80 ltr freezer then there is TV, DVD, digibox etc lights, pumps ad infinitum. We also have washing M/C and a tumble dryer plus every other kitchen gadget known to man (bless her )

The panels seem to work fine though during the dull shorter days of winter I do top up the amps in the morning but I am only talking about 30-40 amp/hr.

I fitted a change over switch so I can use all, some or one or other of my battery set up. More than happy with the results.

I got a very good deal from Simply Solar (ad in Waterways world) I got both my controllers from Wind & Sun, looked in their bargain bucket, again a very good deal.

I realise I will never live long enough to get back my investment but I am pretty much independent. As a matter of interest what prompted me was the rip off price my mariner charged for electricity, 20p a unit

[twocvbloke]

The thing I wonder about some people is their choice to have one or the other (Wind or SolarPV), when if you use both, you can have a lot of energy for free, as in the summer you can get mostly PV power, and in the winter, mostly Wind, that way, you have the best of both worlds, and have very little need to run the engine...

 

As for regulators, you need them when your batteries go past 5Ah, as if you didn't have a regulator, you'd dump all the charge from the battery bank into the panels, damaging the panels and of course losing all the power you have generated...

 

You can combine the two easily, all you need to do is have a regulator for both, then just wire them to the batteries and wait for the sun and wind to come along and give you free electricity 24/7/365...

[Tony Brooks]

The thing I wonder about some people is their choice to have one or the other (Wind or SolarPV), when if you use both, you can have a lot of energy for free, as in the summer you can get mostly PV power, and in the winter, mostly Wind, that way, you have the best of both worlds, and have very little need to run the engine...

 

As for regulators, you need them when your batteries go past 5Ah, as if you didn't have a regulator, you'd dump all the charge from the battery bank into the panels, damaging the panels and of course losing all the power you have generated...

 

You can combine the two easily, all you need to do is have a regulator for both, then just wire them to the batteries and wait for the sun and wind to come along and give you free electricity 24/7/365...

 

 

Eh - what are the diodes in good quality panels for?

 

I think, that as long as the controller can handle the total current all you have to do is to connect panels in parallel to one controller.

 

 

 

If this helps, my 60 Watt, horizontally mounted panel only managed an average of about 1.5 Ah per day during late November, December and early January, however that was against a well charged bank.

[huwcross]

Was working in marple yesterday and saw a boat with 2 on the roof, chatted to the happy chappy, said both were 150 watt, one for fridge batteries only and one for domestic. said he got on really well with them and was a heavy power user (games console and laptop til 5am!). said that he ran engine for an hour a day for hot water anyway and always had loads of power and they'd been fitted for about 2 years. he got them from www.primesolarpanels.co.uk seemed very happy

 

I've found my 2 small panels make a real difference in summer, but less hours with lights on and less tv? but biggest bonus was when away for a month coming back to really charged batteris rather than ones that had discharged.

[twocvbloke]

Eh - what are the diodes in good quality panels for?

 

Well, from experience, they don't always work properly and can burn out, which is why it's safer to use the regulator (which has it's own diodes) and just bypass or remove the diode in the "quality" (I.E. cheaply made & sold for megabucks) panels...

 

I made my own 8w panel that I made from the basic un-framed panels, wired in parallel, and did not fit a diode, and feed them to a regulator built into my home-made solar power station (which needs a battery or two), and it all works fine, the only problem I have is my dodgy wiring in the box...

[Smelly]

We've 130 watts... wicked in the summer, not so good in the winter although without the fridge and if we were conservative with teh laptop the vast majority of the time I reckon we'd get by.

 

I fancy putting up another 100w and a wind genny, only problem being that teh controllers for wind and solar only seem to go up to 100W solar. The wind genny's still rising up the list though. Next big buy after the cratch cover methinks.

[BlueStringPudding]

Slightly but not entirely, my solar panels have a little hole drilled into the metal frame marked with the earth symbol. Bearing in mind that all 5 panels are connected in parallel and the negative leads through them, through the regulator to the battery bank (which in turn is "earthed" to the hull) - do I need to add an additional earth to them?

 

Also, should there be a fuse somewhere between them and the batteries or is the regulator enough? (They're only 50W in total)

[twocvbloke]

Also, should there be a fuse somewhere between them and the batteries or is the regulator enough? (They're only 50W in total)

 

If the regulator has a fuse, you should be ok, but personally I added a second fuse to my little setup just to be on the safe side (the regulator after all is chinese cr*p!!! Took me a week to decipher the translated instructions!!!), a fuse just a smidge bigger than the input should suffice (I have a 7.5a flat-blade car fuse on the regulator, and a 10a in-line glass fuse on the battery flylead), but I'm sure to be corrected by Gibbo...

 

Dunno about the earthing myself, but I'm sure someone does...

[Smelly]

Slightly but not entirely, my solar panels have a little hole drilled into the metal frame marked with the earth symbol. Bearing in mind that all 5 panels are connected in parallel and the negative leads through them, through the regulator to the battery bank (which in turn is "earthed" to the hull) - do I need to add an additional earth to them?

 

Also, should there be a fuse somewhere between them and the batteries or is the regulator enough? (They're only 50W in total)

 

Surely a fuse is there in case a short develops releasing more than the 50W from the batteries to which they're connected? Hence it's a good idea.

 

Mine's got an earth connection and I too am not sure what it's for really. It's obsolete though as the panels are screwed to the roof so there's a return path to earth anyways.