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Post by ianpowolny on Nov 6, 2014 19:18:43 GMT
I've seen a number of posts regarding solar panel installations. Is it really as simple as it seems?
We have 4 house batteries at 440Ah; two winch/thruster batteries at 110Ah and the motor battery at 110Ah; 80A alternator and a 60A charger. We don't plan to change any of these items.
I have an offer of the Antaris Solar Panels at £137 each (3 off I think). These are 200w and 1580 x 808mm which seems about the same as the other panels I've seen talked about on this site. They are the same as we have on the house so no salt water.
A Blue Solar PWM-Pro - 12/24v 30 at £90 with a remote monitor at £47.
Cable and through bulkhead fittings - any advise?
Do I need a temperature sensor?
Is that all need?
Advise needed.
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Post by rxc on Nov 6, 2014 19:33:41 GMT
Well, it is not too hard, but where are you going to mount them? You haven't said anything about that. And that affects the wire length, which determines what size the wires are going to be, and how much you are going to pay for them. This also affects choices about cable thru-hulls, etc.
Also, I would not advise PWM controllers, if you can afford an MPPT controller. The MPPT controllers are better matched for the output voltage from the panels (normally around 19v), and will get you MUCH better performance into the batteries. I went thru two controllers - one very simple one, one PWM - before finally settling on a MPPT. Strongly advise that you will be much happier with MPPT.
Temperature sensor is probably not required, because you are not installing enough panel power to heat the batteries.
If you want to be able to charge the other batteries besides the house bank, you will need some sort of voltage combiner to make sure that you only connect them together when the panels are putting out current. This means looking at overall system and thinking about what currents will be flowing in which directions at what times.
Remote monitor highly recommended.
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Post by ianpowolny on Nov 7, 2014 8:26:47 GMT
rxc,
I'm planning to add an arch so I expect the cabling to be about 6 meters. How do I calculate the cable cross section? I'll also find a MPPT. Ian
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Post by MalcolmP on Nov 7, 2014 8:34:50 GMT
Hi Ian Fully agree with RXC comments. Worth going for 6mm wire if you can, it not physically that much larger in OD than 4mm - I purchased cables from these guys: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171458860672 good service and the MC4 connectors make life easy. I went for the 15 Amp Victron BlueSolar MPPT plus a BMV 700 monitor supplied by Steve Crump at www.hollybrookps.co.uk/ he is very helpful, knowledgeable and an aspiring Jeanneau Owner to boot My panels are 2 x100w flexible: www.photonicuniverse.com/en/catalog/full/147-100W-Flexible-Solar-Panel-made-of-back-contact-cells-for-motorhome-caravan-camper-rv-boat.html as they are rear connected they look smart and are usefully smaller than others, so one fits perfectly on the hatch garage of my 39i - the other I am putting ahead of the mast (hence long cable run = 6mm) I plan to add another couple of panels, maybe non-flexible, hinged off the guardwires and with an extra MPPT so I have some redundancy in case one of the regulators fail Malcolm |
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Post by vasko on Nov 7, 2014 9:40:38 GMT
I got a full kit 250W (bosh noncrystalline) , cables, MPPT, adapters all in one pack from ebay for £285 and it worked like a charm for me - install it myself , ntoday in process of adding wind generator with build-in MPPT 400W(max 600W) (£350) with carbon pole (£100) should be ready today and will post feed back...
do not expect much from the solars - they will give you between 5ah-10ah in reallity (per day 50ah -80ah) e.g. in brief will be easy on the fridge but for anything else you need at least 500W - which are not small
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Post by aussieodyssey on Nov 7, 2014 10:57:02 GMT
Ian
6mm wire and MPPT for sure . Should be able to wire them into your system where the alternator is charging and the rest of your system would stay the way it is unless it doesn't work the way you want it to .
Greg
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Post by chuckr on Nov 7, 2014 11:54:38 GMT
Ian -- we installed 2 130w and 1 135w kycera solar panels above out bimini with a seperate frame that is just above the bimini and wiring through the deck to our batteries. We have a blue sky 3024 mppt controller that controls the input. We have had them for 7 years and they work great. We lost our alternator this past summer and for a week or so all we had were the panels to run everything. They functioned but we were glad to get our alternator back as that solution would not work permanently.
I did it all my self and it is not rocket science as i am anything but skilled at doing anything. I will take that back, i had a great guy on the dock in miami design the frame and help me build it. i have room for one more panel and if i can find one will add it.
We do not have a temp sensor. By the way we did not add wind as i did a cost/benefit analysis of a wind gen vs diesel and diesel won. From a cost standpoint wind was not cost efficient, at least when we looked at it 7 years ago.
As soon as the wind stops howling, blowing around 40k right now and will all day, we will take a pic and show it.
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Post by sfh on Nov 7, 2014 12:18:44 GMT
Hi,
I have a setup similar to Ian's and intend to carry out same type of installation this winter.
Engine battery and housebank are running 12V but thruster and winches are running 24V.
Believe I understand the general solar setup as explained in an earlier post but not sure how to handle the 12V vs. 24V charging of the three different banks.
A "combiner" was mentioned but are they able to handle 12V on one bank vs. 24V on the other bank?
Regards
Steen
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Post by aussieodyssey on Nov 7, 2014 16:00:31 GMT
Steen
How do you charge your 24v batteries at the moment .You will probably need two separate sola systems to charge the two different battery voltages .
Greg
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Post by sfh on Nov 7, 2014 20:44:17 GMT
Steen How do you charge your 24v batteries at the moment .You will probably need two separate sola systems to charge the two different battery voltages . Greg According to the manual the 24V is provided through a "coupling relay". I have not mapped out that end of my electric system yet but if it in reality is a 12V system then I must assume it is charged via the same charging system as the house bank and the start battery. If that is the case then I must have a 3 bank battery combiner instead of only a 2 bank combiner. Will have to check that out. Thanks for the hint Steen |
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Post by vasko on Nov 8, 2014 19:49:22 GMT
Pictures attached of my solar & wind setup - total cost ~£700 - using the existing frame of my bimini with integrate davits e.g. solid construction, but small bimini as the boom is low and need the space..  |
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Post by rxc on Nov 8, 2014 20:26:58 GMT
It is interesting to hear about a Jeanneau with a 24v system. I appreciate that 24v systems make the wiring much smaller, but I have not seen many explanations of how people manage a boat with both 12v and 24v power. I have two battery combiners to couple my house batteries to my engine starting battery and my windlass/bow thruster battery when a charging source is available, but I don't understand how one could do this with two different voltages. You would probably need separate battery chargers and alternators and/or converters. Does the Jeanneau coupler have some sort of voltage conversion device inside it? The combiners I am talking about are just voltage sensing relays that connect two wires together whenever the voltage reaches a particular threshold. I even use one of these to power a small fan for my battery compartment. I do have 110v AC and 220v AC on board, but they are tied thru an isolation transformer, and in reality are one system - you use one hot leg to get 110, and two hot legs to get 220. One possible application for solar panels would be to wire the panels in series, to get 38v from the panels to the controller. This would cut down on the wire size from the panels, which I have found to be a big hassle. My wires run thru the tubing of my arch, but they share the tubing with the wires from the windmill, which are the same size, for the same reason - reduce line losses. It would have been nice to use smaller wires, but when I set it all up, the systems were a bit more primative. Now, I would buy one of those German windmills that generate AC at high voltage to pass to a controller down below. Also, I would wire the solar panels in series, for the same reason. However, I have heard that some solar panels suffer quite a bit if even one bit of one cell is shaded, so maybe keeping them in parallel is best. Photo of my setup below (large cat provided for scale):  |
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Post by sfh on Nov 9, 2014 12:52:57 GMT
It is interesting to hear about a Jeanneau with a 24v system. I appreciate that 24v systems make the wiring much smaller, but I have not seen many explanations of how people manage a boat with both 12v and 24v power. I have two battery combiners to couple my house batteries to my engine starting battery and my windlass/bow thruster battery when a charging source is available, but I don't understand how one could do this with two different voltages. You would probably need separate battery chargers and alternators and/or converters. I have only had my boat for 10 months now and are not enough into the details yet on the wiring of the 24V system and technical details to comment. That is on my list for this winter. ZANSHIN was kind enough to email the schematics for his J57 which I assume are close to the layout of my J53 but I need to check it out myself to understand it in details. Does the Jeanneau coupler have some sort of voltage conversion device inside it? The combiners I am talking about are just voltage sensing relays that connect two wires together whenever the voltage reaches a particular threshold. I even use one of these to power a small fan for my battery compartment. I do have 110v AC and 220v AC on board, but they are tied thru an isolation transformer, and in reality are one system - you use one hot leg to get 110, and two hot legs to get 220. I only have 230V. One 16A circuit and one 32AMP circuit. Two separate shore power cables. Again I am not the right one to ask. Will have to map it out myself this winter One possible application for solar panels would be to wire the panels in series, to get 38v from the panels to the controller. This would cut down on the wire size from the panels, which I have found to be a big hassle. My wires run thru the tubing of my arch, but they share the tubing with the wires from the windmill, which are the same size, for the same reason - reduce line losses. It would have been nice to use smaller wires, but when I set it all up, the systems were a bit more primative. Now, I would buy one of those German windmills that generate AC at high voltage to pass to a controller down below. Also, I would wire the solar panels in series, for the same reason. However, I have heard that some solar panels suffer quite a bit if even one bit of one cell is shaded, so maybe keeping them in parallel is best. For now my intention is to install two panels in series in front on my main traveller. I should have room for 2 x 75W flexible panels of this type link. I intend to run them through a VICTRON BlueSolar MPPT 75/15 which should be big enough for handling the 6-7A that I expect to get from the panels. This will give me the power I need to keep my batteries topped up on a daily basis. As part of this project I will introduce a VICTRON BMV-702 to monitor my house bank and auxiliary bank (actually I might have to install two BMV-700 instead depending on the 12V / 24V issue) and a Color Control GX which will allow me to monitor my power network remotely over the Internet since my boat is 7,000 km from where I reside. The Color Control GX should provide with input/output data that I need to monitor my banks properly instead of the simple meter that I have today. Next project to install a couple of high-capacity panels on the bimini or on an arch. I have not yet decided on the setup. I know ZANSHIN has installed solar panels recently on his J57 so he might be able to come in with some lessons-learned on how to handle the 12V/24V issue charging issue My mid/long term intentions is to replace my CRISTEC inverter with a QUATTRO which can be monitored by the Control Control GX as well. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated. Steen |
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Post by vasko on Nov 10, 2014 11:01:51 GMT
The cat looks great:)
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Post by aussieodyssey on Nov 10, 2014 15:29:37 GMT
Ian Here's what i did on my 45.2 might give u some ideas . We live in the tropics so the extra shade doesn't go amiss . Three 125 watt panels .   |
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Post by Trevor on Nov 10, 2014 21:56:27 GMT
Hello, This is the original installation on our SO42DS. www.jeanneau-owners.com/hintsandtips/so42dsbimini.htmlI went to a lot of trouble to thread the cable through the pushpit rail. It wasn't easy and took some time to do but it does keep things tidy and doesn't put any extra holes in the deck. Since then we have added another 100 watt panel to the front top of the bimini and upgraded the regulator to the larger size. If the sun is shining we can go indefinitely without running the engine to charge the batteries. This last 4 day long weekend mostly the sun was shining and we had 17 amps available from the panels for many hours in the middle of the day. On the last day it was overcast and we had between 4 and 7 amps from the panels. Regards, |
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Post by dslittle on Nov 14, 2014 11:50:35 GMT
Ian. I currently have 450w feeding my batteries through a 30A MPPT. The panels are on an arch and the 6mm2 wiring goes into the arch and through the lazarette. I will let you have photos later. Although not easy (I no longer easily fit into boat spaces...) it actually wasn't too difficult and the wiring is simplicity itself. Hope that this helps
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Post by chuckr on Nov 14, 2014 15:22:17 GMT
Ian - finally got the pics but can not load them - keep getting a msg that the forum has exceeded it's spACE limit
Unable to upload file .
Error: This forum has exceeded its attachment space limit. Your file cannot be uploaded.
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Post by ianpowolny on Nov 14, 2014 15:53:34 GMT
Chuck, Use tinypic.com/ and copy the 'massage board' sizing from the resize drop down menu. Ian |
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Post by MalcolmP on Nov 14, 2014 16:58:31 GMT
Ian - finally got the pics but can not load them - keep getting a msg that the forum has exceeded it's spACE limit Unable to upload file . Error: This forum has exceeded its attachment space limit. Your file cannot be uploaded. Thanks for highlighting this issue. The problem is this is a "free" forum there is a limit on the total amount of permanent photo storage. Please follow the instructions here: jeanneau.proboards.com/thread/8029/revised-guidance-photo-uploads-forum |
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Post by MalcolmP on Nov 14, 2014 16:59:44 GMT
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