Transcript is auto-generated.
hello everyone
and thanks for joining me today we have
again a special guest
nigel calder is joining us today because
we're going to be talking all things
solar
uh based on our last podcast uh that we
did with nigel on various topics we've
had a great feedback
and i don't know we're sort of excited
to expand
on what's going on with solar panels in
the marine market
um and we're gonna be talking about
controllers we're gonna talk about
quality
how do you size an array we're gonna be
visiting all that and nigel is gonna be
sharing
a lot of his information that he has i
have to say every time i get a chance to
speak with nigel
it's a learning experience for all of us
if you haven't checked out his books by
the way
please do they're considered bibles in
the industry and that's not my wording
that's the wording from the peer groups
out there also
last time we did uh this podcast we also
introduced
uh nigel's boat how-to uh there's gonna
be links below uh check that out if you
wanna educate yourself and remember this
is a journey
right uh nigel is still doing it i'm
just started the journey i've been doing
this for 15 years as a boat owner
and i'm still learning every day every
day we're learning
so the best way is obviously forums the
internet
books there's all these different
resources it's all a journey
you know you never get to the end and
it's about just having a better
experience on our boat so today we're
going to be focusing
on solar solar panels on boats and
controllers
and we our guest speaker is nigel as you
can tell from my smile
it's a hundred percent genuine and
always a pleasure nigel thanks for
joining us here today
thank you jeff awesome we actually have
a
lot to talk about yeah we do there's
been a
raft of new technologies coming into the
solar world in the last
few years and some of them as recently
as last year which have basically um
changed many of the prescriptions we've
used for
for recommending panels on solar panels
on boats so it's a really good time to
be talking solar
yeah and it's you know i always tell
this because
some of us do solar for the right
reasons in terms of you know being green
not
you know oil and stuff that's some of us
but in terms of just
tangible benefits as a voter um
you know we're talking here in british
columbia and
northwest about half of our borders are
power boaters
and they even have generators on board
and it's it's
very real like you can actually do quite
a lot with solar not maybe everything
you hope for
uh all of us always have a little bit
more power needs than
what's available but you can make a
substantive
difference in terms of your recharging
of batteries
uh with the sun it's uh it's not a
gimmick it's not just a feel-good
purchase and it makes a big difference
yeah so thanks for joining me here today
well thank you and ashley uh
uh somebody i want to introduce you to
jeff
tom whitehead who's a expert on the
controller side of
solar panels and as he he just wrote an
article in the latest edition of
professional boat builder magazine oh
wow which is
well worth anybody that wants to get a
head around solar controllers
that's the best article best information
around at the moment on
solar controllers let me get out of the
way and i'm going to
put tom in here all right let's do it
let's have tom
chime in
hey tom hi jeff how are you hey i'm
doing good i'm doing good
thanks for joining us oh it's my
pleasure yeah so
we're going to talk about solar
controllers um so we had a few talking
points a little bit maybe i'm going to
ask you some questions steer a little
bit of the conversation
of course you know the podcast it's not
doesn't have to be too
uh sort of regimented in terms of our
approach
um let's talk about a little bit about
the one of the questions i get a lot
asked from uh
youtubers and fellow voters is jeff what
about pwm versus mt
mppt you know um and by the way i should
have actually go before that
um let me just pause put contacts
everyone a controller is an essential
part of the solar array
uh for everyone that's wondering uh you
really can't do without one
um the sun might be shining that day a
lot and your batteries are full and your
batteries don't need more power and so
the job of the controller is to
really have a brain and decide what
should it do with the solar energy
that it is available to utilize right
ultimately
it's making decisions you know what
should it do with the energy should it
charge at 13 volts 14 volts on a 12 volt
battery bank
it's constantly looking at the voltage
making decisions
so that your batteries are charged as
fast as possible but also
not overcharged and yes i have seen
people connect solar panels directly to
batteries
and uh it does happen um you know
obviously you know we all make mistakes
and that that's normal
but yeah you know some solar panels are
20 volts 22 volts 24 volts some panels
are only seven or eight volts
some panels are 35 volts so all those
voltages need to be modified
and adapted so that the batteries get
what they want and so
here with tom what we're going to be
talking about next is how do you go
about
choosing a solar controller for your
vote so back to my question i guess tom
is
this this uh dilemma that people have uh
with pwm versus mppt controllers do you
want to weigh in on that a little bit
and give
the listeners a sense of that choice
absolutely i actually wanted to touch
base on what you were just previously
saying about whether
they need a controller at all because i
actually get that inquiry sometimes
people say well i need a 12 volt panel
for my 12 volt batteries
and actually a fair number of installers
even who are new to solar
have have no clue that a lot of panels
are less than 12 volts too
so yeah um as far as pwm i'm not a total
expert
on it but my understanding is that that
stands for pulse width modulation
yeah that's what i know i understand
it's an it's an earlier technology
that can be efficient under certain
circumstances
um essentially it because all of our
charge
regulators use target voltages right
and so to hold the battery at its target
voltage once it gets there it it
interrupts and does a pulse to hold it
there
and the newer mppt controllers
actually convert the dc
current to ac and then back to dc again
and during that conversion process
they're able to maximize
what they call the powerpoint tracking
so it's
where are we being most efficient where
is the maximum current
happening and then through the magic of
electronics
it it optimizes that
so in general like here at ocean planet
we we don't sell any
pwm controllers
now in certain um i think land based
installations
um it can be a much more affordable
way to do it but i mean the
ppt controllers are coming down in price
as well
so i don't see it as even a question
um we only sell the mppt especially on
boats where
there's so much shading and so many
possibilities that
you know things are going to be
inefficient anyway um
that we only we only sell the mppt yeah
and
you bring a good point tom i i you know
same here we've never sold a pwm
um not again it depends i think on the
price of your solar array right so
if you're going with a rigid panel and
you're getting away with 100
panel you know it's going to be harder
to spend 150
on a controller you know that it's hard
to justify you know the controller is
more than a panel
but if you're going with flexible solar
panels or high-end solar panels
and now your panel is you know could be
two three four five six some panels are
thousands of dollars
depending on the make and the model you
know then the controller is the smaller
percentage-wise is a smaller fraction of
the overall rate and you're right
i think on land it's definitely be used
for boaters out there that are using
really inexpensive obviously
uh very budget-conscious rigid solar
panels then yeah maybe pwm might make
sense for you because honestly
we can't judge you know some of us can't
afford what we want we do what we can
but if you are spending quite a lot of
money on
good flexible or even good rigid panels
yeah you're going a long way then i
always tell people i'm not telling you
what to do but i strongly encourage you
to look at mppt
and yeah you know the efficiency
difference is huge i think it's almost
you gain another
it's over 20 percent i think it can be
efficiency
it can actually be as high as 30 percent
wow
so i would even use that as a sales
pitch to someone with that
big glass panel it's like hey you want
to get 30
more power out of the panel that you
already have switch
to this controller we do that a lot uh
to be honest there's a lot of boat
builders are still doing pwm
uh budget bull builders that happens and
we tell people you know you might have a
200 watt array on there
but you're only having right now you're
all over pwm and you're right the tom
that's a good point
some of us as voters have an array
already and if you want to just do more
out of that array than you have
swapping the controller might be one way
to
instantly overnight maximize get the
rated output that you had hope from that
array
from the get-go without actually doing
anything else not changing the solar
panel
not changing the wiring just simply
swapping out the controller from a pwm
to an mpp yeah that's a good point yeah
well
so if i'm going to walk a customer
through picking a controller
yeah tell us you basically start
with real estate to pick out what panels
you're going to use
because on boats the real estate is is
prime you know it's hard it's hard to
find where you're going to put the
panels
so that's your first thing and then once
you end up with what panels you have
uh the next important consideration is
the shading
so how are these panels going to be
shaded
is the boom on top of them is it not etc
etc
so our our first thing that we usually
recommend is one
controller per panel for optimal
efficiency um
and then if there isn't
uh you know a big concern about shading
let's say
a typical thing is like up on the fly
bridge of a powerboat
people are now asking me for more solar
to you know keep their refrigeration
running while they're sitting on the
mooring
up there where there's no shading i
would recommend putting the panels in
series
right which will then dictate the size
of controller that you use
to me that's the next best option
if there is shading some people
recommend going to putting the panels in
parallel
as opposed to series which will then
change you know the resulting current
and voltage that's going to the
controller so that will also dictate the
controller
yeah and you bring a good point here um
there is no and i get this all the time
i mean i'm talking every day
i'm talking like ten times a day you
know people are like hopeful
they're asking these leading questions
and they say oh yeah can i
i'll just get one control for all my
panels what they're trying to do is
they're i i know
we're we're all doing the same thing
we're trying to save money right quoting
is
is an expensive hobby for all of us
regardless of our income you know we're
always stretching our
house to have the best vote we can
afford so it's it's hard for all of us
even even some of my clients that have a
lot of money it's still a huge expense
for them because proportionately they're
spending a lot of money on their boat so
we all feel the same way and what i see
is they were saying oh maybe i can get
away with one control for all my panels
i'm like
yeah you might let's say you could uh
but remember that controller is size for
various factors and you brought those
variables like one would be
you know what is going to be the maximum
input voltage of the panel the other
is what's going to be the maximum
amperage coming in or through that
controller either
from the panel to the controller from
the controller or the battery what's the
max average what's the max wattage
of that array what's the and and also
you know can you configure that uh
controller for
charging let's say for example a firefly
battery or an agm or a gel battery bank
right can you customize the charge
profile
to fit the battery you have and then
also one error i did and i forgot i
remember this a few years ago
you know didn't ask the owner if he had
a 12 volt or 24 volt system you also
have to decide
yeah if you've got a 24 volt system
you've got to make sure that you get a
controller not all controllers
are able to connect to 12 and 24 you
know sometimes you have to buy the right
controller
for the voltage uh of your battery bank
so
yes we've been selling more solar
systems for electric propulsion
um support as well and there you're
getting into
36 volt 48 volt right
and again that's a really good point
what is the voltage of the system you're
dealing with
uh the other big hurdle um
or the big decision that you need to
make is whether you need on the one hand
a buck
controller what they call a buck
controller which brings
like your 20 volt panel down to 14 volts
or if you need on the other hand a boost
controller
because a lot of the mono cell um
panels that we sell nowadays are under
12 volts
they're only putting out say 9 volts or
even
12 volts which isn't enough right
because we're charging to 14.
so that's another really important
distinction and often if you have
let's say three medium to small panels
and you want each panel to have its own
controller then it has to be a boost
controller
yeah and currently there is really only
one really good
boost controller on the market which is
made by the jenison corporation
uh i think we have yeah this this is not
a boost controller but
you can look like that the size of it
yeah it's about
the size of an old chalkboard eraser to
those of us who remember what a
character racer is
um they um anyway
and the only other boost controller
that we've sold is uh by the western
company from italy
um and the differences between those two
are essentially this one
does temperature compensation by
uh being in the same space as the
battery
right so it senses the ambient
temperature around the battery
so this has to be in the battery space
or like in a similar locker next to the
battery so it's about the same
temperature
um the western boost controller actually
runs a wire
to the battery and so you have a little
more choice about where to mount it
um western also makes a really unique
controller
the wm10 which does either buck or boost
so if you have a panel
system that's that's fluctuating between
being a little bit under 12
and then over like if you have two
panels you hook up the wm10
and it'll it'll do both so that's a
pretty cool um
option um but like we've been hounding
viktron for a year or so like you guys
need to come out with a boost controller
and
yeah that's so true um you know on my
boat
when i did my solar array about eight
nine years ago i had
three panels uh that were 50 watt
soybean 50 watts
sp 50s and all of them were connected
to exactly two boost controllers and i
think it's essential you brought that
point up and even
it you know all of us get sort of uh
maybe
not you know hurdles you know uh i guess
surprising things and and
it's often that people come back and say
i have a 12 volt battery
i want a 12 volt panel you know that
assumption
and i remind it's really important to
remember that
it's not that the panel is not worse
because it has a lower voltage
you know and it's not better because it
has a higher voltage
at the end of the day there's no way
that your panel will
ever output what the battery needs
over time adapting as the battery gets g
d chart
discharge or charge and so you have to
have a controller
and the question is are you going to get
a boost because the camera voltage is
lower than what you need
are you going to get a buck which means
you're going to bring it down or that
western and by the way we've had success
with that western marine as well
you know we use it sometimes and it does
make sense it's a little bit bigger
controller not as compact
it also has a little readout screen on
it and some people love that
yeah they can just look right at it and
they don't have to remember what the
flashing lights mean
that it's reading oh so many watts are
happening
um that's another nice thing about them
so do you want to talk a little bit it
sounds like you're pretty familiar
can you talk a little bit about though i
get questions about those lights on
those jettison controllers a lot
do you want to talk talk a little bit
about uh
can you talk a little bit about those
status lights on their controllers by
the way
um i'm not the person who keeps
data in my head very well so usually
when a customer calls me i go and i open
the manual and double check
yeah um but essentially like on the jet
these genesis
there's this little led light here and
it will flash at different rates
so if it's flashing really quickly that
means
it's charging but at kind of a low
amperage
below where it's supposed to be so you
know it's not really
doing its full thing if it charges
at a more regular like one second
interval if it flashes sorry
um then you know it's it's charging at
the bulk
uh absorption setting um
if it's solid green that means the
battery's charged
and it's and it's done um
then there are a myriad of red lights
and that flash at different rates to
tell you different things are are bad
and then there's another one that tells
you that the fuse inside the unit is
blown
so it it's actually quite useful the led
and uh jennison's pretty good about uh
you know laying that out in the manual
yeah reading the manual
always i get i get i mean we are so many
of us don't read the manual often enough
or we read it and we put it away and we
forget
the the other thing too it's worth
noting i get this all the time
people expect solar to charge their
batteries
at maximum output regardless of the
state of batteries
um i get this all the time like oh my
solar i'm looking at my battery monitor
you know i'm not charging you know why
am i not putting out you know i've got a
huge array
why not seeing 10 amps 15 amps as i
sometimes do i'm like
are your batteries full yeah i'm like
and i tell people i'm like well you know
what actually the battery's a little bit
like you you know like at one point
there's such a thing as an appetite
you can't you can't force feed a battery
yeah a charge and for you to see what
the maximum output of your controller is
the only way to do that is to have the
batteries in a clearly
depleted state some sort of discharge
and i'm not talking going from 100 to
99. i'm talking from
you know you probably want to be
somewhere where you can see at least
where
potentially both maybe 70 know that the
batteries
are low enough that solar can't do
everything you want
and then the controllers are going to do
everything they can and then they're
going to be
assuming again that it's relatively
sunny that it's
best part of the day you don't have
shading that's when you're going to be
able to look at the diagnostics on those
leads leds and you're going to be able
to see okay yeah now i'm seeing
what i thought i should see or what i
saw another day because it's going to
change every day depending if your
batteries are going off
yeah i think that's a that's a really
good point
and the analogy that i use the most
is the reservoir analogy so i i
equate a battery to a water reservoir
okay
and if the water reservoir is low
then the charge sources can put the full
amount of current
or flow into that reservoir and it could
be
your alternator it could be your shore
power charger could be your solar
they're all
pumping water back into the reservoir
but when the reservoir
gets full that stream is going to slow
down to a trickle because it can't
you can't force it in there once it's
full um
and sometimes that helps people because
they yeah they get confused about
what i mean it and myself included when
i first started working with bruce
i kept thinking that these chart sources
were sending
voltage you know they were sending 14
volts
but they're not you know it's the
batteries at 12 and it's trying to get
to 14.
yeah so that's another thing that you
know since
it took me a while to figure that out i
often explain that to customers because
they often have the same misconceptions
it's it's hard current to raise
the voltage to a certain target and then
hold it there
um and there's often that question of
hey is my is my alternator fighting with
the solar
oh yeah all back and forth um
and sometimes i will tell people uh to
use
a breaker as their main fuse for solar
that they can then turn it off so that
if they want to see this separately
what's going
on turn the solar off when your
batteries are discharged
fire up the engine see what the
alternator is putting in
shut that down turn the solar back on
see what the solar is bringing
see how they act because they really
should act completely independently
until both of their voltage sensors
start picking up
what the battery voltage is and then
that because that was the point i wanted
to make that these the other great thing
about the mppt controllers is that they
are
mimicking what we're trying to do as
modern
charge controllers is three stage at
least
i think victron's up to six stages now
but at least three stage charging right
where you've got your bulk
stage your absorption phase and then the
float phase
um it's another real advantage of having
solar on your boat is that
especially if you have lead batteries
they are never fully charged
almost ever
and so the solar can do that finishing
charge
for an extended period of time when you
know the boat's sitting out on the
mooring
especially if you're not sure sign you
know if you're not plugged into your
shore power
um the typical typical sailor never
fully charges their lead battery
even if they run the alternator for you
know two hours a day
it could take 12 hours to fully finish
charging that battery and keep it from
sulfating
so having a nice solar system on board
um
really helps with that finishing charge
i totally agree
and it's and it's regulated it's
it's sending it at the proper float
voltage um
yeah it's so so true and it's you know
in some ways you know
uh here sometimes we have power outages
you know it does happen not
it's not the grid failing but wind
storms you know uh right you know
uh you know windstorm's going to happen
some power lines are going to go down
um and so solar even when you're
connected to shore power you know
on my boat i don't get to see it every
day some some boat owners get to see
their vote every day that sounds to me
like paradise but yeah
some people like me you know i get to
see my boat maybe sometimes
you know it's i'm less than weekend on
this two weekends and now it's
it's at a dock connected shore power
it's got a battery charger
and it's also connected to solar panels
the batteries via controllers and if i
lose
um my battery charger you know the solar
is going to step in and
do what it can and help and you're right
that finishing charge when you're
actually
cruising is the hardest thing to do
because you know running an engine
you know to recharge your batteries at
100 amps is motivating
for 50 amps you know a maximum output of
the charger vault charging
you know your alternator you're getting
a lot of juice but running an engine and
only getting five amps out because now
your batteries are almost at the end of
the absorption cycle or
in float and you're just topping off the
battery trying to get that last
charge running the engine and getting so
little out of the engine
is it's frustrating and that's where
solar is awesome
it's it does the finishing you know the
the alternator might do a lot of the
bulk and might get you like
most of the way there but then at least
solar is there in the background
doing its thing completely quiet no
vibration no smoke
no noise and it's doing its thing in the
background
and yeah that's right it's going to help
maintain the batteries in a higher state
of charge
undoing potentially what you talked
about this concept of sulfation which is
really aging
for a battery it's not being able to
re-energize the battery
completely as we should i mean the
reality is
you know none of us are treating
batteries perfectly you can't if you're
using a battery
it's it's getting warm the question is
you're trying to mitigate
how much you're doing that right that's
really interesting
um i was thinking of another thing to
bring up about
controllers which victron has really
pushed and it's
it's working really well is the using
bluetooth um
within the solar controllers and also
for the temperature uh sensing
because it used to be that um and still
with a lot of controllers if you want to
get proper
temperature compensation which
incidentally if people don't know what
that is that
it's essentially if your battery is cold
you can you can hit it with more
more current and push it to higher
voltage if your battery is hot
you want to lower that because you can
damage the battery if you're
if you're charging it too much when it's
hot so temperature compensation is
actually pretty important
um used to be that that even the victron
controllers had to be
in that battery compartment sensing the
temperature
and so now they have this little device
it's called the smart sense
and it's glued onto the side of the
battery and connected to the plus and
minus
and then you network it uh with the
handy app on your smartphone
to that particular controller or any
number of controllers
on the boat and the controller will
receive
the battery temperature from that little
sending unit
so that that gives you a lot of
flexibility about where to mount the
controllers
um and it also gives you this
flexibility of you know just opening the
app on your smartphone
and seeing immediately hey what's my
solar doing
oh cool i'm getting you know this many
amps or you know total watts and all my
batteries are 60 degrees and that's why
because i get calls from clients and
they say oh my god you know that
the solar is pushing it to 15 volt it's
what's going on
i'm like whoa how cold are your
batteries you know they're 55 degrees
oh well that that's okay
um i actually to do that all the time
just emailed me the other day saying you
know
is this okay and i'm saying yes it is
because
of temperature compensation it's it's
i'm going to rehash that
i think that's a great point you bring
tom the the
temperature compensation is essential i
mean even us humans eat differently in
the wintertime than we do in the summer
right you know uh honestly i think
batteries are so similar to people
and so you literally have an inverse
correlation right in the winter time
it's cold you eat more in the summertime
you talk you eat less
batteries are the same uh they actually
want you know when
batteries are cold and you've got low
temp you're right the voltage is going
to go higher it's going to be
temperature compensated
assuming of course that the temperature
sensor is mounted at the right place and
never on top of the battery
never ever because there's an air pocket
there you can put it uh some of the
temperature sensors can go right on uh
the lug you know because obviously
that's right it's gonna be
like metal is a great conductor of heat
or temperature so
the the temperature of the lug um and
generally we put them on the negative
not the positive right that's going to
be a good way or like you said tom and
it's
really good point you can put it on the
side of the battery because there's no
air pocket
you know um and you're gonna get a good
temperature and then the question would
be even bigger is like okay well now
i've got a bigger bank where do i put
the temperature sensor on a bigger bag
and you gotta you gotta figure out you
know and i've seen 10
battery banks fail because the
temperature sensor was put at a battery
that
was not really representative of what
happens to the rest of the bank so
that's putting a temperature sensor is
not a trivial thing
it sounds trivial but it isn't and
you're right inverter chargers have been
doing that for a long time i think
probably i don't even know 20 years i
think uh
i know xantrex inverters back in the
early 2000s had temperature compensation
and a lot of voters that know enough
do worry when the temp when the battery
voltage on a 12 volt bank goes to 15 15
1 15 2.
like oh my god what's going on i'm like
my batteries are being cooked i'm like
well hang on a second you know here in
the pacific northwest you know the water
temp is
9 degrees celsius 10 degrees celsius 11
degrees celsius in the winter time so it
doesn't freeze but it gets pretty cold
and uh batteries all the numbers that we
think in our mind 14
4 13 4 you know 12 8 12
6 12 2 all these sort of like different
that is all for batteries that are at 25
degrees celsius
um or 77 degrees fahrenheit so that's
basically
all those numbers what we think is
normal is normal at 77 degrees
fahrenheit for 25 degrees celsius and as
soon as the temperature differs from
that
you will charge your batteries faster
and not overcharge and not under charge
your batteries because both are bad
over charging and under charging are
both bad of course overcharging will
bring
a faster death but on your charging will
still be a death
it's just going to be like eating you
know fast food
every day every meal eventually you know
you might start it won't feel too good
after a period of time but if you do
that for a year or two
you're not going to be the same person
as you started you're just not um
do you think you are a lithium battery
or a lead battery
what do you think i think i'm a lead
battery i'm a lead battery
bruce is a lithium battery
yeah old school it's okay you know what
it's been working around for a while
i know it's longer to cram the
information into my brain
oh yeah that's really good nigel will
probably like bruce is a lithium battery
did i hear that right yeah i was like oh
yeah i'm like yeah i'm a lead acid
battery that's what i anyway here's the
um edition of provo it's edition 190
for those who want to read uh i this is
where my article about
how to choose your solar controller is
enclosed
um and i got some pretty good feedback
from that a few questions so
anybody who wants to reference that go
ahead
yeah um thanks yeah that's a that's a
real pro magazine like when i go to vote
builders
i mean that's that's the magazine the
owner has on their desk or the general
manager has on their desk
you know the electrical manager has on
their desk
i think it's yeah it is really
definitely industry it helps keep me
informed
because i'm also selling or trying to
sell more electric propulsion systems
and it's um
this magazine really helps keep me in
touch with what's going on in the
industry
yeah before you go tom one last question
um you briefly talked about this but i
think it's important to bring it up
do you wanna again speak a little bit
because this is a common question i mean
we
there's so much uh difference of
opinions there on
series versus parallel you briefly talk
about obviously of dedicated controllers
uh per panel and by the way if you if
you are gonna experience shooting on
your boat
uh and that could be even obviously
sailboats experience a lot of shading
because of the boom and you know the
rigging and stuff like that but even
power boats you know even if you have a
bimini
or you're gonna have a hard top you
might have a significant open array in
the back you might have a
sat tv dome or a set tv dome and a calm
dome yep
so shading is a problem for many of us
most of us voters do not have a shade
free
uh location for installing solar panels
yeah so anyway so
now that putting you want to weigh in a
little bit about
series versus barrel shading and how it
relates to controllers a little bit more
absolutely um
essentially it can come down to
mechanics of installation versus
slight gains in efficiencies
so for instance if you put two panels in
series
the voltage is going to double so you
have to check
what you know what the voltage rating of
the controller is
now an advantage of series is that
you make your connection up where the
panels are
and now you only have one pair of wires
to run below
okay so as opposed to our recommended
thing where you've got
one controller per panel now well you've
got two sets of wires that you need to
get through the deck
so that's a that's a kind of an
immediate
gain for going into series
because it allows you to you know i've
got one less deck gland i've got
you know one less set of wires to run
below um
etc so that that's one basic distinction
if you decide that putting the panels in
parallel
to deal with shading is your choice to
do that
because you still want one controller
you don't want to have two controllers
it's recommended that you put blocking
diodes between the panels
so they don't backfeed each other and
those blocking diodes reduce your output
by
i don't know 0.7 volts something yeah
0.7 about
yeah that's what i said so that's a
compromise
i mean everything on a boat is a
compromise right but
that's a compromise that lowers your
output
but allows you again to have just two
wires going to a single controller
but the thing to remember is when you
put panels in parallel
the voltage stays the same but the
current
doubles yeah and so now
you've got to size your wire and fusing
and everything according to that
now double current so to the controller
yeah yeah and so there's a little game
that you play with
how many wires do i want running below
how efficient do i want the system to be
um how much shading is there really or
not
uh a common setup that we've recommended
let's say someone has a large bimini
and the boom overhangs it a little bit
like the first third
so often all but they don't want every
single panel to have its own control
it's like let's say they got six panels
up on the bimini
so that's 12 wires to deal with so
a compromise that's been pretty
successful is i'll have a port array and
a starboard array
so i put the three panels on port in
series and the three panels on starboard
in series
and so when the boom is you know on the
port side and shading that a little bit
well you'll reduce some output there but
the whole starboard array is still
pumping that's such a good point tom and
that gives you
two controllers um you know
two sets of wires to go below and and
that's
that's been like an example of a good
compromise
layout for people i agree um
that being said um i tell people if you
if you especially if you're a cell
boater and you have limited charging
sources on your boat
and you're really power hungry it does
pay off to run
uh dedicate controllers i can tell you
that you know you you
put the labor up front it's going to be
painful it's going to hurt it's never
easy
it's not what you want but uh i can tell
you that
for the voters that are willing really
want something and i mean if you're if
you're not believing that solar is great
for you then it's harder to justify
putting all that extra effort
but if you've if you've been converted
or you really
you truly believe that our
recommendations are are good and they're
tangible
then i can't emphasize enough how you
know yes
i did but the same thing on my boat i
had six panels six controllers that was
a lot of work yeah it was bigger
but the flip side is you know the
efficiency of my solar array was just
absolutely breathtaking every time i
would look at the stats i was just blown
away
you know but i didn't cut corners you
know and the problem is sometimes go
ahead tom
i'm sorry it also speaks to the age-old
maximum of all sailors which is
redundancy right so
if you've got one controller that craps
out and
all of your panels are going through
that controller unless you have another
one in a bag in the builds
you're done but if you've got multiple
controllers for multiple panels at least
you know yeah you don't have everything
other ones
yeah yeah and i want to also uh
for the listeners that what tom brought
about is really good like we do this the
same thing
this concept of port and starboard you
know let's say for example but this you
know maybe having two panels on port on
one controller two panels on starboard
on controller
assuming again on a sailboat that the
shading would be generally
either affecting all panels on starboard
all panels on port
and so if they're going to be
experiencing similar type of shading
then yeah then it makes sense you don't
have to worry about
having individual controllers on the
starboard side when the starboard side
when one panel shaded the other is also
shaded then it might make sense and
you're absolutely right we do this a lot
on bimini's
we'll say okay we'll put these two
panels on port these two panels on
starboard because whenever one really
experiences a lot of shading
the other will as well and that's a way
to
reduce cable sizes and also the
challenges on some boats they don't
although the controllers are tiny as
you're showing i mean the victron
controllers are
the size almost like a pack of
cigarettes um not the small one but the
bigger one that i saw my father smoking
when i was growing up
and you know but sometimes no boats you
know where are you gonna mount that
where are you gonna mount that
even near the battery you know it's easy
to plan in our heads when we don't have
to deal with a boat but when as a boat
owner you're like okay
sure but where am i going to put that
you know like not all of us have a
closet
right or a bulkhead waiting to have
controllers now right so it is a
challenge
and so especially when you get into
those uh
those larger victron controllers like
the 150
and now we're talking the cigar box mini
roof case you know that thing is
it's where are you going to put it yeah
huge
heat sink on it as well yeah that's
awesome tom
anything else you want to add that we
haven't spoken about on controllers
that you want to share with our
listeners i think i'm good for now um
i did want to point out that in in the
article there's a little
side panel about shading and tests that
we did
which demonstrated you know the
difference between having independent
controllers and a single controller and
it's
it's pretty conclusive that's that's a
good thing to refer to if that's awesome
is it able are our readers able to find
that article
online or do they have to get the
physical copy
i believe that since it's now a couple
of months old that they should be able
to find it
but if anybody has trouble and wants to
read it
i can send it to him now uh aaron gave
me permission now i can send it out
um so you can always reach me at tom
oceanplanetenergy.com
thank you um jeff it's really great to
meet you virtually awesome
i did want to ask you is there any
chance you were going to the port
townsend wooden boat festival in
september i i
oh my god don't just don't i'm going to
start crying i was supposed to go live
by the way i've heard so many great
things of that festival i tried the year
prior to kovid
it was the hotel rooms are so booked
there it's like you're trying to go to
mecca
or something like on a pilgrimage it's
like there's no way in hell
last year i had my my literally i was
looking on expedia
every day until the the hotels came
online for that
booked it and of course because of kovit
got cancelled
uh this year i didn't know what was
going to happen with kobet so i didn't
book the hotel room
so i have no plans of going although
i've heard
phenomenal things about the poor towns
and docho
like phenomenal well anyway uh i'm going
i i found it i found a airbnb
to stay awesome and i'm going to give a
talk on solar there at that show
so if anybody's going to be there and is
interested i'll be there and can answer
questions and so forth
yeah it's not a big big show like
obviously like miami or fort lauderdale
yeah um but here in the pacific
northwest
um you know i've heard such great things
such great things about that if you make
it down send me a text and it'd be great
to meet you in person
that's awesome tom thank you for joining
us and talk about controllers thank you
my pleasure
thank you tom that's actually my
favorite boat show in the whole world
wow that says a lot
you see there you go i mean there you go
we're
that's called the lineman right there
yeah it's not really a boat show it's a
festival
that's awesome i mean half of the boats
that are there are not for sale you know
the owners just want to show them off
and all different it's not like a bunch
of fiberglass boats that all look the
same
every boat's got its own personality and
owners have their own personality
and this music and it's it's just a
wonderful place to be
and is it called the wooden boat
yeah yeah i've i've seen uh one of the
boats that was there
in uh marina in vancouver vancouver on
the gulf islands just north of the san
juans
and that owner was a boeing tech
and the amount of love and dedication
that he did to restore his
i think it was a 1930s or 1940s vote
it was honestly it was it was
there must have been 20 people and this
was not even a boat show this was just a
guy boating
with his partner his wife and everyone
every single person
that walked on the dock it didn't matter
if their boat was a million dollars
since five million dollar boat a hundred
thousand dollar vote
twenty thousand dollar boat every single
boat owner in that marina came by and
saw that boat and was like
oh my god because you can't buy it like
that you just can't
you yeah you gotta earn it you gotta put
the effort in
yeah that was great by the way tom did
awesome
that's perfect um it's good that you
know especially on the internet you see
a lot of
experts disagreeing but when you have
experts agreeing
and coming to their own conclusions
independently
and then agreeing you're like okay good
we're on the right track here you know
that's when you're like okay that one is
probably solved and we can worry about
other things
you know why are we disagreeing on other
things what are the things we don't
understand so that's that's really good
okay everyone so we're gonna dive into
solar um for all of you
out there um i want to re-emphasize how
solar
is a real tangible way for us to
recharge your battery banks
uh from the sun it's not only is it a
good maybe environmental decision for
some of us certainly
but besides just the environmental
reasons of doing that
um and not having to run a generator or
recharge your batteries
both power boaters and sailboats and
here in the pacific northwest
having done thousands of solar rates i'd
say it's about 50
sailboats and powerboats so this applies
to all of us and i'm talking 20 foot
boats
i've done solar ray largest solar array
we've probably done was on a 70 foot
boat
50 foot boats all the time power boats
55 60 feet
30 feet 28 feet it doesn't matter
there is a benefit to solar to pretty
much every power boulder or sailboat
that doesn't have a generator
running 24 7. you know some power
boarders eventually
have to run the generator forever
generators is a big benefit to solar oh
there is
um and certainly for all of us
solar is something we have many of us
as voters have let's just say
an area that is basically unused that is
just facing the side
it could be uh your bimini it could be a
dodger
it could be a hard divinity it could be
a hard top on a powerbook
it could even be a portion of the deck
that you really don't go that often
brow you know we've done it on brows and
so there's a lot of different ways
of getting uh solars on your boat we'll
talk about rigid we'll talk about
flexible we'll get in all of that
but first let's find the justification
for doing so
and so with that nigel i'm going to give
it to you because i've seen your
presentation on that
by the way and i have to say you're such
i love it you really did the analysis
so give it to us tell us about uh
why should voters consider silver on
their boats
well i i got you know
12 15 years ago now a large grant from
the european union
with a couple of other guys to look at
the energy efficiency on boats
so we we collected a lot of real data
and on how much it actually costs to
generate electricity on boats
when we're running an engine battery
charging an anchor
or running a generator to power a
battery charger
and um i have just gigabytes of data
and the first time i processed all of
this and i looked at the numbers and i
came up with a cost per kilowatt hour
of generating energy on the boat i
thought i had the decimal place in the
wrong place
so i did it again and came up with the
same number and i did it again and came
up with the same number and finally i
realized
the decimal place was in the right place
wow
it's almost impossible to generate
electricity on a boat
using a fossil fuel engine at less than
uh
two or three dollars a kilowatt hour and
you know we're paying
10 to 20 cents at home per kilowatt hour
and uh in fact most people when they're
generating electricity on a boat
it's costing them between five and ten
dollars a kilowatt hour
and when we're at the end of the charge
cycle when we're charging our lead acid
batteries
battery charging at anchor we're
spending about 20 dollars a kilowatt
hour
for that last little bit of energy we're
putting in the batteries
i mean these numbers are pretty shocking
as i say the first time they're shocking
i thought i had the decimal place point
in the wrong place
and uh and i've done these calculations
uh dozens of times and
with different test data and so on and
it always comes out the same
and the the core costs here which we
don't think about
is actually the amortization cost of the
engine because you know most of our
uh propulsion engines for example
they're rated for five thousand hours
in a boat well you spend twenty thousand
dollars putting that engine in the boat
and it's got five thousand hours of life
in it it costs you four dollars an hour
to run it
regardless of whether it's doing any
useful work
so then when you're at the tail end of
the battery charge cycle
when you're putting a few amps into the
batteries to stop them from sulfating
you're pointing out maybe a few hundred
watts it's still costing you four
dollars an hour
plus the fuel plus the maintenance yeah
when you factor that in you discover
that your kilowatt hour
cost is going up to 10 and 15 and 20
kilowatt hour so when you put solar in
that
light and you look at a like a 100 watt
solar panel
um it's going to put out about 300
watt hours a day on a so that's a third
of a kilowatt hour
um you multiply that by 300
days in the year and then you think
about
you'd be spending ten dollars a kilowatt
hour to generate that electricity using
an engine
all of a sudden the solar looks to be a
really good investment
yeah so for any boat that gets
used a fair bit obviously if you only
use the boat for two weekends a year
and you put two thousand dollars worth
of solar on it
you're never ever gonna to get
any kind of payback out of it but if you
use your boat for a month or two of the
year
or even live aboard uh and then uh you
compare
the cost of the solar to the cost of
generating that uh electricity
uh by running an engine a generator or
the main engine
then the solar starts to look really
good and on top of that of course you've
got
less engine run time you don't have to
put up the noise and the
exhaust by you typically speaking you
keep your batteries in a higher
average state of charge which
substantially extends the battery life
so that's another hidden benefit from
the solar yeah
it all pencils out in a way to where
i i recommend nowadays anybody that's
going to take the boat off shore for
for even a week or two a year put as
much solar on the boat as they can find
space for
100 agree 100 agree um
and and you bring a good point i mean
not only is it
obviously less expensive than running a
generator to recharge your batteries
but the other thing too is there's a
certain i mean also the great thing
about solar is all the costs are up
front
you know there's no maintenance cost on
a solar rate you know i when i did my
solar array
it's nine years now you know nine years
ago and all the costs were up front
and they're substantial if you're doing
a big array and if you're choosing you
know
better quality panels and you're doing
it the right way and you're not cutting
corners
and it can add up it can certainly add
up but the flip side is
it's all front loaded you know that
those costs are gone once you've
done all that then every day that you're
out there and then you get
not only the lower cost of energy
production but the other thing too
you're right is
to me it's also even redundancy you know
it's it's an alternative way like what
i mean people do lose alternators not
literally losing an alternator but
the alternator alternators have a tough
life it's really hard being an
alternator it's probably the one of the
hardest things
to be on about you know working in a
warm environment
super hot they're asked to do these
crazy things
running at maximum output for long
periods of time to recharge your battery
banks
and eventually they do fail and the good
news with solar is now you've got a
redundant way of recharging your
batteries it might not be everything you
want
but it's at least not zero that's
another thing too i like about solar it
gives redundancy and even redundancy
when you're at shore power
you know you might lose your power for a
couple days through three days
now your solar rate can you know keep up
pick up the slack
here in british columbia i don't know
what it's like you guys out in on the
eastern seaboard but
here when you go to marina and you're
staying overnight they're gonna actually
ask you
if you're taking power from the dock
they're gonna charge you more you know
some slips include power but some slips
it's optional and you'll pay an extra
five or ten dollars for power that night
you know in the summer i have to say one
of the greatest pleasures i have is when
i'm cruising from
may to september and they asked me that
question would you like power with your
slip
overnight i'm like you know all good i
don't even take out the cord
you know i i don't need to solar just
literally
is taking care of all my needs in the
summer because the sun's shining enough
and i'm literally i'm not counting how
much money i'm saving every time i go to
the dock but
i certainly don't need to plug in i just
don't i mean i'll plug in sometimes
if i need to but sometimes if i'm there
just for a night or two i'm like yeah no
i'm good i'm not i'm in the full state
of charge of my batteries
and solar can do that so that's another
benefit of
having a solar right yeah
um but every time you don't plug in your
eliminating the risk of galvanic
corrosion on the shore power cord
so we actually yeah even though you know
we have a
galvanic isolator and all that stuff um
i still
plug in as little as i can and i'll plug
in so rapidly charge the batteries and
then i'll
unplug again yeah i i never leave our
boat
plugged in to shore power on a extended
basis
yeah because sometimes it's it's not
your boat it's the neighbor's building
yeah you know that happens a lot we we
get called
you know sometimes there's a whole
section on the dock there may be three
four or five votes and the owner
it's not a bad owner sometimes it's just
an order that it's an accident
they didn't know something you know
something happened that's unintentional
uh it's not always the derelicts you
know some boats of course
unfortunately are abandoned or near
abandoned and those votes are
some of them obviously questionable and
you know the electrical is
maybe something to be worried but
sometimes it's it's a vote that you
wouldn't even think you know you're
thinking oh that
won't give me grief um but errors do
happen on those
and you're right um so let's dive in
so obviously it sounds like there's a
lot of alignment in the industry and now
especially you know
there's enough of us have heard great
stories about solar from
our friends and fellow voters who've
installed so it's not an early adopter
anymore
uh definitely not so let's talk about
one of the dilemmas that some especially
sailors i mean this is not something
that power boasts but for the
sailboaters out there they're listening
question is oh win solar both you want
to weigh in on that a little bit nigel
your thoughts about maybe even
prioritization how do you go about
choosing
you're going to choose one or should you
do both what's your thought on doing
solar versus win or doing both in what
order
well we've always had a win generator
um and there are times when
it's really been useful mostly i'd say
when we spend
quite a few years cruising in the
caribbean and there's a lot of
anchorages there where you're behind a
reef
so there's no landmass in front of you
and it's calm and you've got a 15 knot
trade wind coming up
over the top of the reef and in those
conditions the wind generator will
really pump out
some energy but the vast majority of the
time
uh we're all anchored in some protected
anchorages and there's not a whole lot
of wind
by definition that's the whole point of
the anchorage is to provide protection
and the wind generator is not doing much
and so
uh i think i mentioned this in our last
discussion in in three summers on the
west coast of scotland
where we had an average of a gale a week
though
340 watts of solar outperformed our wind
generator
two to one in spite of the fact the sun
almost never shone
and we had all of this wind but most of
the time we were hiding from gales in
protected anchorages so the wind
generator wasn't doing that much and
even though there wasn't much sun
you know that you're at 60 degrees north
there in the summertime you've got 18
hours of daylight
so the solar was still outperforming the
wind generator two to one
same challenge here in the pacific
northwest uh with these
giant you know sort of uh out of the
world
trees that are 200 300 feet tall
surrounding your anchorages and i know
it sounds like an exaggeration but the
trees here just
absolutely we've i've seen them they're
just they're just they're just out of
this world i mean these are trees that
nobody's even talking about
back east it would be you know almost
everybody would just come and see the
the single tree yeah on the eastern
seaboard
this is i mean the anchorages here in
the pacific northwest are
absolutely bomb proof the majority of
them uh
and you're right the problem is it could
be even blowing 30 outside
35 and the anchorage might just see
gusts of 10
maybe sometimes 15 but most of the time
a lot of the anchorages
they're just so tight that you're just
not
getting that wind coming in right and
that's exactly what you said you know
the anchorage is you're going there to
be protected
to not have a big chop in the bait or in
the cove or wherever it is
and so um it depends where you're going
i think with wind
here in the pacific northwest we
recommend solar first
and then again if you're going offshore
of course if you're sailing
makes sense uh it's certainly something
to consider but
i don't think when i give it a generic
vote
probably start with solar and then
supplement
with wind if it makes sense depending on
where you're losing
if you're going offshore and um even if
you've got a decent
uh breeze in anchorage if there's any
bulk motion at all
it uh really knocks the heck out of the
average output of a wind generator
because all of those those output
numbers are collected in a wind tunnel
you know or actually if it's a low
budget outfit
they'll put the wind generator on the
back of a pickup truck and drive it down
the road at 40 miles an hour
but um either way
it's a it's a steady state wind yeah
the minute you put that same wind
generator on the boat and the boat's
doing any rocking and rolling whatsoever
it cripples the output of the wind
generator
so all right so you never get out of
them even if if the wind is blowing
you know steady 15 knots you're still
not going to get uh
15 knots wind up output out of that wind
generator it's going to be
substantially below that because of any
motion that's going on with the boat
and uh some wind generators are
unfortunately quite loud and uh
i mean it used to be the first uh uh air
what was it originally the air marine
wind generator we had where
they designed the blades to flutter at
25 knots
to stall them out and uh the first time
that happened we
we had a squall coming through we were
at the dry tortugas at the end of the
florida keys
and the skull came through and all of a
sudden uh the
wind generator went into this flutter
mode and we we'd never heard it before
and it was like a howling banshee you
could and we thought something was
tearing apart on the boat you know we're
running what the hell is that it was
just
unbelievable noise those things made
well they don't do that anymore they
they got a lot of customer feedback on
that issue so uh
they've solved a lot of those noise
issues but the other
thing you get on if they're not well
mounted there's quite a bit of vibration
down through the deck
that could be more annoying than the
noise from the blades
okay right the way through the boat yeah
the harmonics
yeah i could see that and that's and
that has to be the beauty of solar
right the beauty of solar is it's there
in the background
you don't feel it you don't sense it
it's completely
doing its thing without vibration
without smoke without noise
it's not bothering your neighbors
especially if you're in a cove with a
lot of sailors that are
you know it's trying to escape the noise
or going there for peace and quiet
you know solar doesn't bother anyone
doesn't bother anybody on the boat
doesn't bother anybody around and that i
think is
i have boat owners actually um where
one of the boat owners is saying you
know what i don't like running my
generator
as much i don't like bothering other
boaters sure i've got a big gem and some
boaters have a 20 kilowatt eight
kilowatt 12 kilowatt
and like help me reduce my generator run
time
so that when i'm in an anchorage i can
recharge my batteries as much as
possible without having to run the
generator
so that i don't get those side glances
from the voters around me
that are thinking that we're disturbing
the piece and so
solar is you know there's not a lot of
pain other than upfront costs with solar
it's everything is up front it's a
little harder than you know most people
you know they never say oh my god it's a
lot cheaper than i thought it's always
okay it's more than i thought but the
benefits are just out there you're just
amazing
[Music]
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Videolytics
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hello everyone
and thanks for joining me today we have
again a special guest
nigel calder is joining us today because
we're going to be talking all things
solar
uh based on our last podcast uh that we
did with nigel on various topics we've
had a great feedback
and i don't know we're sort of excited
to expand
on what's going on with solar panels in
the marine market
um and we're gonna be talking about
controllers we're gonna talk about
quality
how do you size an array we're gonna be
visiting all that and nigel is gonna be
sharing
a lot of his information that he has i
have to say every time i get a chance to
speak with nigel
it's a learning experience for all of us
if you haven't checked out his books by
the way
please do they're considered bibles in
the industry and that's not my wording
that's the wording from the peer groups
out there also
last time we did uh this podcast we also
introduced
uh nigel's boat how-to uh there's gonna
be links below uh check that out if you
wanna educate yourself and remember this
is a journey
right uh nigel is still doing it i'm
just started the journey i've been doing
this for 15 years as a boat owner
and i'm still learning every day every
day we're learning
so the best way is obviously forums the
internet
books there's all these different
resources it's all a journey
you know you never get to the end and
it's about just having a better
experience on our boat so today we're
going to be focusing
on solar solar panels on boats and
controllers
and we our guest speaker is nigel as you
can tell from my smile
it's a hundred percent genuine and
always a pleasure nigel thanks for
joining us here today
thank you jeff awesome we actually have
a
lot to talk about yeah we do there's
been a
raft of new technologies coming into the
solar world in the last
few years and some of them as recently
as last year which have basically um
changed many of the prescriptions we've
used for
for recommending panels on solar panels
on boats so it's a really good time to
be talking solar
yeah and it's you know i always tell
this because
some of us do solar for the right
reasons in terms of you know being green
not
you know oil and stuff that's some of us
but in terms of just
tangible benefits as a voter um
you know we're talking here in british
columbia and
northwest about half of our borders are
power boaters
and they even have generators on board
and it's it's
very real like you can actually do quite
a lot with solar not maybe everything
you hope for
uh all of us always have a little bit
more power needs than
what's available but you can make a
substantive
difference in terms of your recharging
of batteries
uh with the sun it's uh it's not a
gimmick it's not just a feel-good
purchase and it makes a big difference
yeah so thanks for joining me here today
well thank you and ashley uh
uh somebody i want to introduce you to
jeff
tom whitehead who's a expert on the
controller side of
solar panels and as he he just wrote an
article in the latest edition of
professional boat builder magazine oh
wow which is
well worth anybody that wants to get a
head around solar controllers
that's the best article best information
around at the moment on
solar controllers let me get out of the
way and i'm going to
put tom in here all right let's do it
let's have tom
chime in
hey tom hi jeff how are you hey i'm
doing good i'm doing good
thanks for joining us oh it's my
pleasure yeah so
we're going to talk about solar
controllers um so we had a few talking
points a little bit maybe i'm going to
ask you some questions steer a little
bit of the conversation
of course you know the podcast it's not
doesn't have to be too
uh sort of regimented in terms of our
approach
um let's talk about a little bit about
the one of the questions i get a lot
asked from uh
youtubers and fellow voters is jeff what
about pwm versus mt
mppt you know um and by the way i should
have actually go before that
um let me just pause put contacts
everyone a controller is an essential
part of the solar array
uh for everyone that's wondering uh you
really can't do without one
um the sun might be shining that day a
lot and your batteries are full and your
batteries don't need more power and so
the job of the controller is to
really have a brain and decide what
should it do with the solar energy
that it is available to utilize right
ultimately
it's making decisions you know what
should it do with the energy should it
charge at 13 volts 14 volts on a 12 volt
battery bank
it's constantly looking at the voltage
making decisions
so that your batteries are charged as
fast as possible but also
not overcharged and yes i have seen
people connect solar panels directly to
batteries
and uh it does happen um you know
obviously you know we all make mistakes
and that that's normal
but yeah you know some solar panels are
20 volts 22 volts 24 volts some panels
are only seven or eight volts
some panels are 35 volts so all those
voltages need to be modified
and adapted so that the batteries get
what they want and so
here with tom what we're going to be
talking about next is how do you go
about
choosing a solar controller for your
vote so back to my question i guess tom
is
this this uh dilemma that people have uh
with pwm versus mppt controllers do you
want to weigh in on that a little bit
and give
the listeners a sense of that choice
absolutely i actually wanted to touch
base on what you were just previously
saying about whether
they need a controller at all because i
actually get that inquiry sometimes
people say well i need a 12 volt panel
for my 12 volt batteries
and actually a fair number of installers
even who are new to solar
have have no clue that a lot of panels
are less than 12 volts too
so yeah um as far as pwm i'm not a total
expert
on it but my understanding is that that
stands for pulse width modulation
yeah that's what i know i understand
it's an it's an earlier technology
that can be efficient under certain
circumstances
um essentially it because all of our
charge
regulators use target voltages right
and so to hold the battery at its target
voltage once it gets there it it
interrupts and does a pulse to hold it
there
and the newer mppt controllers
actually convert the dc
current to ac and then back to dc again
and during that conversion process
they're able to maximize
what they call the powerpoint tracking
so it's
where are we being most efficient where
is the maximum current
happening and then through the magic of
electronics
it it optimizes that
so in general like here at ocean planet
we we don't sell any
pwm controllers
now in certain um i think land based
installations
um it can be a much more affordable
way to do it but i mean the
ppt controllers are coming down in price
as well
so i don't see it as even a question
um we only sell the mppt especially on
boats where
there's so much shading and so many
possibilities that
you know things are going to be
inefficient anyway um
that we only we only sell the mppt yeah
and
you bring a good point tom i i you know
same here we've never sold a pwm
um not again it depends i think on the
price of your solar array right so
if you're going with a rigid panel and
you're getting away with 100
panel you know it's going to be harder
to spend 150
on a controller you know that it's hard
to justify you know the controller is
more than a panel
but if you're going with flexible solar
panels or high-end solar panels
and now your panel is you know could be
two three four five six some panels are
thousands of dollars
depending on the make and the model you
know then the controller is the smaller
percentage-wise is a smaller fraction of
the overall rate and you're right
i think on land it's definitely be used
for boaters out there that are using
really inexpensive obviously
uh very budget-conscious rigid solar
panels then yeah maybe pwm might make
sense for you because honestly
we can't judge you know some of us can't
afford what we want we do what we can
but if you are spending quite a lot of
money on
good flexible or even good rigid panels
yeah you're going a long way then i
always tell people i'm not telling you
what to do but i strongly encourage you
to look at mppt
and yeah you know the efficiency
difference is huge i think it's almost
you gain another
it's over 20 percent i think it can be
efficiency
it can actually be as high as 30 percent
wow
so i would even use that as a sales
pitch to someone with that
big glass panel it's like hey you want
to get 30
more power out of the panel that you
already have switch
to this controller we do that a lot uh
to be honest there's a lot of boat
builders are still doing pwm
uh budget bull builders that happens and
we tell people you know you might have a
200 watt array on there
but you're only having right now you're
all over pwm and you're right the tom
that's a good point
some of us as voters have an array
already and if you want to just do more
out of that array than you have
swapping the controller might be one way
to
instantly overnight maximize get the
rated output that you had hope from that
array
from the get-go without actually doing
anything else not changing the solar
panel
not changing the wiring just simply
swapping out the controller from a pwm
to an mpp yeah that's a good point yeah
well
so if i'm going to walk a customer
through picking a controller
yeah tell us you basically start
with real estate to pick out what panels
you're going to use
because on boats the real estate is is
prime you know it's hard it's hard to
find where you're going to put the
panels
so that's your first thing and then once
you end up with what panels you have
uh the next important consideration is
the shading
so how are these panels going to be
shaded
is the boom on top of them is it not etc
etc
so our our first thing that we usually
recommend is one
controller per panel for optimal
efficiency um
and then if there isn't
uh you know a big concern about shading
let's say
a typical thing is like up on the fly
bridge of a powerboat
people are now asking me for more solar
to you know keep their refrigeration
running while they're sitting on the
mooring
up there where there's no shading i
would recommend putting the panels in
series
right which will then dictate the size
of controller that you use
to me that's the next best option
if there is shading some people
recommend going to putting the panels in
parallel
as opposed to series which will then
change you know the resulting current
and voltage that's going to the
controller so that will also dictate the
controller
yeah and you bring a good point here um
there is no and i get this all the time
i mean i'm talking every day
i'm talking like ten times a day you
know people are like hopeful
they're asking these leading questions
and they say oh yeah can i
i'll just get one control for all my
panels what they're trying to do is
they're i i know
we're we're all doing the same thing
we're trying to save money right quoting
is
is an expensive hobby for all of us
regardless of our income you know we're
always stretching our
house to have the best vote we can
afford so it's it's hard for all of us
even even some of my clients that have a
lot of money it's still a huge expense
for them because proportionately they're
spending a lot of money on their boat so
we all feel the same way and what i see
is they were saying oh maybe i can get
away with one control for all my panels
i'm like
yeah you might let's say you could uh
but remember that controller is size for
various factors and you brought those
variables like one would be
you know what is going to be the maximum
input voltage of the panel the other
is what's going to be the maximum
amperage coming in or through that
controller either
from the panel to the controller from
the controller or the battery what's the
max average what's the max wattage
of that array what's the and and also
you know can you configure that uh
controller for
charging let's say for example a firefly
battery or an agm or a gel battery bank
right can you customize the charge
profile
to fit the battery you have and then
also one error i did and i forgot i
remember this a few years ago
you know didn't ask the owner if he had
a 12 volt or 24 volt system you also
have to decide
yeah if you've got a 24 volt system
you've got to make sure that you get a
controller not all controllers
are able to connect to 12 and 24 you
know sometimes you have to buy the right
controller
for the voltage uh of your battery bank
so
yes we've been selling more solar
systems for electric propulsion
um support as well and there you're
getting into
36 volt 48 volt right
and again that's a really good point
what is the voltage of the system you're
dealing with
uh the other big hurdle um
or the big decision that you need to
make is whether you need on the one hand
a buck
controller what they call a buck
controller which brings
like your 20 volt panel down to 14 volts
or if you need on the other hand a boost
controller
because a lot of the mono cell um
panels that we sell nowadays are under
12 volts
they're only putting out say 9 volts or
even
12 volts which isn't enough right
because we're charging to 14.
so that's another really important
distinction and often if you have
let's say three medium to small panels
and you want each panel to have its own
controller then it has to be a boost
controller
yeah and currently there is really only
one really good
boost controller on the market which is
made by the jenison corporation
uh i think we have yeah this this is not
a boost controller but
you can look like that the size of it
yeah it's about
the size of an old chalkboard eraser to
those of us who remember what a
character racer is
um they um anyway
and the only other boost controller
that we've sold is uh by the western
company from italy
um and the differences between those two
are essentially this one
does temperature compensation by
uh being in the same space as the
battery
right so it senses the ambient
temperature around the battery
so this has to be in the battery space
or like in a similar locker next to the
battery so it's about the same
temperature
um the western boost controller actually
runs a wire
to the battery and so you have a little
more choice about where to mount it
um western also makes a really unique
controller
the wm10 which does either buck or boost
so if you have a panel
system that's that's fluctuating between
being a little bit under 12
and then over like if you have two
panels you hook up the wm10
and it'll it'll do both so that's a
pretty cool um
option um but like we've been hounding
viktron for a year or so like you guys
need to come out with a boost controller
and
yeah that's so true um you know on my
boat
when i did my solar array about eight
nine years ago i had
three panels uh that were 50 watt
soybean 50 watts
sp 50s and all of them were connected
to exactly two boost controllers and i
think it's essential you brought that
point up and even
it you know all of us get sort of uh
maybe
not you know hurdles you know uh i guess
surprising things and and
it's often that people come back and say
i have a 12 volt battery
i want a 12 volt panel you know that
assumption
and i remind it's really important to
remember that
it's not that the panel is not worse
because it has a lower voltage
you know and it's not better because it
has a higher voltage
at the end of the day there's no way
that your panel will
ever output what the battery needs
over time adapting as the battery gets g
d chart
discharge or charge and so you have to
have a controller
and the question is are you going to get
a boost because the camera voltage is
lower than what you need
are you going to get a buck which means
you're going to bring it down or that
western and by the way we've had success
with that western marine as well
you know we use it sometimes and it does
make sense it's a little bit bigger
controller not as compact
it also has a little readout screen on
it and some people love that
yeah they can just look right at it and
they don't have to remember what the
flashing lights mean
that it's reading oh so many watts are
happening
um that's another nice thing about them
so do you want to talk a little bit it
sounds like you're pretty familiar
can you talk a little bit about though i
get questions about those lights on
those jettison controllers a lot
do you want to talk talk a little bit
about uh
can you talk a little bit about those
status lights on their controllers by
the way
um i'm not the person who keeps
data in my head very well so usually
when a customer calls me i go and i open
the manual and double check
yeah um but essentially like on the jet
these genesis
there's this little led light here and
it will flash at different rates
so if it's flashing really quickly that
means
it's charging but at kind of a low
amperage
below where it's supposed to be so you
know it's not really
doing its full thing if it charges
at a more regular like one second
interval if it flashes sorry
um then you know it's it's charging at
the bulk
uh absorption setting um
if it's solid green that means the
battery's charged
and it's and it's done um
then there are a myriad of red lights
and that flash at different rates to
tell you different things are are bad
and then there's another one that tells
you that the fuse inside the unit is
blown
so it it's actually quite useful the led
and uh jennison's pretty good about uh
you know laying that out in the manual
yeah reading the manual
always i get i get i mean we are so many
of us don't read the manual often enough
or we read it and we put it away and we
forget
the the other thing too it's worth
noting i get this all the time
people expect solar to charge their
batteries
at maximum output regardless of the
state of batteries
um i get this all the time like oh my
solar i'm looking at my battery monitor
you know i'm not charging you know why
am i not putting out you know i've got a
huge array
why not seeing 10 amps 15 amps as i
sometimes do i'm like
are your batteries full yeah i'm like
and i tell people i'm like well you know
what actually the battery's a little bit
like you you know like at one point
there's such a thing as an appetite
you can't you can't force feed a battery
yeah a charge and for you to see what
the maximum output of your controller is
the only way to do that is to have the
batteries in a clearly
depleted state some sort of discharge
and i'm not talking going from 100 to
99. i'm talking from
you know you probably want to be
somewhere where you can see at least
where
potentially both maybe 70 know that the
batteries
are low enough that solar can't do
everything you want
and then the controllers are going to do
everything they can and then they're
going to be
assuming again that it's relatively
sunny that it's
best part of the day you don't have
shading that's when you're going to be
able to look at the diagnostics on those
leads leds and you're going to be able
to see okay yeah now i'm seeing
what i thought i should see or what i
saw another day because it's going to
change every day depending if your
batteries are going off
yeah i think that's a that's a really
good point
and the analogy that i use the most
is the reservoir analogy so i i
equate a battery to a water reservoir
okay
and if the water reservoir is low
then the charge sources can put the full
amount of current
or flow into that reservoir and it could
be
your alternator it could be your shore
power charger could be your solar
they're all
pumping water back into the reservoir
but when the reservoir
gets full that stream is going to slow
down to a trickle because it can't
you can't force it in there once it's
full um
and sometimes that helps people because
they yeah they get confused about
what i mean it and myself included when
i first started working with bruce
i kept thinking that these chart sources
were sending
voltage you know they were sending 14
volts
but they're not you know it's the
batteries at 12 and it's trying to get
to 14.
yeah so that's another thing that you
know since
it took me a while to figure that out i
often explain that to customers because
they often have the same misconceptions
it's it's hard current to raise
the voltage to a certain target and then
hold it there
um and there's often that question of
hey is my is my alternator fighting with
the solar
oh yeah all back and forth um
and sometimes i will tell people uh to
use
a breaker as their main fuse for solar
that they can then turn it off so that
if they want to see this separately
what's going
on turn the solar off when your
batteries are discharged
fire up the engine see what the
alternator is putting in
shut that down turn the solar back on
see what the solar is bringing
see how they act because they really
should act completely independently
until both of their voltage sensors
start picking up
what the battery voltage is and then
that because that was the point i wanted
to make that these the other great thing
about the mppt controllers is that they
are
mimicking what we're trying to do as
modern
charge controllers is three stage at
least
i think victron's up to six stages now
but at least three stage charging right
where you've got your bulk
stage your absorption phase and then the
float phase
um it's another real advantage of having
solar on your boat is that
especially if you have lead batteries
they are never fully charged
almost ever
and so the solar can do that finishing
charge
for an extended period of time when you
know the boat's sitting out on the
mooring
especially if you're not sure sign you
know if you're not plugged into your
shore power
um the typical typical sailor never
fully charges their lead battery
even if they run the alternator for you
know two hours a day
it could take 12 hours to fully finish
charging that battery and keep it from
sulfating
so having a nice solar system on board
um
really helps with that finishing charge
i totally agree
and it's and it's regulated it's
it's sending it at the proper float
voltage um
yeah it's so so true and it's you know
in some ways you know
uh here sometimes we have power outages
you know it does happen not
it's not the grid failing but wind
storms you know uh right you know
uh you know windstorm's going to happen
some power lines are going to go down
um and so solar even when you're
connected to shore power you know
on my boat i don't get to see it every
day some some boat owners get to see
their vote every day that sounds to me
like paradise but yeah
some people like me you know i get to
see my boat maybe sometimes
you know it's i'm less than weekend on
this two weekends and now it's
it's at a dock connected shore power
it's got a battery charger
and it's also connected to solar panels
the batteries via controllers and if i
lose
um my battery charger you know the solar
is going to step in and
do what it can and help and you're right
that finishing charge when you're
actually
cruising is the hardest thing to do
because you know running an engine
you know to recharge your batteries at
100 amps is motivating
for 50 amps you know a maximum output of
the charger vault charging
you know your alternator you're getting
a lot of juice but running an engine and
only getting five amps out because now
your batteries are almost at the end of
the absorption cycle or
in float and you're just topping off the
battery trying to get that last
charge running the engine and getting so
little out of the engine
is it's frustrating and that's where
solar is awesome
it's it does the finishing you know the
the alternator might do a lot of the
bulk and might get you like
most of the way there but then at least
solar is there in the background
doing its thing completely quiet no
vibration no smoke
no noise and it's doing its thing in the
background
and yeah that's right it's going to help
maintain the batteries in a higher state
of charge
undoing potentially what you talked
about this concept of sulfation which is
really aging
for a battery it's not being able to
re-energize the battery
completely as we should i mean the
reality is
you know none of us are treating
batteries perfectly you can't if you're
using a battery
it's it's getting warm the question is
you're trying to mitigate
how much you're doing that right that's
really interesting
um i was thinking of another thing to
bring up about
controllers which victron has really
pushed and it's
it's working really well is the using
bluetooth um
within the solar controllers and also
for the temperature uh sensing
because it used to be that um and still
with a lot of controllers if you want to
get proper
temperature compensation which
incidentally if people don't know what
that is that
it's essentially if your battery is cold
you can you can hit it with more
more current and push it to higher
voltage if your battery is hot
you want to lower that because you can
damage the battery if you're
if you're charging it too much when it's
hot so temperature compensation is
actually pretty important
um used to be that that even the victron
controllers had to be
in that battery compartment sensing the
temperature
and so now they have this little device
it's called the smart sense
and it's glued onto the side of the
battery and connected to the plus and
minus
and then you network it uh with the
handy app on your smartphone
to that particular controller or any
number of controllers
on the boat and the controller will
receive
the battery temperature from that little
sending unit
so that that gives you a lot of
flexibility about where to mount the
controllers
um and it also gives you this
flexibility of you know just opening the
app on your smartphone
and seeing immediately hey what's my
solar doing
oh cool i'm getting you know this many
amps or you know total watts and all my
batteries are 60 degrees and that's why
because i get calls from clients and
they say oh my god you know that
the solar is pushing it to 15 volt it's
what's going on
i'm like whoa how cold are your
batteries you know they're 55 degrees
oh well that that's okay
um i actually to do that all the time
just emailed me the other day saying you
know
is this okay and i'm saying yes it is
because
of temperature compensation it's it's
i'm going to rehash that
i think that's a great point you bring
tom the the
temperature compensation is essential i
mean even us humans eat differently in
the wintertime than we do in the summer
right you know uh honestly i think
batteries are so similar to people
and so you literally have an inverse
correlation right in the winter time
it's cold you eat more in the summertime
you talk you eat less
batteries are the same uh they actually
want you know when
batteries are cold and you've got low
temp you're right the voltage is going
to go higher it's going to be
temperature compensated
assuming of course that the temperature
sensor is mounted at the right place and
never on top of the battery
never ever because there's an air pocket
there you can put it uh some of the
temperature sensors can go right on uh
the lug you know because obviously
that's right it's gonna be
like metal is a great conductor of heat
or temperature so
the the temperature of the lug um and
generally we put them on the negative
not the positive right that's going to
be a good way or like you said tom and
it's
really good point you can put it on the
side of the battery because there's no
air pocket
you know um and you're gonna get a good
temperature and then the question would
be even bigger is like okay well now
i've got a bigger bank where do i put
the temperature sensor on a bigger bag
and you gotta you gotta figure out you
know and i've seen 10
battery banks fail because the
temperature sensor was put at a battery
that
was not really representative of what
happens to the rest of the bank so
that's putting a temperature sensor is
not a trivial thing
it sounds trivial but it isn't and
you're right inverter chargers have been
doing that for a long time i think
probably i don't even know 20 years i
think uh
i know xantrex inverters back in the
early 2000s had temperature compensation
and a lot of voters that know enough
do worry when the temp when the battery
voltage on a 12 volt bank goes to 15 15
1 15 2.
like oh my god what's going on i'm like
my batteries are being cooked i'm like
well hang on a second you know here in
the pacific northwest you know the water
temp is
9 degrees celsius 10 degrees celsius 11
degrees celsius in the winter time so it
doesn't freeze but it gets pretty cold
and uh batteries all the numbers that we
think in our mind 14
4 13 4 you know 12 8 12
6 12 2 all these sort of like different
that is all for batteries that are at 25
degrees celsius
um or 77 degrees fahrenheit so that's
basically
all those numbers what we think is
normal is normal at 77 degrees
fahrenheit for 25 degrees celsius and as
soon as the temperature differs from
that
you will charge your batteries faster
and not overcharge and not under charge
your batteries because both are bad
over charging and under charging are
both bad of course overcharging will
bring
a faster death but on your charging will
still be a death
it's just going to be like eating you
know fast food
every day every meal eventually you know
you might start it won't feel too good
after a period of time but if you do
that for a year or two
you're not going to be the same person
as you started you're just not um
do you think you are a lithium battery
or a lead battery
what do you think i think i'm a lead
battery i'm a lead battery
bruce is a lithium battery
yeah old school it's okay you know what
it's been working around for a while
i know it's longer to cram the
information into my brain
oh yeah that's really good nigel will
probably like bruce is a lithium battery
did i hear that right yeah i was like oh
yeah i'm like yeah i'm a lead acid
battery that's what i anyway here's the
um edition of provo it's edition 190
for those who want to read uh i this is
where my article about
how to choose your solar controller is
enclosed
um and i got some pretty good feedback
from that a few questions so
anybody who wants to reference that go
ahead
yeah um thanks yeah that's a that's a
real pro magazine like when i go to vote
builders
i mean that's that's the magazine the
owner has on their desk or the general
manager has on their desk
you know the electrical manager has on
their desk
i think it's yeah it is really
definitely industry it helps keep me
informed
because i'm also selling or trying to
sell more electric propulsion systems
and it's um
this magazine really helps keep me in
touch with what's going on in the
industry
yeah before you go tom one last question
um you briefly talked about this but i
think it's important to bring it up
do you wanna again speak a little bit
because this is a common question i mean
we
there's so much uh difference of
opinions there on
series versus parallel you briefly talk
about obviously of dedicated controllers
uh per panel and by the way if you if
you are gonna experience shooting on
your boat
uh and that could be even obviously
sailboats experience a lot of shading
because of the boom and you know the
rigging and stuff like that but even
power boats you know even if you have a
bimini
or you're gonna have a hard top you
might have a significant open array in
the back you might have a
sat tv dome or a set tv dome and a calm
dome yep
so shading is a problem for many of us
most of us voters do not have a shade
free
uh location for installing solar panels
yeah so anyway so
now that putting you want to weigh in a
little bit about
series versus barrel shading and how it
relates to controllers a little bit more
absolutely um
essentially it can come down to
mechanics of installation versus
slight gains in efficiencies
so for instance if you put two panels in
series
the voltage is going to double so you
have to check
what you know what the voltage rating of
the controller is
now an advantage of series is that
you make your connection up where the
panels are
and now you only have one pair of wires
to run below
okay so as opposed to our recommended
thing where you've got
one controller per panel now well you've
got two sets of wires that you need to
get through the deck
so that's a that's a kind of an
immediate
gain for going into series
because it allows you to you know i've
got one less deck gland i've got
you know one less set of wires to run
below um
etc so that that's one basic distinction
if you decide that putting the panels in
parallel
to deal with shading is your choice to
do that
because you still want one controller
you don't want to have two controllers
it's recommended that you put blocking
diodes between the panels
so they don't backfeed each other and
those blocking diodes reduce your output
by
i don't know 0.7 volts something yeah
0.7 about
yeah that's what i said so that's a
compromise
i mean everything on a boat is a
compromise right but
that's a compromise that lowers your
output
but allows you again to have just two
wires going to a single controller
but the thing to remember is when you
put panels in parallel
the voltage stays the same but the
current
doubles yeah and so now
you've got to size your wire and fusing
and everything according to that
now double current so to the controller
yeah yeah and so there's a little game
that you play with
how many wires do i want running below
how efficient do i want the system to be
um how much shading is there really or
not
uh a common setup that we've recommended
let's say someone has a large bimini
and the boom overhangs it a little bit
like the first third
so often all but they don't want every
single panel to have its own control
it's like let's say they got six panels
up on the bimini
so that's 12 wires to deal with so
a compromise that's been pretty
successful is i'll have a port array and
a starboard array
so i put the three panels on port in
series and the three panels on starboard
in series
and so when the boom is you know on the
port side and shading that a little bit
well you'll reduce some output there but
the whole starboard array is still
pumping that's such a good point tom and
that gives you
two controllers um you know
two sets of wires to go below and and
that's
that's been like an example of a good
compromise
layout for people i agree um
that being said um i tell people if you
if you especially if you're a cell
boater and you have limited charging
sources on your boat
and you're really power hungry it does
pay off to run
uh dedicate controllers i can tell you
that you know you you
put the labor up front it's going to be
painful it's going to hurt it's never
easy
it's not what you want but uh i can tell
you that
for the voters that are willing really
want something and i mean if you're if
you're not believing that solar is great
for you then it's harder to justify
putting all that extra effort
but if you've if you've been converted
or you really
you truly believe that our
recommendations are are good and they're
tangible
then i can't emphasize enough how you
know yes
i did but the same thing on my boat i
had six panels six controllers that was
a lot of work yeah it was bigger
but the flip side is you know the
efficiency of my solar array was just
absolutely breathtaking every time i
would look at the stats i was just blown
away
you know but i didn't cut corners you
know and the problem is sometimes go
ahead tom
i'm sorry it also speaks to the age-old
maximum of all sailors which is
redundancy right so
if you've got one controller that craps
out and
all of your panels are going through
that controller unless you have another
one in a bag in the builds
you're done but if you've got multiple
controllers for multiple panels at least
you know yeah you don't have everything
other ones
yeah yeah and i want to also uh
for the listeners that what tom brought
about is really good like we do this the
same thing
this concept of port and starboard you
know let's say for example but this you
know maybe having two panels on port on
one controller two panels on starboard
on controller
assuming again on a sailboat that the
shading would be generally
either affecting all panels on starboard
all panels on port
and so if they're going to be
experiencing similar type of shading
then yeah then it makes sense you don't
have to worry about
having individual controllers on the
starboard side when the starboard side
when one panel shaded the other is also
shaded then it might make sense and
you're absolutely right we do this a lot
on bimini's
we'll say okay we'll put these two
panels on port these two panels on
starboard because whenever one really
experiences a lot of shading
the other will as well and that's a way
to
reduce cable sizes and also the
challenges on some boats they don't
although the controllers are tiny as
you're showing i mean the victron
controllers are
the size almost like a pack of
cigarettes um not the small one but the
bigger one that i saw my father smoking
when i was growing up
and you know but sometimes no boats you
know where are you gonna mount that
where are you gonna mount that
even near the battery you know it's easy
to plan in our heads when we don't have
to deal with a boat but when as a boat
owner you're like okay
sure but where am i going to put that
you know like not all of us have a
closet
right or a bulkhead waiting to have
controllers now right so it is a
challenge
and so especially when you get into
those uh
those larger victron controllers like
the 150
and now we're talking the cigar box mini
roof case you know that thing is
it's where are you going to put it yeah
huge
heat sink on it as well yeah that's
awesome tom
anything else you want to add that we
haven't spoken about on controllers
that you want to share with our
listeners i think i'm good for now um
i did want to point out that in in the
article there's a little
side panel about shading and tests that
we did
which demonstrated you know the
difference between having independent
controllers and a single controller and
it's
it's pretty conclusive that's that's a
good thing to refer to if that's awesome
is it able are our readers able to find
that article
online or do they have to get the
physical copy
i believe that since it's now a couple
of months old that they should be able
to find it
but if anybody has trouble and wants to
read it
i can send it to him now uh aaron gave
me permission now i can send it out
um so you can always reach me at tom
oceanplanetenergy.com
thank you um jeff it's really great to
meet you virtually awesome
i did want to ask you is there any
chance you were going to the port
townsend wooden boat festival in
september i i
oh my god don't just don't i'm going to
start crying i was supposed to go live
by the way i've heard so many great
things of that festival i tried the year
prior to kovid
it was the hotel rooms are so booked
there it's like you're trying to go to
mecca
or something like on a pilgrimage it's
like there's no way in hell
last year i had my my literally i was
looking on expedia
every day until the the hotels came
online for that
booked it and of course because of kovit
got cancelled
uh this year i didn't know what was
going to happen with kobet so i didn't
book the hotel room
so i have no plans of going although
i've heard
phenomenal things about the poor towns
and docho
like phenomenal well anyway uh i'm going
i i found it i found a airbnb
to stay awesome and i'm going to give a
talk on solar there at that show
so if anybody's going to be there and is
interested i'll be there and can answer
questions and so forth
yeah it's not a big big show like
obviously like miami or fort lauderdale
yeah um but here in the pacific
northwest
um you know i've heard such great things
such great things about that if you make
it down send me a text and it'd be great
to meet you in person
that's awesome tom thank you for joining
us and talk about controllers thank you
my pleasure
thank you tom that's actually my
favorite boat show in the whole world
wow that says a lot
you see there you go i mean there you go
we're
that's called the lineman right there
yeah it's not really a boat show it's a
festival
that's awesome i mean half of the boats
that are there are not for sale you know
the owners just want to show them off
and all different it's not like a bunch
of fiberglass boats that all look the
same
every boat's got its own personality and
owners have their own personality
and this music and it's it's just a
wonderful place to be
and is it called the wooden boat
yeah yeah i've i've seen uh one of the
boats that was there
in uh marina in vancouver vancouver on
the gulf islands just north of the san
juans
and that owner was a boeing tech
and the amount of love and dedication
that he did to restore his
i think it was a 1930s or 1940s vote
it was honestly it was it was
there must have been 20 people and this
was not even a boat show this was just a
guy boating
with his partner his wife and everyone
every single person
that walked on the dock it didn't matter
if their boat was a million dollars
since five million dollar boat a hundred
thousand dollar vote
twenty thousand dollar boat every single
boat owner in that marina came by and
saw that boat and was like
oh my god because you can't buy it like
that you just can't
you yeah you gotta earn it you gotta put
the effort in
yeah that was great by the way tom did
awesome
that's perfect um it's good that you
know especially on the internet you see
a lot of
experts disagreeing but when you have
experts agreeing
and coming to their own conclusions
independently
and then agreeing you're like okay good
we're on the right track here you know
that's when you're like okay that one is
probably solved and we can worry about
other things
you know why are we disagreeing on other
things what are the things we don't
understand so that's that's really good
okay everyone so we're gonna dive into
solar um for all of you
out there um i want to re-emphasize how
solar
is a real tangible way for us to
recharge your battery banks
uh from the sun it's not only is it a
good maybe environmental decision for
some of us certainly
but besides just the environmental
reasons of doing that
um and not having to run a generator or
recharge your batteries
both power boaters and sailboats and
here in the pacific northwest
having done thousands of solar rates i'd
say it's about 50
sailboats and powerboats so this applies
to all of us and i'm talking 20 foot
boats
i've done solar ray largest solar array
we've probably done was on a 70 foot
boat
50 foot boats all the time power boats
55 60 feet
30 feet 28 feet it doesn't matter
there is a benefit to solar to pretty
much every power boulder or sailboat
that doesn't have a generator
running 24 7. you know some power
boarders eventually
have to run the generator forever
generators is a big benefit to solar oh
there is
um and certainly for all of us
solar is something we have many of us
as voters have let's just say
an area that is basically unused that is
just facing the side
it could be uh your bimini it could be a
dodger
it could be a hard divinity it could be
a hard top on a powerbook
it could even be a portion of the deck
that you really don't go that often
brow you know we've done it on brows and
so there's a lot of different ways
of getting uh solars on your boat we'll
talk about rigid we'll talk about
flexible we'll get in all of that
but first let's find the justification
for doing so
and so with that nigel i'm going to give
it to you because i've seen your
presentation on that
by the way and i have to say you're such
i love it you really did the analysis
so give it to us tell us about uh
why should voters consider silver on
their boats
well i i got you know
12 15 years ago now a large grant from
the european union
with a couple of other guys to look at
the energy efficiency on boats
so we we collected a lot of real data
and on how much it actually costs to
generate electricity on boats
when we're running an engine battery
charging an anchor
or running a generator to power a
battery charger
and um i have just gigabytes of data
and the first time i processed all of
this and i looked at the numbers and i
came up with a cost per kilowatt hour
of generating energy on the boat i
thought i had the decimal place in the
wrong place
so i did it again and came up with the
same number and i did it again and came
up with the same number and finally i
realized
the decimal place was in the right place
wow
it's almost impossible to generate
electricity on a boat
using a fossil fuel engine at less than
uh
two or three dollars a kilowatt hour and
you know we're paying
10 to 20 cents at home per kilowatt hour
and uh in fact most people when they're
generating electricity on a boat
it's costing them between five and ten
dollars a kilowatt hour
and when we're at the end of the charge
cycle when we're charging our lead acid
batteries
battery charging at anchor we're
spending about 20 dollars a kilowatt
hour
for that last little bit of energy we're
putting in the batteries
i mean these numbers are pretty shocking
as i say the first time they're shocking
i thought i had the decimal place point
in the wrong place
and uh and i've done these calculations
uh dozens of times and
with different test data and so on and
it always comes out the same
and the the core costs here which we
don't think about
is actually the amortization cost of the
engine because you know most of our
uh propulsion engines for example
they're rated for five thousand hours
in a boat well you spend twenty thousand
dollars putting that engine in the boat
and it's got five thousand hours of life
in it it costs you four dollars an hour
to run it
regardless of whether it's doing any
useful work
so then when you're at the tail end of
the battery charge cycle
when you're putting a few amps into the
batteries to stop them from sulfating
you're pointing out maybe a few hundred
watts it's still costing you four
dollars an hour
plus the fuel plus the maintenance yeah
when you factor that in you discover
that your kilowatt hour
cost is going up to 10 and 15 and 20
kilowatt hour so when you put solar in
that
light and you look at a like a 100 watt
solar panel
um it's going to put out about 300
watt hours a day on a so that's a third
of a kilowatt hour
um you multiply that by 300
days in the year and then you think
about
you'd be spending ten dollars a kilowatt
hour to generate that electricity using
an engine
all of a sudden the solar looks to be a
really good investment
yeah so for any boat that gets
used a fair bit obviously if you only
use the boat for two weekends a year
and you put two thousand dollars worth
of solar on it
you're never ever gonna to get
any kind of payback out of it but if you
use your boat for a month or two of the
year
or even live aboard uh and then uh you
compare
the cost of the solar to the cost of
generating that uh electricity
uh by running an engine a generator or
the main engine
then the solar starts to look really
good and on top of that of course you've
got
less engine run time you don't have to
put up the noise and the
exhaust by you typically speaking you
keep your batteries in a higher
average state of charge which
substantially extends the battery life
so that's another hidden benefit from
the solar yeah
it all pencils out in a way to where
i i recommend nowadays anybody that's
going to take the boat off shore for
for even a week or two a year put as
much solar on the boat as they can find
space for
100 agree 100 agree um
and and you bring a good point i mean
not only is it
obviously less expensive than running a
generator to recharge your batteries
but the other thing too is there's a
certain i mean also the great thing
about solar is all the costs are up
front
you know there's no maintenance cost on
a solar rate you know i when i did my
solar array
it's nine years now you know nine years
ago and all the costs were up front
and they're substantial if you're doing
a big array and if you're choosing you
know
better quality panels and you're doing
it the right way and you're not cutting
corners
and it can add up it can certainly add
up but the flip side is
it's all front loaded you know that
those costs are gone once you've
done all that then every day that you're
out there and then you get
not only the lower cost of energy
production but the other thing too
you're right is
to me it's also even redundancy you know
it's it's an alternative way like what
i mean people do lose alternators not
literally losing an alternator but
the alternator alternators have a tough
life it's really hard being an
alternator it's probably the one of the
hardest things
to be on about you know working in a
warm environment
super hot they're asked to do these
crazy things
running at maximum output for long
periods of time to recharge your battery
banks
and eventually they do fail and the good
news with solar is now you've got a
redundant way of recharging your
batteries it might not be everything you
want
but it's at least not zero that's
another thing too i like about solar it
gives redundancy and even redundancy
when you're at shore power
you know you might lose your power for a
couple days through three days
now your solar rate can you know keep up
pick up the slack
here in british columbia i don't know
what it's like you guys out in on the
eastern seaboard but
here when you go to marina and you're
staying overnight they're gonna actually
ask you
if you're taking power from the dock
they're gonna charge you more you know
some slips include power but some slips
it's optional and you'll pay an extra
five or ten dollars for power that night
you know in the summer i have to say one
of the greatest pleasures i have is when
i'm cruising from
may to september and they asked me that
question would you like power with your
slip
overnight i'm like you know all good i
don't even take out the cord
you know i i don't need to solar just
literally
is taking care of all my needs in the
summer because the sun's shining enough
and i'm literally i'm not counting how
much money i'm saving every time i go to
the dock but
i certainly don't need to plug in i just
don't i mean i'll plug in sometimes
if i need to but sometimes if i'm there
just for a night or two i'm like yeah no
i'm good i'm not i'm in the full state
of charge of my batteries
and solar can do that so that's another
benefit of
having a solar right yeah
um but every time you don't plug in your
eliminating the risk of galvanic
corrosion on the shore power cord
so we actually yeah even though you know
we have a
galvanic isolator and all that stuff um
i still
plug in as little as i can and i'll plug
in so rapidly charge the batteries and
then i'll
unplug again yeah i i never leave our
boat
plugged in to shore power on a extended
basis
yeah because sometimes it's it's not
your boat it's the neighbor's building
yeah you know that happens a lot we we
get called
you know sometimes there's a whole
section on the dock there may be three
four or five votes and the owner
it's not a bad owner sometimes it's just
an order that it's an accident
they didn't know something you know
something happened that's unintentional
uh it's not always the derelicts you
know some boats of course
unfortunately are abandoned or near
abandoned and those votes are
some of them obviously questionable and
you know the electrical is
maybe something to be worried but
sometimes it's it's a vote that you
wouldn't even think you know you're
thinking oh that
won't give me grief um but errors do
happen on those
and you're right um so let's dive in
so obviously it sounds like there's a
lot of alignment in the industry and now
especially you know
there's enough of us have heard great
stories about solar from
our friends and fellow voters who've
installed so it's not an early adopter
anymore
uh definitely not so let's talk about
one of the dilemmas that some especially
sailors i mean this is not something
that power boasts but for the
sailboaters out there they're listening
question is oh win solar both you want
to weigh in on that a little bit nigel
your thoughts about maybe even
prioritization how do you go about
choosing
you're going to choose one or should you
do both what's your thought on doing
solar versus win or doing both in what
order
well we've always had a win generator
um and there are times when
it's really been useful mostly i'd say
when we spend
quite a few years cruising in the
caribbean and there's a lot of
anchorages there where you're behind a
reef
so there's no landmass in front of you
and it's calm and you've got a 15 knot
trade wind coming up
over the top of the reef and in those
conditions the wind generator will
really pump out
some energy but the vast majority of the
time
uh we're all anchored in some protected
anchorages and there's not a whole lot
of wind
by definition that's the whole point of
the anchorage is to provide protection
and the wind generator is not doing much
and so
uh i think i mentioned this in our last
discussion in in three summers on the
west coast of scotland
where we had an average of a gale a week
though
340 watts of solar outperformed our wind
generator
two to one in spite of the fact the sun
almost never shone
and we had all of this wind but most of
the time we were hiding from gales in
protected anchorages so the wind
generator wasn't doing that much and
even though there wasn't much sun
you know that you're at 60 degrees north
there in the summertime you've got 18
hours of daylight
so the solar was still outperforming the
wind generator two to one
same challenge here in the pacific
northwest uh with these
giant you know sort of uh out of the
world
trees that are 200 300 feet tall
surrounding your anchorages and i know
it sounds like an exaggeration but the
trees here just
absolutely we've i've seen them they're
just they're just they're just out of
this world i mean these are trees that
nobody's even talking about
back east it would be you know almost
everybody would just come and see the
the single tree yeah on the eastern
seaboard
this is i mean the anchorages here in
the pacific northwest are
absolutely bomb proof the majority of
them uh
and you're right the problem is it could
be even blowing 30 outside
35 and the anchorage might just see
gusts of 10
maybe sometimes 15 but most of the time
a lot of the anchorages
they're just so tight that you're just
not
getting that wind coming in right and
that's exactly what you said you know
the anchorage is you're going there to
be protected
to not have a big chop in the bait or in
the cove or wherever it is
and so um it depends where you're going
i think with wind
here in the pacific northwest we
recommend solar first
and then again if you're going offshore
of course if you're sailing
makes sense uh it's certainly something
to consider but
i don't think when i give it a generic
vote
probably start with solar and then
supplement
with wind if it makes sense depending on
where you're losing
if you're going offshore and um even if
you've got a decent
uh breeze in anchorage if there's any
bulk motion at all
it uh really knocks the heck out of the
average output of a wind generator
because all of those those output
numbers are collected in a wind tunnel
you know or actually if it's a low
budget outfit
they'll put the wind generator on the
back of a pickup truck and drive it down
the road at 40 miles an hour
but um either way
it's a it's a steady state wind yeah
the minute you put that same wind
generator on the boat and the boat's
doing any rocking and rolling whatsoever
it cripples the output of the wind
generator
so all right so you never get out of
them even if if the wind is blowing
you know steady 15 knots you're still
not going to get uh
15 knots wind up output out of that wind
generator it's going to be
substantially below that because of any
motion that's going on with the boat
and uh some wind generators are
unfortunately quite loud and uh
i mean it used to be the first uh uh air
what was it originally the air marine
wind generator we had where
they designed the blades to flutter at
25 knots
to stall them out and uh the first time
that happened we
we had a squall coming through we were
at the dry tortugas at the end of the
florida keys
and the skull came through and all of a
sudden uh the
wind generator went into this flutter
mode and we we'd never heard it before
and it was like a howling banshee you
could and we thought something was
tearing apart on the boat you know we're
running what the hell is that it was
just
unbelievable noise those things made
well they don't do that anymore they
they got a lot of customer feedback on
that issue so uh
they've solved a lot of those noise
issues but the other
thing you get on if they're not well
mounted there's quite a bit of vibration
down through the deck
that could be more annoying than the
noise from the blades
okay right the way through the boat yeah
the harmonics
yeah i could see that and that's and
that has to be the beauty of solar
right the beauty of solar is it's there
in the background
you don't feel it you don't sense it
it's completely
doing its thing without vibration
without smoke without noise
it's not bothering your neighbors
especially if you're in a cove with a
lot of sailors that are
you know it's trying to escape the noise
or going there for peace and quiet
you know solar doesn't bother anyone
doesn't bother anybody on the boat
doesn't bother anybody around and that i
think is
i have boat owners actually um where
one of the boat owners is saying you
know what i don't like running my
generator
as much i don't like bothering other
boaters sure i've got a big gem and some
boaters have a 20 kilowatt eight
kilowatt 12 kilowatt
and like help me reduce my generator run
time
so that when i'm in an anchorage i can
recharge my batteries as much as
possible without having to run the
generator
so that i don't get those side glances
from the voters around me
that are thinking that we're disturbing
the piece and so
solar is you know there's not a lot of
pain other than upfront costs with solar
it's everything is up front it's a
little harder than you know most people
you know they never say oh my god it's a
lot cheaper than i thought it's always
okay it's more than i thought but the
benefits are just out there you're just
amazing
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