What is your Real Amp Hour per Day Usage

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

Ah, That is exactly the issue with spraying the top of the panels. Too much mineral buildup. You would need distilled water to really keep the minerial deposits at bay.

So the easy engineering solution is add a spongy foam material to the back side of the panels, add tiny misters to the underside and spray the water over the foam in contact with the backside of the panel. The panels stay cooler and no mineral buildup on the glass.

But if you have a good constant flow of water moving accross the slightly abgled panels the minerals wouldn't have time to settle. Of course you would need to have higher water flow in higher temperatures.

Have to work out the power usage of the pump to calculate how many Amp Hours per day it will use.

[Jim Cate]

[QUOTE=daletournier;2210504]Wow, I woke up this morning to this thread going crazy.

Dale, your PM box is full...

[StuM]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

The best way is with a battery monitor that gives you daily Ah in and out of the battery's and tracks Amps flowing.

Even a typical battery monitor doesn't do the full job. It just integrates Amps into and out of the battery giving you Amp hours consumed from and replaced into the battery. That only tells you your consumption if you have no charging sources connected to your system.

If you only have solar, you can accurately measure your night time usage with the battery monitor. If you have a charge controller such as an Outback Flexmate, you can see how much energy you are putting into the system during the day. That combined with the battery monitor will tell you how many (to a first approximation) Ah you are using.

If you use a genset or engine alternator for charging, the battery monitor will measure your consumption when not running the genset/engine. You can estimate you draw during charging time by recording similar conditions (i.e. see how many Ah you used in the hour before starting the genset and in the hour after shutting it down and add the average multiplied by the genset running time).

As SC says, the first thing is to do an energy budget. List all of your electrical equipment and there wattage/amp draw then estimate a running time for them. Add the numbers up to get a first pass at your likely requirement.

And the correct units are Ampere hours or Watt Hours.

[GILow]

Originally Posted by sailorchic34

Well Yes if your panels are say over a bimini then you would need a drip pan and drain back overboard. Myself, I would make it all part of the panel with a solid metal or plastic backing and a drain to hose overboard.

You could even have the fill be full height of the panel frame and simply have a 1/8" ish hole half way up. so the foam sits in the water.

Of course there is a down side. First the foam will act as an insulator so if it's not kept wet it would reduce panel efficiency by keeping the cells hotter there by reducing voltage even more.

The better idea would be to add a plastic panel to the back of the panel about 1/8" off the back with short spaces to keep the gap constant. That would be tricky to get water tight. Then add a water in and water out connections. That way, if there is no water flowing at least there is no additional voltage losses to excessive cell heating.

Well, if I run out of projects I know what the next one will be...

[GILow]

Originally Posted by GoingWalkabout

Glad you mentioned that the hessian bag worked. I'm sure I would have taken heat by people who have never heard of such a thing. By the way I wonder what speed you need to be doing to make it work?

What speed...? Good question, gut feel is it starts to work around 20km/h, but I think they used to hang them under the bullock carts and get good results. In that case they were in the shade, and any air movement was wind from nature, so I suppose latent heat of evaporation is enough when there is no sunlight. The problem with the car setup is that we hung them on the bulbar so they were in direct sunlight.

I travelled down the Murray river on a raft in my youth, and managed to make a decent cooler setup by draping lot of canvas over a foam produce box, then trailing the canvas in the water. Then I put the whole lot under the raft body so it was in the shade. The beer that came out was not cold, not like the water in the canvas cooler bag, but it was a darn side better than it might have been.

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by GILow

What speed...? Good question, gut feel is it starts to work around 20km/h, but I think they used to hang them under the bullock carts and get good results. In that case they were in the shade, and any air movement was wind from nature, so I suppose latent heat of evaporation is enough when there is no sunlight. The problem with the car setup is that we hung them on the bulbar so they were in direct sunlight.

I travelled down the Murray river on a raft in my youth, and managed to make a decent cooler setup by draping lot of canvas over a foam produce box, then trailing the canvas in the water. Then I put the whole lot under the raft body so it was in the shade. The beer that came out was not cold, not like the water in the canvas cooler bag, but it was a darn side better than it might have been.

Now that's the way to float down the old Murray. A beer on a raft. Our English cousins would have thought the temperature of the beer was just fine.

Speaking of bullock trains. My great grandmother was knocked down and killed by a bullock train in Gippsland. Moving some timber on the farm. Apparently she knew how to Crack a mean bullock whip. They made the women tough back then.

[chala]

Originally Posted by StuM

Give it a rest. The rest of us don't want to create another Global Warming thread. Especially one based on your bad science.

Originally Posted by StuM

One place to start would be a thread that I initiated here:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1933764

Curious the teacher got it wrong. v Amps/Hr

[weavis]

Originally Posted by StuM

And I'm having Vegemite on toast.

It's far superior!

Its statements like this Stu that can cause members to doubt the validity of other comments you make..........

[Bulawayo]

Thank you. I already have my books out.........I have just spent time reading your other thread.
I'll make the effort in future to also use more accurate unit references.
I sure hope poeple will make similar efforts to be tolerant when errors do creep in.

Originally Posted by StuM

One place to start would be a thread that I initiated here:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...ml#post1933764

The initial post basically says it all. Unfortunately it digressed into a lot of unnecessary discussion as a result of a few people being reluctant to understand the points being made.

If you don't want to take my word for it, here's a couple of other resources:
kW and kWh Explained - Understand & Convert Between Power and Energy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt#C...watts_per_hour

These two refer mainly to Watt and Watt hour, rather than Amp and Amp hour, but the point is exactly the same. It's just that we generally assume 12V in the boating world, since that is the vast majority cases, and we tend to measure Amps rather than Watts.

(The fact that Amps in this case are pretty much the same as Watts only 12 time smaller makes the arithmetic a bit easier ).

When we start talking about 6V golf cart batteries in a system, however, things doget tricky for those who don't have a basic understanding of Watts, Amps and Wh, Ah. It's not uncommon to see major errors in calculation of power availability.

[Bulawayo]

The version of marmite in Australia is different to that sold in Europe or SA. As a self appointed expert I can confirm that UK/SA marmite is simply the best, bar none!! Also had some on toast earlier.



Extract follows:



• Marmite British version is salty in flavor while Marmite New Zealand version carries a taste that is not salty as the original version.
• Vegemite is also salty, but bit less.
• Marmite1(45KJ per 4g serve) provides more energy per serve than Vegemite2(40kJ per 5g serve).
• Marmite (100µg per 4g serve) has more Folic acid than Vegemite(100µg per 5g serve).
• Marmite (<0.5 g per 4g serve) has less sugar than Vegemite (<1g per 5g serve).

Originally Posted by StuM

And I'm having Vegemite on toast.

It's far superior!

[StuM]

Originally Posted by chala

Curious the teacher got it wrong. v Amps/Hr

Do tell exactly what you think is wrong there.

From the post in question:

"There is no reasonable practical meaning of Amps/hr or Amps per hour (which is actually a measure of how fast a current is increasing or decreasing.)"

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Bulawayo

The version of marmite in Australia is different to that sold in Europe or SA. As a self appointed expert I can confirm that UK/SA marmite is simply the best, bar none!! Also had some on toast earlier.



Extract follows:

Very good

I tend not to rely on either marmite or vegemite as an actual food and source of salt and sugar.... they are simply something I use to make my taste buds realise how lucky they are to enjoy real tucker and fine wine the rest of the time...

[weavis]

Originally Posted by StuM

They still make that stuff? I don't recall hearing of it since I left the UK 50 odd years ago!

WE dont mind people emigrating to have the life they want. Its one world after all despite what the politicians would have us believe...

On the other hand... One must not forget ones origins. It is unforgivable to replace Marmite with the copycat version in the antipodes....!

One must not forget other staples either.

Disappointed of Blackpool. (er India, Ireland, USA, Philippines and latterly Spain)

[GoingWalkabout]

Originally Posted by Bulawayo

The version of marmite in Australia is different to that sold in Europe or SA. As a self appointed expert I can confirm that UK/SA marmite is simply the best, bar none!! Also had some on toast earlier.



Extract follows:



• Marmite British version is salty in flavor while Marmite New Zealand version carries a taste that is not salty as the original version.
• Vegemite is also salty, but bit less.
• Marmite1(45KJ per 4g serve) provides more energy per serve than Vegemite2(40kJ per 5g serve).
• Marmite (100µg per 4g serve) has more Folic acid than Vegemite(100µg per 5g serve).
• Marmite (<0.5 g per 4g serve) has less sugar than Vegemite (<1g per 5g serve).

I come from the land down under.......... La La La.....a vegemite sandwich.....La La La.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by weavis

WE dont mind people emigrating to have the life they want. Its one world after all despite what the politicians would have us believe...

On the other hand... One must not forget ones origins. It is unforgivable to replace Marmite with the copycat version in the antipodes....!

One must not forget other staples either.

Mea Culpa!

But when it's the only one available in the mess and you've been using it for years, your tastes change.