Solar Panels & Power Consumption

[ChilliChilli]

Hi all
I am doing the ARC this year on my Jeanneau 44 and I am about to address the issues of power for the crossing.
On the outage side I have all the usual vices such as: fridge, freezer, autohelm, chart plotter, lights and laptop. The lights are all LED, the fridge & freezer will most likely be turned off at night, we are fully crewed so the autohelm should be no more than 2 hours a day and we will leave the plotter off and use a handheld GPS. I have 4 x domestic batteries and 1 x engine battery. All only one season old.
I was thinking of fitting two of the 70W flexible Merlin (Poole) solar panes to my coach roof.
My first question is, has anyone had experience, good or bad with these panels and/or Merlin?
And, given 1-2 hours a day of engine battery charging do you think that these solar panels will provide enough supplimentry power?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Fr J Hackett]

The solar panals will probably give you between 60 and 100 ampHrs per day which given the fact that you are going to run the engine should do it. However I would suggest that you fit a battery monitor to measure your actual consumption and act accordingly.

I have dealt with Merlin / Power Store for many years and found them to give excellent service, highly reccomended.

Lastly don't underestimate the amount of time you will use the autohelm I think you are being very ambitious to think that you will helm for 22Hrs per day. If you don't have one think about fitting a wind vane and if you don't wish to do that re-evaluate your helming estimates.

 

[vyv_cox]

As a guide, my 125 watts of solar panel on a stern arch where there is less shadow will run my fridge 24 hours per day, plus all other requirements, almost indefinitely in Greece. The fridge consumes around 4A when it first cycles on, reducing to a little over 3A towards its close.

 

[noelex]

The solar panels will give you something like 50-60 Ahrs a day.
You don’t say your battery capacity, alternator size, and smart reg or not, but without this info I would guess about 40 Ahrs for each hour of motoring.

I think you be using about 130 to 150 AHrs a day (once again an estimate) so with the solar panels and running the engine for 2 hours a day you may just be OK, but there are a lot of variables that will make a big difference.