Question by Sam: What components are required in a solar power car/boat battery charging system?
I have a small yacht and I am looking to install a solar powered charger to charge the boat battery. The battery is to be used to run a CD player, a 2 way radio, a number of lights and possibly a small TV at a later date. I am unsure of what components are actually needed in this power system and any sought of advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank You.
Best answer:
Answer by jtexas
solar panel and controller (circuitry to prevent the charger from draining the battery during low light conditions, when it’s not generating).
You’ll need some pretty big panels to keep up with the demand.
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One Response
If you get a smaller panel, it won’t be capable of overcharging the battery so you don’t need a controller.
It probably has built-in polarity protection (won’t run the battery down in the dark).
It depends how much of the time you are running the loads how big a panel you need. I mean, if the boat is sitting in the sun all week and you run LED lights for a few hours at the weekend, that’s a different proposition from using the radio 12 hours every day.
You could start small and buy a system you could grow by adding more panels and a controller and see how it goes, or try and work out your energy budget by calculating average daily insolation, electrical load of each item etc.
Rigid panels are currently much more efficient than flex ones, though of course more fragile. Amazingly, I haven’t broken my 1.5 sq ft panel yet that just sits on the coachroof.