"Lee Haefele" wrote in
:

I have a 64 Watt Funicular panel and 6 golf car batteries, no
regulator. The batteries settle in at mid 13V range. My friend has a
120 Watt panel and 4 golf car batts WITH a on/off regulator. The
regulator only shuts off when the motor runs and charges, otherwise
no. The regulator was a waste of money, it has no useful purpose as
it never actually activates. (It is


Your bilge pumps are automatic, right? There's your regulator. The
bilge pumps use more power than the little panels can produce. You may,
actually, LOSE charge with these little solar panels as there is no
charging for most of the 24 hour period....clouds, storms, darkness, poor
sun angle, the rigging makes the slightest shadow across one or more of
the cells.

You also have BIG batteries to sink whatever it can put out. You don't
need a regulator in your case. But, what about the guy with the
powerboat that has a 130AH house battery and 120W panel...or the guy that
has just a starting battery, a little 75AH starting battery. He's
reading this and says, "I don't need a regulator because this guy said I
didn't need a regulator." He comes aboard the boat 2 weeks after it sat
on the TRAILER with no load at all and curses us because his battery has
boiled dry, its electrolyte so overcharged it gassed all day, every day
for 10 days. HE needs a regulator because his system has no load on the
trailer to burn off the overcharge, no bilge pump coming on every so
often like you, and his little battery took the brunt of our
"recommendations".

We have to try to make generalized statements for the worst-case-
scenario, unless we SPECIFICALLY state we're using a single small panel
like yours into a huge battery bank, like yours, probably with a bilge
pump burning off some of the charging a few times a day. There's a huge
difference....ok?




--
There's amazing intelligence in the Universe.
You can tell because none of them ever called Earth.