What wattage of solar panels should you try for as a liveaboard.

sailaboutvic said:
VYV , what size battery bank do you have ? We have 440 house , useable 220 and three panels of 65w we managed fine in the summer , we can sit at anchor as along as we like but as you say come oct it a different story , .
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Domestic bank is 330 Ah. We are normally hauled out by the beginning of October but we remained in the water almost to the end of the month this year and noticed a significant difference. Voltage down to about 12.3 in the morning and not much better than 13.2 in the day. We don't have big users except the fridge although that was working less hard by then. I ran the engine a couple of times for battery charging, last time was several years ago.
 
macd said:
Assuming full sun and not a long way from where I am (SW Turkey), 3A seems very low from 195W of panels. Yesterday mine were showing 13A at solar noon, from 4 panels totalling 340W (with a little shading on at least one). On that basis one would expect yours to be putting out around 7.5A. At the time my 450Ah of batteries were discharged by about 25% after a couple of very cloudy days.

Generally 340W allows us to cope reasonably well at this time of year, largely because the heaviest consumer, refrigeration, isn't working so hard.
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Ok so your getting around 13A this time of year with a total of 340w , that's good , two of our panels are old and the other is five years old , one is on your gaurd rail , that can be tilted but the Bimini covers it unless the sun is on that side or high in the sky , another is on our goal post and lies flat so it don't move the the third is also on the goal post and can be tilted .two of the panels and the wind gen run off Marlec HRDI reg and the other panel as it own reg , over the past five years there have been fine but I am thinking of replacing them all with two 150w panels .
 
vyv_cox said:
Domestic bank is 330 Ah. We are normally hauled out by the beginning of October but we remained in the water almost to the end of the month this year and noticed a significant difference. Voltage down to about 12.3 in the morning and not much better than 13.2 in the day. We don't have big users except the fridge although that was working less hard by then. I ran the engine a couple of times for battery charging, last time was several years ago.
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Over Voltage drop over night in the summer to about 12.7 but we have two PC on the go IPad charging two phone on charge as well as the frige working 24/7 , within an hour or so of sunrise we back to fully charge .
Should really go back to the old days and throw everything out .
 
macd said:
FWIW, Vic, none of our panels tilts. All four are on stern gantry. Some shade from backstay and a little (on one only) from a couple of small aerials. They peak at around 25A in summer.
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Thanks for that Mac , it may be the case mine are not putting out what they should and may need to be replace .it been a long season and after 2800 miles it time for a rest so we wil be heading into a marina next week and it will give me time to take a good look at them
 
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Yes Vic: the main reason I passed on the figures was with the suspicion that your panels may be a bit on the tired side (I'd rather you conclude that than me tell you). Obviously I've no idea of your energy demands (unless you posted it and I missed the post), but from my experience 300A of new panels should satisfy most of your demands for most of the season. LEDs throughout obviously helps.
Enjoy your winter. Is it Greece or Turkey?
 
We are all LED these days , we back in Greece this winter after a winter away in Sicily , was hoping to return to Turkey after 13 years away , but can't be bothered with all the messing around that going on there now with all the insurance stuff , so we might go to Turkey next year on a 90 day visa after a visit to crete to check crete out for a winter stop over . the other plain is crete , Turkey and Israel for the winter .
Only time will tell , we often change our plans ,
Better go back to solar panels before we get told off .
 
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