solar power-gctid365182

[Guest]

has any one used solar panels to keep there inverter batts charged thank paul

[Guest]

The PO of my boat installed one on the bow right in front of the helm. From what i could find it is a 7A panel and keeps my batteries topped of. I left a few cabin lights on for a few days(by mistake) and went out yesterday to do some work and saw i left them on. I thought oh crap. Put my meter on the batts and 12.6 on both. Serves my purpose, not sure about bigger vessels with more electrical demands.

[jmcannonball]

Lots of sail boaters use solar panels for charging and lighting.

[Guest]

You said INVERTER batteries. So you're going to be drawing a lot of power. What do you run from your inverter? Even a huge solar panel will only give you a small amount of power even in great sunlight.

It's all math; what do you want to run, and how much power does it use?

[Guest]

were going to be useing it for my wifes breathing at night an my breathing machine in the morning the solar panel we bought it at defender it's rate at 28 watts an rolls up into 5in. bye an thankyou paul

[Guest]

28 watts is a tiny amount of power. Let's say you have a typical two-battery house bank with each battery being 110 amp-hours. That's 220 amp-hours, or 2640 watt-hours. That means if your batteries were dead, you'd need about 100 hours of full sun to get them fully charged.

See what your CPAP machines use; it's likely to be a lot more than 28 watts. Also figure on 10-20% inverter efficiency loss.

[Guest]

thanks carlos bye paul