In order to maintain our independence and lifestyle, we added a solar power system to Pearl Lee. While solar power can make us more independent, you must consider power generation, storage and consumption as a complete system.
LED Light Bulbs
We started by cutting our power consumption. We found LED bulbs for our original interior light fixtures on Amazon. These use less power, and give off less heat, a real win-win for us. We wanted to keep a warm glow similar to incandescent lights, so we stuck with “warm white” or 2700k color. You might notice one bulb is brighter than the other. That’s no accident, it allows us warm, soft light when one is lit, but nice, bright light when both are lit.
We were also able to find LED bulbs for navigation lights. This was a bit more time consuming since we had to have bulbs as close to original as possible. That means 2700k color temperature because that matches the incandescent bulbs our lights were designed for. For equivalent brightness we looked for LED bulbs about one quarter the original incandescent bulb’s wattage. The toughest part was finding LED replacements with equivalent dimensions. If done correctly, there is no reason LED’s can’t be effective replacements in incandescent fixtures.
Solar panels
Our solar power really starts with solar panels. Solar panel size/shape was somewhat dictated by the mounting locations available on our boat. We needed them to be as shade free as possible. Even shade from a line can significantly reduce output. On our ketch the only reasonably sunny spot was to mount them on our dinghy davits. It was a rainy, cloudy day when I took this picture, so I hadn’t bothered to clean them. Normally, while they’re still wet with dew I just squeegee them off. After all, dirt is shade.
Our panels are Hyundai 280 watt, 32 volt panels measuring about 39″x64″. Because of the size, shipping is expensive, so it’s best to find a local dealer or do a group buy with some friends. We have two panels, totaling 560 watts, but keep in mind that’s under theoretically ideal conditions. Our mounts don’t even have a way to aim them at the sun, so we’ll never achieve that output. We simply mounted them flat on our davits using angle aluminum, which also stiffens them for the rough ride they get on a boat.
Solar charge controller
The next item in our solar power system is the Charge Controller, which is a battery charger powered by solar panels. We needed a controller with the capacity to handle both the volts and watts from our panels while delivering the right voltage to our batteries. For more info on choosing a controller, have a look at our article on solar charge controllers here.
For us, the higher cost of an MPPT controller was more than offset by the savings of having two large panels, which put out 32 volts, rather than many smaller panels. We chose the Midnite Solar Classic 150 due to features and reputation. Note in the installation above we installed appropriately sized breakers between panels/controller and controller/batteries.
One thing we like about the Midnite Solar Classic is that the control panel can be remotely mounted. This allowed us to “hide” the controller, breakers and wiring while still keeping tabs on our solar production. I took this picture on a very overcast day, but we’re still making a little solar power. You can see by the voltage that our panels are currently mounted in series, but we can change to parallel easily should we wish to experiment.
Batteries
Finally, we need to store all this solar power. Our system charges eight Crown CR-225 batteries. These are heavy duty, deep cycle, flooded lead acid, 6 volt golf cart batteries. Our batteries are wired in series/parallel configuration. That means every pair is wired in series to give 12 volts, then the pairs are wired in parallel to give us a total of 900 amp hours. Since you should never go below 50% that gives 450 amp hours (or 5.4 kilowatt hours) of “useable” storage. There are certainly advantages to some of the new battery formulations, but it’s hard to beat these for value. And that’s what a Frugal Boater looks for.
Our solar power works pretty well, but sometimes struggles to keep up during periods of high usage or low solar, such as the short days of December. See Pearl Lee Solar 2.0 for our solution.
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