Pleased with solar.

[canals are us?]

 

Yesterday at 1 pm I unplugged the mains landline to my boat to see if my 4x Trojan T105 batteries and 380 watts of solar through a Tracer BN series MPPT controller could cope with the 12 volt fridge and the 12 volt under counter freezer and other items like TV, phone charging, mifi, and floor standing fan.

 

I had the tv on all evening from 6-11pm and tried the tv on 12 volt and mains by a Victron combi and seemed to make no difference.

Did note with inverter on and tv on standby, phone charging and mifi charging I was using 2.7AH I presume 1A was Inverter losses? Note if saving power turn inverter off.

Needed the invertor on as had floor standing fan on all the time and charging phone/ using old Toshiba satellite laptop as battery dead years ago.

Voltages remained quiet stable at around 12.5-6 and rose and recovered as fridge/freezer turned off. I was using 10-15AH per hour according to my BM2 and at night anything from 4-9.2ah for just the 12volt fridge and freezer.

 

  at 5am this morning the voltage was 12.4volts and rose with the sunshine. Believe I should not let battery voltage go below 12.2 volts. With fan, laptop and fridge going I'm now reading 12.8 -13 volts at the solar controller and Nasa BM2. Getting 11A from solar atm.

 

I'm pleased with my electrical upgrade but may buy a new 12 volt fridge, to a larder fridge as it spends a long time on. At least 40 minutes in an hour period. Its an ancient inlander of either 1998 or 2002 vintage. A fellow boater has a shoreline which hardly runs and seems much more efficient. As I have a good inverter I could just buy a good mains fridge? Or as it all seems to work don't bother.

 

James

 

 

 

 

Edited June 26, 2018 by canals are us?