Tips For Cruising With Solar | Ep. 18

[@richardjones9692]

How incredibly valuable this information is, how incredibly generous you are in sharing it with your audience. Kudos Maestro!

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Thanks Richard, I'm glad you found it valuable. We'll be working on an update soon based on our experience in the Med with these panels.

[@RTLimYou]

Fantastic find-this video. Thanks for publishing. Not only the right boat I have in mind but also an invaluable topic for long voyage. Cheers!

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Thanks RTLimYou. It was fun putting it together and I'm glad you found it helpful. Fair winds!

[@edwoiszwillo5493]

I've been using a Kyocera 140W for 2 seasons now, and very happy with the result. I'm a coastal cruiser with demands of mostly refrigeration and autopilot. I'm not a heavy user of power needs so 140W seems like a good fit for me. I could always double the panels if my energy requirements present themselves. Also the panel is mounted on my dinghy davit with an MPPT controller. Great video, thanks.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Glad you found the video helpful. Yes, the Kyocera panels are a strong choice. They were quite rugged and performed well on our last boat. Fair winds!

[@trevormaillard7770]

Thanks for your real world experience and advice!

[@LifeFourPointZero]

You are welcome - thanks for watching!

[@SOMAsolarsystems]

I know solar and nothing said on this video is wrong. Spot on with calculations. The man knows his stuff.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Thanks for your kind compliments, Joe!

[@edrosenberger6947]

This was very interesting and you answered everyone of my ponderings on how to design my own marine solar system. This has been the best lecture on a solar system's design I have seen so far.....thank you!

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Your welcome Ed!

[@seamusfogarty5925]

just found your channel.....your a natural teacher...I recently purchased a new Hanse and am studying all your videos. I'm in ireland where sunlight can be an issue and the plan is to cruise northern Europe....Your old boat was amazing so cannot wait to see video's on the spec / extras on your new boat!

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Thanks Seamus! We hope to do an update to our solar video in the near future. Happy cruising!

[@fissh29]

As jamesdchamp said just found your channel...watched in same order as he did... I am still building my boat, gathering info along the way...your videos are excellent and extremely usefull...thanks and favorable winds!

[@LifeFourPointZero]

I'm glad you got value out of the videos and good luck in the building process.

[@RaulMartinez-ln8zq]

Great video as usual.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Thanks Raul...solar is the future!

[@jamesdchamp]

Wow! I just found ur channel. This is the second of ur videos I watched (the navigation electronics was the first). It is almost impossible to find detailed explanations about boating topics. Thanks so much for being so detailed and so complete with ur information. :)

[@LifeFourPointZero]

You're very welcome. Thanks for the feedback!

[@CraigOverend]

Good overview for beginners. I like your choice, the flysolartech appear to use Sunpower cells that have a good reputation and I've seen them really bend a lot before failure, and ETFE has excellent 30+ years UV longevity and light transmission properties. That bubbling Solbian failure you showed was a cell failure, if you look closely you can see a crack across one corner of the cell and bubbling in-line with the power tabs. The cell may have shorted, acted as a resistor and got hot. This is why if brittle cells are walked on they need good support and sealing from material like sand getting under the cells and creating pressure points. PET is sensitive to UV light especially at elevated temperatures, under high humidity, and in the presence of oxygen. The yellowing may be accelerated by how hot the panels get. EVA films used to "glue" multilayer assemblies together also yellow as they age when cured in laminates. See page 18: www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/el/building_materials/Gu.pdf

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Great.Thanks for commenting on the bubbling issue, and for the helpful link!

[@sveula6454]

Very informative, looking forward to your review down the track. Cheers 👍

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Thanks captain crusty. Yes we'll do another once we have some experience on the water with them.

[@windonwater3895]

Great video!! - thanks for all your hard work and sharing your knowledge. I wish I had seen this 3 or 4 years ago when I was upgrading from my single rigid 65w panel. I now have that and two flexible 50w panels mounted on my bimini (for a total of 165w). The one thing that I learned recently (in my WINTER trip from Baltimore to the Bahamas) was about the significant negative effect of the angle of the sun and the number of hours the sun is out per day during the winter. I ended up buying a portable Honda generator to help with charging. My 165 watts were fine during the summer but just not enough during the winter.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Thanks for the comments and glad you liked the video. You are right that it is hard to counteract the low sun angle in winter. You'd have to setup a tilting array which is pretty difficult on a sailboat, especially while underway and on different headings. But heading to the Bahamas sounds like the next best alternative!

[@rodshehan3886]

Nice vid mate. I really like the lightness of flexible panels. My latest additions only weigh 1 kg (2.2lbs) each at 120watts each. BTW, there is another charge controller system that most people don't know about... a dump load controller. I use a dump controller in parallel with my cheaper PWM controllers (I have a parallel redundant system). Every watt that comes in is used for battery charge, and spare power is used for heating hot water in my own designed system. So, instead of the controller just cutting the power from the solar panel to maintain the charge rate, all the spare power is diverted to the dump load. By doing this, we have captured so much more energy as stored hot water. On wire gauge, is there actually a different size than 6mm2?? Its all I use for everything. Most modern panels put out a lot more than 22volts. Given the budget I would prefer 60-70v panels to minimise the losses over the skinny cables

[@patsimmondsnz]

While all the other channels gives me the sexy stuff you give me the nuts and bolts. You are now a go to technical source for my sailing vision. Thank you.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Glad you liked the video!

[@SnapographyAP]

Thanks for all your thoughts. Have you gone the flexible panel route? I've had both rigid and flexible on an RV and I think the rigid performance, particularly over time, is much better. That said I would prefer flexible on my boat. How are you finding yours? I've read they are particularly sensitive to bending and heat.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Hi snapography. I will be working on an update video in the future to explain our installation results and lessons learned. But in a nutshell we did go with semi-flexible panels, mounted on the bimini. It's too early to tell their long-term viability vs rigid panels, but it did reduce the weight and complexity of mounting a solar arch on the stern. Positioning of the panels is important to keep in mind, particularly with a mounting on the bimini. It is easy to get alot of shading from the sails. They are sensitive to bending and we were careful to not have the panels overlap the bimini frame area. We'll have more details in the forthcoming video.

[@bradbenson2774]

I'd think flexible panels on the bimini have the exact same drawback as deck mounted panels. When sailing, one side is going to be in the shade while the other catches full sun. If you decide to go that way, it's seems like a controller on each panel would be important to get efficiency from your system.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Indeed, Brad. We find that a controller on each panel maximizes the efficiency. Even when on the level when anchored, shading can occur from the mast or boom, so those controllers really help.

[@jens5934]

Hello, very much like your video and great in depth information. I'm a little perplexed however about having one controller per panel?! There may be better options if the panels are wired in series and not parallel, the controllers seem to have better efficiency with higher voltage coming in. I'm not 100% sure, but wiring the panels in parallel (ie. higher Amps, lower Volts) seems to degrade the output. Many controllers can handle both setups and can be switched. This may safe you installing 5, but I do like the redundancy of two good ones. Series = dasy-chain panels positive to negative (24v per panel x 5 = 95v output. The amperage stays the same as one individual panel. Parallel = All positives together from the panels run together to the controller, as do the negatives. The amperage of the cells add up, but your voltage will be low at 24v output. Hope this is explained well enough and well worth looking into?! Thank you for the efforts you go through to bring us these videos. :-)

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Yes there are trade offs to what you describe. We chose one controller per panel because of the chance of shading. If one is shaded, you lose that panels output only, not the multiple panels if that's what is connected to that controller. If you don't have a possibility of shade, go for one controller. And yes if you then wire the multiple panels in series, positive to negative, your voltage increases but amps stay the same coming into the controller. This has the advantage of not having to increase the size of wiring. Then the controller steps down the voltage and amps go up onto your battery bank. Again this assumes no or little chance of individual panel shading. Good luck!

[@jens5934]

So going the series option will not negate the shade issue? Would have thought the voltage/amps would just pass through the shaded cells without any or much loss, but just collect the lower or nil power form the effected panel along the way?

[@LifeFourPointZero]

That is correct, putting the panels in series won't improve that array's shade performance. It can be surprising how little shading of even one cell will do to the whole array's output. The couple from Gone with the Wynns did an excellent video testing out shade's impact. Check it out here. kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z6KnZKCEbbuiqrM. Skinny shade, like that from a line doesn't do much, but something wider like a boom shadow, or blocking an individual cell really drops performance.

[@jens5934]

Thanks for the link, I'll definitely check it out. :-)

[@nickkitson]

@@LifeFourPointZero Hi, great video, many thanks for the work you put into it. Would be great to see an update on how successful your solartech/bluesolar setup has worked in practice - would you choose the same suppliers again? Re multiple controllers, I can see the redundancy benefits but, from the Gone with the Wynns video, with a parallel configuration, shading of one panel was only knocking out the output from that panel which is no worse than if they had two controllers. Or am I getting something wrong here?

[@deltacx1059]

Stick enough panels on and there won't be an issue. Also those water turbines are not that great if you think about it because some of the energy you use to move the boat will be lost to the drag the turbine creates so you might as well have a bigger alternator instead. (Unless you are using sails)

[@LifeFourPointZero]

I agree, the low cost of the panels makes it easy to justify using all the real estate you can find.

[@paulg680]

Do any of the newer charge controllers control more than one panel. Great info. Thanks for sharing.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Hi Paul. I am not aware of any. My approach has been to use separate controllers on any panel that could be subject to shade. While it means more wire runs, the small controllers are quite reasonable. I am watching the progress of residential solar that use 'power optimizers' or 'microinverters' between panel strings to deal with shading, but I haven't yet seen anyone try it on a boat. Interesting idea though.

[@ItsRainingTacosProductions]

Great information video. thxs

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Thanks Jeff!

[@railroad9000]

I have a 140 W Kyocera panel on my Ranger Tug. I would like to add an additional Kyocera but they don't make these any more.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

Yes, those Kyocera panels were well made, too bad they are no longer available, but there are other good rigid panels on the market today. I would recommend getting a separate controller for the additional panel because it will be a different model than your old one, and besides, if there is any shading, your whole array won't lose output. Good luck!

[@railroad9000]

@@LifeFourPointZero Thanks

[@whyme8068]

Another great video! With all those charge controllers, will you connect them all up to one battery bank or will you split up the batteries? If you connect them all up to one battery bank, do the controllers need to communicate with each other so they know how to charge the battery bank?

[@LifeFourPointZero]

They'll be connected to one battery bank, the house bank. The controllers read the charge state of the battery separately to determine how much to charge the bank. They don't communicate with each other. In this way they also provide a level of redundancy in the system. Hope this helps.

[@whyme8068]

But won't the power coming in from the other controllers give a false reading as to the battery state, or do you wire it up in such a way that this won't happen? Could you give some details as to how you will wire this up? The charge controller setup is the part that confuses me. I like the idea of several smaller charge controllers so that it's easier to add wind and hydro generation by just connecting them to their own controllers. I just don't see how it would be wired up.

[@LifeFourPointZero]

The wiring is very simple. It's the intelligence in the controller algorithm that handles the complexity. There are two leads coming into the controller from the solar array and two leads going out to the battery bank. When the controller starts up in the morning it goes through a 3 stage algorithm-bulk, absorption, and float- using the battery bank voltage, how many amps it can push into the bank, and other historical factors. It can determine the battery state of charge from the voltage and amps the battery will accept, changing the stage as it goes. If other controllers are also connected (or wind, alternator, etc) all those controllers are going to see the same battery state. As the battery gets full, they all can respond accordingly.

[@whyme8068]

Great! Thank you for the explanation!!!

[@smartphonelaptoptroublesho8013]

!