Gary wrote in news:uVSyg.273940$IK3.20678@pd7tw1no:

Is anyone familiar with "self regulating solar panels"? I would like to
hear from someone who has installed one without a regulator and how
well it keeps the batteries up.

Thanks,
Gary

I've never heard of a self-regulating solar panel, but I would suggest that
you need one. The problem occurs when your boat is plugged into shore power
and the batteies are fully charged. If there's nothing drawing any current,
then the additional amperage will easily bring your batteries way above
charging voltage

What you need is a regulator that runs in diverter mode. In this mode it
senses the voltage and when it goes above the level that you've set, it
diverts some of the wattage to a resistive load (in my case, a water heater
element in my hot water tank). There is absolutely no loss when running in
this mode. This regulator controlls both my solar panels and my wind
generator.

I would suggest looking at charge controllers from MorningStar. I went
through several Trace/Xantrex and finally scrapped it. It seems that once
they started buulding the units in China that the reliability went to hell.
I went with MorningStar TriStar unit and have been very happy with it.

-- Geoff