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Tom Francis - SWSports

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:04:21 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 11:54:22 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports
wrote:

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:12:56 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:02:05 -0400, Gene
wrote:

On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 07:51:30 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports penned the
following well considered thoughts to the readers of rec.boats:

|recharging trolling motor batteries?

No... but I'd like to hear other folks experiences using solar float
charging...

Solar float charging seems to work well. I haven't tried it myself
but have heard a lot of success stories. A small, inexpensive panel
is all you need unless there is a lot of leakage in the electrical
system.

Recharging a trolling motor is a different matter since serious amps
are required. You have to calculate how many amp-hours need to be
replaced, and how much daylight time you have available. Most people
also recommend derating the panel capacity by at least 50% to allow
for all the inefficiencies that creep in to the process.

I found a few websites - look the figures from my 24Vdc motor, added a
few things up and it comes to roughly $4,000 and that's conservative.

Think I'm going in a different direction. :)

It really depends on how often you use the motor and how much sunshine
you have between uses. Base that against how much money you are
willing to spend.

Dollar for dollar, it is very hard to compete with utility power, no
matter what you do and copper, averaged over it's life, is cheap.
Running shore power down to the dock is usually the cheapest option,
even if it is pretty far away. Solar is for those who can't do that.

This is more a matter of where the boat is located at the moment -
it's on a trailer stored in a marina and it's a distance from any
electrical power. I thought that I'd be able to at least put a little
juice into the batteries by using solar, but the dollar cost just
isn't viable.

I've heard mixed results with the on-board chargers - some like them
some don't.