Is anyone electrically self sufficient - What's your set-up?

charles_reed said:
The additional wattage gave me 10 days at anchor, from 7 days, before system volts, unloaded, drop to 12.2. The rest of my set-up is 320 ah of battery capacity, an Adverc smart regulator and the PV panels feeding through an MPPT controller.


6ah for lighting (I don't use LEDs and IMHO they make no economic sense).
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LEDs might be worth another look Charles. The good quality new ones will give a very pleasant light.
You would extend your no recharge time from 10 days to about 14 Days with LED light a significant improvement.
 
We were verging on being self sufficient when cruising in the Med on our First 405 with just two 55w solar panels until October/November time or if it was overcast for more than a couple of days. We had 220Ahr battery capacity and an Adverc alternator controller. Having the panels on an adustable mounting so that they could be angled to face the sun made a very substantial difference to the output, that is if I could be bothered to put my beer down and fiddle with them:) We cruised from early April to Nov/Dec.

Having said that we kept the power useage down as much as possible with a well insulated coolbox and an Isotherm SP water cooled compressor, LED anchor light and mainly fluorescent interior lighting and very little laptop use. If I used the SSB on transmit then all went to pot in very quick time!
The longest time at anchor without running the engine was about 3 weeks.
 
Beakster said:
I doubt I'd get rid of my trusty Macbook and would probably spend the money that I could spend on a netbook on more solar panels or a bigger battery.

At the moment I've budgeted about £700 for batteries and panels. That should be able to get me 200w of panels and 200Ah of batteries or thereabouts. Might go for more batteries.
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My new Solara 68 watt panel is costing over £700!!!! So your batteries much be very very cheap!

For full time liveaboard 200 Ah is very low. We are 10 months or more in E med. Our set up:

5 X 210 Ah Lifeline AGMs - lasted 8 years and still good.
2 x 68 watt solar
Duogen wind/towing genny
4KVA Fischer Panda 12 VOLT genny - charges at max 280 amps
2.5 KVA Victron inverter - runs air con/heating system
Red flash (AGM) starter battery
100 amp alternator
70 lt/h watermaker

Lots of motoring here so batteries get some charge, but we have to run our genny every two weeks to fully charge them. Motoring alone will only get batteries back to about 80% charge - unless maybe you run for 24 hours.
Just getting back to float voltage is not fully charged - won't spoil the thread any more with controversial comments like that.
 
charles_reed said:
Appreciate you're a fan of LEDs - just read my post and see how little goes into lighting.

I'll re-iterate LEDs make no economic sense in my case.
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I have re-read your original post which contained a different statement - "(I don't use LEDs and IMHO they make no economic sense)"

Whilst I appreciate you may not find them cost effective in your case, obviously to many of us they do make economic sense when comparing their cost against more panels or an extra battery. In our case, lights are burning most nights until 1-2am so power consumption is a concern.
 
GrahamM376 said:
I have re-read your original post which contained a different statement - "(I don't use LEDs and IMHO they make no economic sense)"

Whilst I appreciate you may not find them cost effective in your case, obviously to many of us they do make economic sense when comparing their cost against more panels or an extra battery. In our case, lights are burning most nights until 1-2am so power consumption is a concern.
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All a matter of what you can get by with , on our cat we have 1 central 20watt halogen which provide all the light in the main saloon and we can both read by that alone.

If we had to redo all the lights then maybe LED's but not the one halogen as SWMBO still prefers incandescent light to read by.

Mark
 
mandlmaunder said:
All a matter of what you can get by with , on our cat we have 1 central 20watt halogen which provide all the light in the main saloon and we can both read by that alone.

If we had to redo all the lights then maybe LED's but not the one halogen as SWMBO still prefers incandescent light to read by.

Mark
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Mark, you need to try one of the new generation SMD (surface mount diode) bulbs, they are far superior to old LED's, I use these and can read by them quite happily and I do understand why the halogens are normally preferable to read by. Give one a try, they also fit halogen sockets.
 
I have 360w of solar (on wander leads to allow repositioning) with MPPT controller, 550ah of domestic battery @ 24v. But we are very power hungry, with two fridges, freezer etc. The panels take care of everything during the day, but we have to resort to battery and inverter at night, I can manage two nights, then need to run my 4.5kw genny to recharge and make water/wash machine whilst running, unless we move in that time, then the engines take care of charging and all other stuff with a 3000w inverter, with a smart regulator on the 140a domestic alternator on Strb engine charges domestic, port, engine 55a start bank (220ah @24v). I have considered wind, but not decided its usefulness here in the meddy. We have AC, but dont use it away from port, no need with windscoops and fans.

That's how we do things, not neccessarily very green, but we enjoy ourselves and are very comfortable.
 
mlthomas said:
With multiple sources of power, wind, solar and top up from the engine is there a problem with the regulators? or are they all wired in parallel? or something that can take multiple power sources
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The MPPT regulator and Alternator regulator are seperate items, which dont communicate in anyway, so no problems there. I know of combined solar and wind regulators, so no worries there either. The genny runs through an auto switching system, so no worries there either. AFAIK.
 
Multiple charging sources and regulators will work fine in practice. Make sure they are all set to right parameters for your battery, wire them in parallel and they will play nicely together.
(Current, voltage and battery state of charge are all linked)
 
You can fairly easily work out how much you will need to satisfy your requirements, e.g. using the solar amp hours calculator here. I had on last boat a Rutland 913 and a 40W panel but found, like someone else mentioned, that I never got anything like the claimed output from the Rutland. Spoke to someone at Marlec who said that was due to the "dirty wind" that you get in a marina, I'm not so sure. I have found solar to be much better value than wind and have been pleased with the output and quality of the cheaper, monocrystalline solar panels that can be had from sellers on ebay - you pay, e.g. around £100 for a 40W panel. I am in the process of fitting 60W of solar (1 x 40, 1 x 20) to current boat, don't run a fridge, use a netbook, will have LEDs and have the usual chart plotter, etc. and windvane steering. I should be mostly self sufficient with the 60W and plan to be able to move them to face the sun to get the best out of them...
 
We have 5 x 210 a/h batteries.
We also have a Kipor *2.6 *kw petrol genny which we run for a couple of hrs every second day.
No wind and or solar, and I can't see me getting any either.
I am considering a diesel generator, but we do like going into marinas once or twice a week, to dump the rubbish, stock the fridge and to meet people.
We have 2 x fridge,s, showers and heeps of lights, *none are LED.
Also run 4 laptops and phones and our own WiFi.
 
I gained the impression on my boat that solar panels do maintain a high enough voltage to interfere with the correct working of an Adverc regulator. I sometimes used to disconnect the panels b4 starting the engine. Then I'd forget to reconnect them later of course!
 
tri39 said:
I gained the impression on my boat that solar panels do maintain a high enough voltage to interfere with the correct working of an Adverc regulator. I sometimes used to disconnect the panels b4 starting the engine. Then I'd forget to reconnect them later of course!
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Can ypu tell more about your concerns re adverc and solar? Already have adverc, and am just about to add some solar.
 
I've had an Air Breeze and 2 x 100W solar for the last 8 months in UK and N France waters. I have found that unless the weather is particular overcast we are self sufficient. My experience so far is that the solar is far more effective than the wind in terms of total energy / day produced, this is my experience even on quite breezy days.
My solar runs through an MPPT regulator and although I have nothing to compare it to seems to do what it says on the tin.
My expectations of the solar panels were low but the reality has proved to be much better.

Its much more effective to spend money on saving energy than generating it. My recommendation would be to go through the entire boats systems and identify any areas where you can save energy, including correct size wiring and good, clean connections.
We are very energy aware and switching things off is second nature to us.

Since fitting the solar my generator is rarely used, that's the truth.
 
Most peoples concerns seem to be with the power drain from laptops. Remove the battery and wire them direct to 12v ships supply in the case of older Toshiba's or step up transformer.
It's the battery being recharged that consumes ships power.
 
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