Sharing Controller for Solar and Water Towed Generator

Petronella

Petronella

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Scarborough Marina, Australia
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I have been given an Aquair 100 towed generator which should give me around an amp a knot during our Atlantic crossing. The simplest way for me to connect the generator is to wire it into my solar panel system. The Sunsaver MPPT solar controller can easily cope with the extra 5 or 6 amps.

But, the Aquair manual suggests connecting it direct to the batteries and switching it off when the batteries are full.

Can you see any drawbacks with wiring it to the batteries via the controller? Surely the controller doesn't know whether the power is coming from solar panels or towed generator? But maybe the solar panels will be trying to feed into the Aquair with resultant problems - I just don't have the electrical knowledge to know.

Here is a link to the Aquair 100 manual if that helps at all.

Thank you.
 
I found that controllers did funny things to my Aquair - it would speed up then slow down, then up again, while the boat was going at the same speed.

I decided it was something to do with the controller putting a load on and off it.

In the end I wired it straight to the domestic bank (with a fuse) There was no danger of over-charging because I only trailed when the batteries were down.
 
oldvarnish said:
I found that controllers did funny things to my Aquair - it would speed up then slow down, then up again, while the boat was going at the same speed.

I decided it was something to do with the controller putting a load on and off it.

In the end I wired it straight to the domestic bank (with a fuse) There was no danger of over-charging because I only trailed when the batteries were down.
Click to expand...

wot we did too,

although a couple of times we had to turn loads of stuff on to use up the charge if it was too lively to bring the Aquagen in easily. Fridge on full blast and running the radar for an hour or two usually worked until it was easier to bring it back on board.
 
Solar regulators do not work in this sort of application.

Solar regulators briefly turn off the solar panel. This works for solar, but not with wind or water generation. The generator will speed up in response to to the no load conditions.

Wind/water generators have a load diversion system of regulation. Instead of disconnecting the batteries like a solar regulator the regulator diverts the power to load so there is no speeding up.
 
Linked our towed Ampair directly to the batteries and only deployed at night on our crossing - slowed us down a bit but the charging was excellent.

The big downside is retrieving the darn thing - the line was so twisted it took an hour at least to untangle it for the next nights deployment. Still, glad we had it. Used Rutland when we could and solar when it was feasible. Changed things when we were across though......
 
I've been looking at the same thing. The makers of Aquair recommend avoiding a regulator for the reasons outlined by old varnish above. My experience is that the tangles described by another poster are a problem when retrieving but are easily eliminated by retraining rapidly at lowish boat speeds, disconnecting the bitter end and trailing the whole line astern for a few minutes.
 
I don't want to thread drift, but the well known 'funnel method' of retrieval works well. BUT, I could never devise a method of fastening the split funnel so that it didn't come apart on its travels to the turbine. Lost 3 or 4 that way.

( I appreciate this may make no sense to anyone who hasn't tried it)
 
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