How To Hook Up Solar Panel To Boat Battery

Make The Battery Cables

I didnt have pre-made battery cables lying around. So I decided to save some money and make my own.

Turns out its pretty easy. Heres how I did it:

Cut two pieces of wire to the length you want and strip both ends.

Put the fuse in the fuse holder. Use our fuse size calculator to find the right fuse size.

Connect one of the fuse holders wire leads to your shorter battery cable with your wire connector of choice.

Shrink wrap the connector with heat shrink tubing and a heat gun.

Slide a piece of heat shrink tubing onto each battery cable .

Then crimp the battery terminal connectors onto the battery cables and shrink wrap the connections. Look at your battery terminals to know which size connectors to use. Mine uses 1/4 ring terminals.

Battery cables complete!

Now theyre ready to be connected.

Solar Panels Are A Great Alternative To Generators And Rv Hookups

• RV hookups in trailer parks. Basically, it’s a charging station.
• Generators which use gasoline, diesel, or propane.
• Alternator, which is built into the engine of an EV and charges the battery while you are driving.
• Solar panels. They are a great addition to an alternator, as they supply you with energy when you stop along the way. They became a solid alternative to RV hookups and generators since they produce no sound or smell, require almost no maintenance and pay for themselves over time.

The 5 Best Solar Battery Chargers For Boats

So, weve come to the conclusion that solar battery chargers are a great investment for liveaboards, recreational boat and even fishing kayaks and jet skis.

Lets take a look at some examples for purchasing options.

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Know How: Installing Solar Panels

A set of Solbian flexible panels, hard at work just aft of the mast a Solbian SP104 panel

What is the optimum method of installing solar panels? Duncan Kent explains how to get the best from your solar array

Having trawled through hundreds of deals to get the best price on the most efficient panels you can afford, you need to know how to install them to best fulfill your energy generation needs. Output, even from the highest quality photovoltaic array, will only be as good as the installation itself. Following these guidelines will ensure you extract every last drop of energy from your solar investment.

How Long Does It Take To Charge A Battery With A Solar Panel

Use our solar battery charge time calculator to find out. The answer depends on a lot of factors.

As an example, here are the specs for the setup I used:

• 100 watt solar panel
• 12V, 33Ah lead acid battery
• PWM charge controller

According to our calculator, with this setup itll take about 7 hours of direct sunlight to charge the battery from 50% to fully charged.

But change any part of the setup e.g. swap in a 50 watt solar panel, a lithium battery, or an MPPT charge controller and the charge time will be different.

So yeah, definitely recommend the calculator for that question.

Give it a go:

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How To Charge Two Batteries In Your Rv With One Solar Panel

We get a lot of questions from our customers about charging two different batteries in their RV from a single solar panel. For example, they want to charge a battery for their house batteries and also their ATV or boat trolling battery.Most solar charge controllers will only allow you to charge one battery. There are a few charge controllers that have now added the default option of having two battery banks. The two banks are charge separately using the same controller and solar panels.

Notice the two discrete battery connection points on both sides of the solar array connection on the back of the above controller. You can easily start with one battery and add a second bank later.

Many of the new RV Solar kits from Go Power have this dual bank controller included in the kit. Always connect the RV house battery bank to the first battery position as it will receive the full charge before the second battery begins to charge.

Here are a few of the terms that are important to know when solar charging two battery banks:

Solar Charge Controller Keeps the solar panel from over charging your battery or batteries.

Dual Battery Bank Having two independent batteries or sets of batteries performing different functions. An example of this would be a start battery and an RVs house battery bank.

Here are a few of the terms that are important to know when solar charging two battery banks:

Solar Charge Controller Keeps the solar panel from over charging your battery or batteries.

Cable Sizing: Current Ratings And Volt Drop

Cables are sized according to volt drop and current capacity. Cables have a current carrying limit which cannot be exceeded. Current travelling through a conductor will cause volt drop across the length of the conductor, which needs to be kept within limits.

Cable current ratings are defined in manufacturers datasheets. Values are dependent on heat dissipation and insulation tolerance to elevated temperatures. Calculate the current that will go through a cable based on what it is feeding. For example if its feeding a 1000W inverter, then the current through the cable would be 1000 / 12 x 1.1 = 92A where multiplying by 1.1 is to take into account inverter efficiency. If the cable is to join your starter battery with your auxiliary battery, then you want to assume a large current so that you auxiliary battery will charge quickly and be able to contribute to starting your vehicle if the starter battery is depleted. At least 100A is a good figure for sizing this cable.

Volt drop is calculated by current x resistivity x length. Resistivity is usually given in Ohms / km so make sure your distance is also in km. Resistivity is resistance per unit length, and is governed by the cross sectional area of conductor and type of conductor. The actual values are provided in manufacturers datasheets. Ensure you include the negative return cable in your calculation. It means you need to double the distance of the cable run.

Volt Drop = 92 x 0.734 x 0.006 = 0.4V

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Sizing The Panels For Your Battery

Math shortcut: Take the output of the solar panel and divide it by two. Thats about the size of the battery it can maintain. A 150mA solar panel can maintain a battery up to about 75Ah. The 1500mA panel can provide enough power to keep a large bank of batteries topped off, assuming there are no loads on the batteries other than self-discharge.

Simple Rules For Best Power Production

Keep the panels as perpendicular to the incoming suns rays as possible. We understand that if youve mounted panels on a boat on a mooring, you may not be able to guarantee that they are pointing towards the sun, but all panels will produce more power if they get direct sunlight. This is a compelling reason to mount panels on cruising boats so that they can be aimed in the appropriate direction, no matter what the season, course, or latitude.

Avoid shadows: The output of a panel drops dramatically when shadowed, even if only 10 percent of the panel is in shadow. A small shadow can reduce the panels output by 50 percent or more. When something as large as a boom, radar scanner, or mast casts its shadow on a panel, your output goes down dramatically.

Keep your panels cool. Its not easy to keep a black surface cool in the sun, but panel output goes down as temperature rises, so if you can provide some ventilation on the backside of the panel, you may be able to pick up a five or ten percent increase.

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Soak Up The Sun: The 5 Best Solar Battery Chargers For Boats

Its a tale as old as time. Youre in the middle of a favorite show and you get that low-battery warning.

Weve all been there. Its no fun when your electronic devices lose power. Its bad enough when youre at home and have to stay attached to the wall. Its a different story when youre off-the-grid and out on your boat.

From chartplotters, GPS, VHF radios and cell phones to fish finders, stereos and blenders , you need electronic devices on a boat for safety, information, entertainment and what-not. And that means a power source of some sort.

This is where solar panels and solar battery chargers for boats come in.

At A Glance: Our Top 4 Picks For Solar Battery Chargers For Boats

Charging everything up at home or in the marina is always a great idea. But what if youre out on the high seas? Or high lake, for that matter.

Read on to find out how handy and efficient boat solar battery chargers can be.

How To Hook Up Solar Panel To Battery

Well, the hard time comes up when you dont know how to hook up solar panel to battery if that is 12 volt. Why is that hard? Its not hard. But it has to be followed by some steps of processes.

Solar power is the most reliable and cleanest renewable energy form that provides the power supply in your home or business. The panels that are known as solar-powered photovoltaic panel converts the sunlight to electricity rather than heat. By using the solar panel, not only can you reduce your electricity bill but also air pollution.

So you are saving the environment and your money too. While installing the solar panel, you may face problems in connecting the solar panel to the battery.

No worries, you will get clear instructions in this article about how to hook up solar panel to battery.

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Best Solar Battery Trickle Charger

Solar battery trickle chargers are great! They are really one of the easiest ways to keep your batteries charged.

They can also prevent a multitude of annoying to extremely inconvenient situations like:

• A dead car battery when you really need to get somewhere
• Running out of battery power while camping
• Running out of battery while far off-shore on a boat
• No power when you need to use your tractor or excavator
• An ATV or quad bike unable to run which isnt very fun

Luckily, this can all be prevented. Great if youre off to have fun but maybe you do want a day off and a dead car battery would be a blessing. Still, dead batteries are never wanted.

Can I Recharge My Trolling Motor Batteries With Solar Panel After Im Done Using Them

Yes, it is possible, but most of the time we find most customers dont find it feasible. It is possible to recharge your trolling motor battery pack with a solar panel after use, but it does come with some limitations. A higher wattage solar panel is larger in size, so typically most people dont have enough space for mounting the solar panel. In general, most trolling motor manufacturers typically recommend that a customer use a group 27 to group 31 size battery for their trolling motor. This means they factor you are going to discharge the battery at least 50% per use, which means a solar panel is going to need to make up for 50 to 65 amps if the battery is 50% discharged.

While a lot of our customers dont care how long it takes to recharge, we believe that a battery should be brought back to fully charged as quickly as possible. If a battery sits too long, the sulfation within the battery can harden causing the battery to have a shorter life. For this reason, our recommendation may seem high, but they are aimed towards keeping your batteries in good condition.

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How To Mount The Solar Battery Trickle Charger

There are a few different ways to mount your solar trickle charger:

Most trickle chargers come with a pretty long cable for connecting the solar panels to the battery. If you know that your battery will be a long way away from the panel, be sure to check the length before you buy. You can also do a DIY connect.

Install Your Solar Panels

• Mounting Z brackets for solar panels come with nuts and bolts, but can be attached to the roof with strong adhesives.
• Aluminium tiltable mounting brackets allow you to adjust the angle of panels, but require drilling. Panels on these brackets or frames can be also safely put on the ground.
• Light flexible or amorphous solar panels can be just glued to the roof or fixed with velcro tape. However, they tend to overheat, which lowers their already below-average efficiency

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Best Quality Small Cost

Cost: $103.44 Buy Now

The Renogy 100W 12V solar panel is a great option. At 21%, it is a high efficiency monocrystalline panel manufactured by a reputable solar panel company.

There are pre-drilled holes for easy drilling to a mount on your boat. If you have space to secure solar panels to a mount, the Renogy panels will help you maximize energy output.

Solar Panel For Boat/yacht

In polycrystalline solar cells, each cell consists of several small crystals. Such panels are less efficient than single-crystal ones, especially at low light levels, but they are lighter and cheaper.

During the production of amorphous wafers, the vaporized silicon is deposited on the substrate. Amorphous panels are the cheapest and very flexible, but their efficiency is the least.

Each silicon cell, regardless of its size, generates a voltage of about 0.6 volts when exposed to direct sunlight.

The voltage of the entire battery can be approximately determined by multiplying 0.6 by the number of cells. For example, the voltage of a solar panel consisting of 30 cells is 18.0 volts.

The output current of the cell depends on its type, quality, and surface area.

Therefore, to get the same power output using amorphous and monocrystalline panels, amorphous will have to occupy twice the area.

In addition, the capacity of amorphous batteries is about 10% less than the nominal one to two years after production.

In the future, it will stabilize.

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The Simplest System Direct Connection Of A Second Battery

A second battery can be connected in parallel with the starter battery with no other additional hardware as shown in the circuit diagram below.

This system is simple to install and minimizes costs. The alternator will charge both batteries and all loads will be shared between both batteries. Both batteries will contribute to cranking the starter and both batteries will provide capacity to run the auxiliary loads. The main problem with this arrangement is that the starter battery will be depleted by the auxiliary loads, after which the vehicle will be unable to start. An easy solution is to manually disconnect the starter battery as required. This is the arrangement I used in my early years of camping. The starter battery in my vehicle had round terminals that were tapered in shape. This meant I could leave the nuts on one of the terminals slightly loose, and with some shuffling back and forth of the terminal I could wedge it hard enough onto the tapered battery terminal to provide a good enough connection, or I could disconnect the terminal as required without needing any tools. You run the risk of forgetting to disconnect the starter battery and allowing it to go flat. If you use this setup, ensure you disconnect the negative terminal only to prevent accidental short circuiting of the auxiliary battery on the body of the vehicle, and obviously do not allow the loose negative terminal to touch the positive side of the battery, unless you are trying to start a fire.

Can I Use Solar Panel And Inverter Without Battery

Solar Panel Installation Without Battery Power As A Backup System. A hybrid solar inverter can work without batteries. The energy produced by the solar panels is directed to the house for use and they do not need to produce all the electricity to run an entire household as shortfalls can be made up from the power grid.

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