Outfitting vs. Cruise Ready Dilemma

[DDabs]

Quick question- are there any marine outfitters online besides defender.com that are a good source of equipment? Where is a good place to find solar and battery prices?

[TacomaSailor]

Our Raymarine ST6000 / Type I linear drive autopilot (15 amp motor) used less than 3 amps per hour while sailing off the wind in 25 knots and 6 foot following seas. That was even when running at it's fastest response level.

If you get the boat balanced - the rudder only needs to move a few degrees each way. I could steer downwind in 15 knots over the deck with one finger.

And... we have a great Sailomat windvane so when we were worried about energy consumption we just turned on the Sailomat.

We have a very nice and easy to use Ferris towed generator and have only used it twice in 14 years because there was never a need for more power.

[TacomaSailor]

Originally Posted by DDabs

Quick question- are there any marine outfitters online besides defender.com that are a good source of equipment? Where is a good place to find solar and battery prices?

Arizona Solar Center - Your Guide to Solar and Other Renewable Energy Sources in Arizona - Your Guide to Solar and Other Renewable Energy Sources

Solar electric power components and solar panels

I've dealt with both and they know far more than most boat places.

[DDabs]

I'm assuming that I would want 12V panels? The Kyocera 140W panels look nice to me. As far as the MPPT goes, do I need one for each panel, or does a single MPPT controller work for the entire system? Are the panels and the controller the only two components of the system?

[robert sailor]

You only need one controller but if needs to be sized correctly based on the amperage of your panels

[mitiempo]

DDabs

Another option for marine equipment is Jamestown Distributors.

You are on the right track and this thread is full of good advice.

One item mentioned by TacomaSailor is a battery monitor and I highly recommend you get one. Without one you will not know the state of your batteries nor your accumulated charging current. The best value is the Victron BMV-600 for under $150 at Jamestown.
Victron BMV 600 Battery Monitor

[nofacey]

Tacoma......A couple solar questions
- Did you do any panel tracking to achieve your results, or just run them flat?
- I have a 24v main bank, eight 6v golf cart flooded cells in two groups of four. Like DDab, I'm setting up four 140W solar panels - planning to pair up the panels and run 24v into the MMPT controller. Question is weither I should put all 4 solar panels thru one controller, into the combined 8 batteries, or set up each pair of panels with it's own controller, with each feeding a group of four batteries.

Thinking that with a mast and boom there is always going some panel shadowing going on, and tying the four panels together will bring everything down to the lowest performing panel.....by running as two pairs, we should get higher output from two of the panels.

What do you think?

[DDabs]

I am getting confused with the voltage and ah regarding the batteries...

The Trojan T-105's say they are 225 AH, yet Tacoma says he has six of those and he has a 625 battery bank. mitiempo, you stated if I had 8 golf cart batteries I would get a 900 ah battery bank. Just confused. Shouldn't 4 of these Trojan batteries give me a 900 battery bank?

This is what I'm leaning towards so far:

(4) Trojan T-105 6V 225 AH Deep Cycle Batteries
(4) Kyocera 140W panels
(1) Morningstar TriStar 60 Amp MPPT
(1) Xantrex LinkPro Battery Monitor

[mitiempo]

nofacey

There can be an advantage using 2 controllers, particularly when one panel is shaded. It is discussed in this link here: Partial shading - two panels - two controllers - SailboatOwners.com with MaineSail's expert advice.

Whether you use one or two controllers your batteries should be in one bank rather than two banks. They will last longer as well as charge more efficiently.

[DDabs]

nofacey, just did a quick search on the V495...WOW! What a gorgeous vessel. Do you have any more pics of yours?

*edit - found your blog, awesome stuff, I'll have to keep up with you on that

[mitiempo]

Originally Posted by DDabs

I am getting confused with the voltage and ah regarding the batteries...

The Trojan T-105's say they are 225 AH, yet Tacoma says he has six of those and he has a 625 battery bank. mitiempo, you stated if I had 8 golf cart batteries I would get a 900 ah battery bank. Just confused. Shouldn't 4 of these Trojan batteries give me a 900 battery bank?

This is what I'm leaning towards so far:

(4) Trojan T-105 6V 225 AH Deep Cycle Batteries
(4) Kyocera 140W panels
(1) Morningstar TriStar 60 Amp MPPT
(1) Xantrex LinkPro Battery Monitor

4 Trojan t-105 batteries will give you 900 AH - at 6 volts. Two 6 volt batteries (at 225 AH each) in series will give you 225 AH at 12 volts.

Good choices above but the Victron monitor is a much better value and equally reliable.

[DDabs]

mitiempo, thanks for clearing that up. I was getting confused on voltage.

[DDabs]

Is it worth considering the price increase for going with AGM batteries over golf cart batteries? Or is that useless for my setup?

nofacey, where are you intending to mount your panels? Seems like you have a ton of possible places with that much deck space/arches.

[mitiempo]

I just checked the price of the LinkPro online. For the extra $100 all you are getting is the voltage of the start battery. As long as it is only used for starting it will never be down by more than 1 AH, often less. Also the Victron comes with the connection cables, an option from Xantrex. I sell both in Canada and the Victron outsells the Xantrex by a large margin.

[DDabs]

mitiempo, good to know. I'll go with the Victron for my potential setup.