By next Summer, my boat will be housed at a marina that does not have any
electricity access at all. Has anyone had any success charging with solar
panels ( for a reasonable cost)? Obviously, I'd like to not have to haul the
battery(s) home to put on a regular charger.

The boat will be exposed to sunlight 7 days a week. I intend to fish out of
her two or three days each week, for periods of only 2 to 3 hours each. I
use the trolling motor sparingly. I cannot run the "big" ( 40 hp ) motor
at high speed at all, as the lake is no-wake from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m.
which are the hours that I normally fish. I won't be on the lake when one
could run at high speed. Any and all ideas appreciated.

Thanks RichG TX/IL

"rich" wrote in message
...
By next Summer, my boat will be housed at a marina that does not have any
electricity access at all. Has anyone had any success charging with solar
panels ( for a reasonable cost)? Obviously, I'd like to not have to haul
the battery(s) home to put on a regular charger.

The boat will be exposed to sunlight 7 days a week. I intend to fish out
of her two or three days each week, for periods of only 2 to 3 hours each.
I use the trolling motor sparingly. I cannot run the "big" ( 40 hp )
motor at high speed at all, as the lake is no-wake from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00
a.m. which are the hours that I normally fish. I won't be on the lake
when one could run at high speed. Any and all ideas appreciated.

Thanks RichG TX/IL

If the "big" motor is reasonably new, I don't think you have to run at high
speed to re-charge. I could be wrong, but don't most modern motors use
alternators and not generators?

rich wrote:
By next Summer, my boat will be housed at a marina that does not have
any electricity access at all. Has anyone had any success charging
with solar panels ( for a reasonable cost)? Obviously, I'd like to
not have to haul the battery(s) home to put on a regular charger.

The boat will be exposed to sunlight 7 days a week. I intend to fish
out of her two or three days each week, for periods of only 2 to 3
hours each. I use the trolling motor sparingly. I cannot run the
"big" ( 40 hp ) motor at high speed at all, as the lake is no-wake
from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. which are the hours that I normally
fish. I won't be on the lake when one could run at high speed. Any
and all ideas appreciated.

Thanks RichG TX/IL

A small gasoline generator?

Solar panel will work just fine... With a large panel use a charge
regulator to avoid boiling the batteries... With the small ones
intended for automobiles, they will work as is...

denny

In your situation you could perhaps mount the solar panel on the dock
so it is not a cumbersome installation on the boat, and plug into it
each time you get back from fishing.

You mention that you use the trolling motor sparingly. If you're not
deeply discharging the battery a small solar panel should work.

One of the batteries on my boat never gets a deep discharge. I use a 14
watt panel with it, and that panel keeps it up just fine. It was cheap
at Harbour Freight, about $40, and it's small enough where you don't
need a regulator. It measures about 12" x 18".

I tried one of the smaller ones, can't remember the wattage, but it
measured about 4" x 12", and it was not able to do the job.

(Floating Mind) wrote in news:4579-44FDB1DC-291
@storefull-3111.bay.webtv.net:

One of the batteries on my boat never gets a deep discharge. I use a 14
watt panel with it, and that panel keeps it up just fine. It was cheap
at Harbour Freight, about $40, and it's small enough where you don't
need a regulator. It measures about 12" x 18".


You must have some kind of load on the battery or the solar panel wattage
is a big lie. 14W = about 1A x 6 hours a day = 6AH/day x 30 = 180AH/month.

That's more than enough to really overcharge a fully-unloaded battery, even
one that was way discharged, which just takes longer. Solar panels have an
open circuit voltage the overcharged battery will attempt to rise to of 18-
22 VDC, so the battery, unable to get that high, just keeps overcharging
and overcharging and overcharging....slowly...doesn't get hot...but not
good.

Might be OK if you have HUGE batteries or a bilge pump.

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

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
unnecessary to activate while charging elsewhere, the other
charger/alternator will regulate the voltage, giving same effect.) Anyway,
batteries are discharging themselves, and/or can accept small continuous
charging. These small solar panels are not overcharging if water is not
lost too quickly. If the solar panel in watts is less than ~1/4 of battery
capacity in amp/hours, skip the regulator.
"Larry" wrote in message
...
(Floating Mind) wrote in news:4579-44FDB1DC-291
@storefull-3111.bay.webtv.net:

One of the batteries on my boat never gets a deep discharge. I use a 14
watt panel with it, and that panel keeps it up just fine. It was cheap
at Harbour Freight, about $40, and it's small enough where you don't
need a regulator. It measures about 12" x 18".


You must have some kind of load on the battery or the solar panel wattage
is a big lie. 14W = about 1A x 6 hours a day = 6AH/day x 30 =
180AH/month.

That's more than enough to really overcharge a fully-unloaded battery,
even
one that was way discharged, which just takes longer. Solar panels have
an
open circuit voltage the overcharged battery will attempt to rise to of
18-
22 VDC, so the battery, unable to get that high, just keeps overcharging
and overcharging and overcharging....slowly...doesn't get hot...but not
good.

Might be OK if you have HUGE batteries or a bilge pump.

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

"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.

You must have some kind of load on the battery
or the solar panel wattage is a big lie. 14W =
about 1A x 6 hours a day = 6AH/day x 30 =
180AH/month.

Larry how 'bout we figure 60AH of usage per weekend x 3 weekends per
month and then the math works!

Seriously now, the only items I use with that single battery are my
depthfinder, GPS, anchor light, and blender. The blender's draw is
borderline for overloading the small inverter I use with it so I'd think
if the battery was ever deeply discharged then the blender wouldn't
break the ice. I've been using the solar rig with this battery for a
coupla years now and have added very little water to the battery. You
mention the solar panel might be overrated, and that's a possibility
since most stuff from Harbor Freight is cheap stuff. All I know is it
says 14 watts on the box.

Totally unrelated Footnote from the Fun Facts to Know and Tell
Department:
The blender is rated at 330 watts. I have 2 different inverters. One
is a 300 watt unit, and the other is listed as 350 watts. The 300 watt
inverter overloads when the blender hits an ice jam, but the 350 watt
inverter plows right on through to Margaritaville! The math sure seems
to work on those ratings.