Good Solar setups

[d design]

Some pointers.

Go for rigid panels as i have seen most flexibles lasting only 5 years on average.

You get what you pay for with solar controllers and not every mppt controller will have the same performance. Victron controllers have been hands down the best in my experience. They come with a world wide 5 year warranty and a great company to deal with.

Make sure the solar controllers stage voltages are suited to your battery chemisty.

Yachts are limited for space so get the best efficiency out of the settup and components possible.

Theres not necessarily a right or wrong solar configuration for a yacht but rather the most optimum way for a specific vessel.

Configure the series/parallel of the panels based on shading. Every boat is different thus the solar will need to be configured for the particular vessel in mind.

Dont skimp on cable size and take into consideration of adding more capacity in the future. Especially with difficult cable runs.

I could go on but thats the key things to get right.

Best wishes and happy sailing

[senormechanico]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

It is admittedly ugly as original sin, but functional.
I can see someone who had a classic boat with beautiful lines would see it as an abomination, however I'm going for function here.
It's not as bad as you might think as the dinghy tucks right under it and the dink is slightly longer

Imho, an abomination is when a boat has a bunch of solar panels with radar, wind generator, TV antenna (and possibly more) ABOVE the solar panels.
These are the ones who say, "Solar doesn't work !"

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

It is admittedly ugly as original sin, but functional.
I can see someone who had a classic boat with beautiful lines would see it as an abomination, however I'm going for function here.
It's not as bad as you might think as the dinghy tucks right under it and the dink is slightly longer

I was planning something similar last season until the dinghy died. The new tender was too tall to fit under what was planned. Glad we waited, the Solbians had a 40% price reduction since last year in Italy.

What was to have cost nearly $10,000 including the "solar wing," ended up costing $3200 without requiring the wing.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Flyingriki

Those are nice units! You use 450 watts total to take care of what kind of use?
Thank you.

Large fridge, large deep freezer, evening lighting, 1/2 the electric cooking needs, two Spectra 380c watermakers which run one hour per day to produce 34 gallons of fresh water.. We still need to run the generator for one hour every other day to make up the difference and for hot water.

Next season, I'll add a Mastervolt 24/1000 230v inverter to the hot water heater, so we can have 14 gallons of hot water on demand instead of needing to run the 10kw generator or engine to heat it up.

It was very important to us that the 450w of solar be invisible from the water view. Even onboard, we don't see it.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

I was planning something similar last season until the dinghy died. The new tender was too tall to fit under what was planned. Glad we waited, the Solbians had a 40% price reduction since last year in Italy.

What was to have cost nearly $10,000 including the "solar wing," ended up costing $3200 without requiring the wing.

I think I have about $1200 to $1500 in mine. Bought the panels as left overs for .50C a Watt, the Outback was about $500, frame is homemade from aluminum scrap extrusions, $200 or so in wire and combiner box, plus of course nuts, bolts and other "stuff".
I may one day go to higher efficiency panels as the Outback will handle 80 amps, but I don't think I have ever seen 50 yet.

[Bleemus]

560 watts of solar and a Superwind 350 wind genny. Does everything we need and more.

[TMT2]

"Green" equipment (solar, wind etc...) plus the right amp hours capacity in the house bank (based on your needs) is the combo to reach for IMHO.

As cruisers - we enjoy our comforts so we are definitely power hogs - but equipped for it with 530W of hard-panel solar (MPPT controller) and 460W of wind generator (also MPPT controller). We will add an additional 530 W of solar this year to the new hard top.

House bank is 1200 ah (12 x AMG GC2s). We run 2 x fridges, ice maker, Garmin Plotter, Electric Winches (Barient 26s), Radar, Sonar and VHF,AIS and Simrad auto pilot under way and the fridges - anchor watch, recharging of phones, laptops overnight with no issues and lots of "ah" to spare. In the AM we awake to around 12.75 reading on the Xantrex battery monitor and we see 13.65 at full sun going into the batteries..with wind we may see 13.95 and are topped off in a few hours.

Some photos of our setup:



TMT2

[Safari38LH]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Solbian 450w high efficiency flex panels on five separate controllers. Shading is reduced while at anchorages by pulling the boom to the side and using it to support a Magma Rock n Roll flopper stopper.

Where are you finding 450 watt flexible Solbains? The biggest I can find are around 150 watts.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Safari38LH

Where are you finding 450 watt flexible Solbains? The biggest I can find are around 150 watts.

I have five separate panels which total 450w.

2 x 112w
2 x 75w
1 x 76w

Sorry about the confusion.