Again
Mark, my boat was close on power for a single night & day then the power would begin to drop. I added a 300 watt solar per my design & research. This worked quite well but my batteries were still lower than I liked in the morning and she would still start the diesel with just the house side. I switched out to 2 Grp 31 AGM's and I'm still good after a few cloudy days. The other advantage of AGM's is you can hide the batteries away as there is little maintenance other than checking connections annually.
To change over all I needed to do was flip 3 switches the shore charger, the Baldor regulator and the Victron controller. I even added a switch to kill the alternator so when motoring on a sunny morning the engine worked less, the alt did nothing but keep the belt turning the water pump and old sol would top off the batteries. The solar ran the fridge, the freezer, the nav stuff, the stereo and Ray the steersman in a box.
I like Neil's comment as to the KISS rule and I always try to implement it.
I had a couple of buddies with power boats and some money who decided to convert to LiFeP04. After many dollars and many "electrical guys" they both went back to LA and replaced some fried electronics. It wasted a season for both. A complete from the ground up system is fine but piecing one together is really a nasty task.
Dave Neptune
Mark, my boat was close on power for a single night & day then the power would begin to drop. I added a 300 watt solar per my design & research. This worked quite well but my batteries were still lower than I liked in the morning and she would still start the diesel with just the house side. I switched out to 2 Grp 31 AGM's and I'm still good after a few cloudy days. The other advantage of AGM's is you can hide the batteries away as there is little maintenance other than checking connections annually.
To change over all I needed to do was flip 3 switches the shore charger, the Baldor regulator and the Victron controller. I even added a switch to kill the alternator so when motoring on a sunny morning the engine worked less, the alt did nothing but keep the belt turning the water pump and old sol would top off the batteries. The solar ran the fridge, the freezer, the nav stuff, the stereo and Ray the steersman in a box.
I like Neil's comment as to the KISS rule and I always try to implement it.
I had a couple of buddies with power boats and some money who decided to convert to LiFeP04. After many dollars and many "electrical guys" they both went back to LA and replaced some fried electronics. It wasted a season for both. A complete from the ground up system is fine but piecing one together is really a nasty task.
Dave Neptune
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