So, here I am decades later and I finally feel like I have things fairly well figured out.\u00a0 When I think back to that initial install and where we are now, I am struck by how much things have changed, the sophistication of the equipment and how much greater our energy needs are now when compared to years ago.<\/p>\n
Back in the “olden days” the need for power was primarily focused on a few lights and perhaps mechanical refrigeration, if we even had that, with little else.\u00a0 Nowadays, it is not uncommon to have a whole fleet of devices, computers, cell phones, rechargeable lights, autopilot, navigation instruments, microwave, TV, watermaker and much more, all needing greater and greater amounts of power, loading up our little “grid”.<\/p>\n
Over the summer I upgraded the house batteries to lithium, replaced four of the 5 solar panels and added a wind generator.\u00a0 \u00a0Here’s what the “array” looks like.\u00a0 A lot of capacity in a small space. While we don’t have a generator, beyond my little gas Honda 2000, I should mention that the main engine has a power takeoff to a large alternator that can easily put out 200 amps at 12v for extended periods.\u00a0 That, along with our house inverter, are powerful enough to run our AC while motoring, which we did for nearly three days of near calms on the trip this fall as even an hour of engine runtime each day adds a lot of heat to the main cabin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Prior to our recent upgrades, we had an AGM bank of just over 1,000AH but for practical purposes I wasn’t able to use more than about 25% of that capacity before recharging.\u00a0 While my new lithium bank totals, slightly less, about 840 AH, I can easily use 90% or about 750AH before recharging.\u00a0 That’s a tripling of\u00a0 usable capacity.<\/p>\n On passage, with both plotters, many instruments and the autopilot going, we use, on average, about 8 amps which can deplete the batteries pretty fast in the overnight hours.\u00a0 \u00a0Happily, the new wind generator, in about 20kts apparent, now puts out enough energy to offset the entire suite of electronics.\u00a0 \u00a0Note that this is a 12v power curve so you’ll need to divide the amps by 2 to get the correct output at 24v.\u00a0 In this case, the curve in 20kts of wind matches the house load for Pandora when we are underway, a huge gain when on passage.\u00a0 Having had a difficult experience with a wind generator years ago due to how loud it was, I have been thrilled with the fact that the unit is basically silent.\u00a0 You can only hear a very slight hum when at anchor and you have to listen closely to even hear anything at all.\u00a0 \u00a0Under way, in any wind up to about 30kts when it begins to power down, the only way to tell it’s working is to look at the spinning blades and the amps that are showing on the controller.<\/p>\n In addition to the electronics and other equipment load that is covered by the wind generator, the largest load aboard Pandora is refrigeration and that was easily handled by the new solar panels.\u00a0 I was surprised to learn that solar panels loose efficiency each year and in my case, the four older 80w panels were probably down to about 40 watts each so replacing them has made a huge difference.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG_3771.jpg\")
As recently as last year, on passage, I had to run the engine to charge the batteries at least once a day.\u00a0 As I don’t have a house generator, unusual for a 47′ boat, running the main engine, with the marine engine mounts<\/span><\/a> taking care of vibrations, heats up the main cabin terribly as we made our way south.\u00a0 Pandora is a wet boat so we have to keep everything sealed up to avoid an errant wave finding it’s way below making things a lot steamier down below.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Curve-for-wind-gen.jpg\")
As the generator output matches exactly what the power curve of the unit is rated at, suggests that the new batteries will take power as fast as you can give them with virtually no resistance. ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/IMG_3778.jpg\")
I\u00a0chose the Marine Kinetix<\/a> unit as a few of my friends have one installed on their boat and are happy with how well it performs and how quiet it is. I also found Jeff in tech support particularly helpful as the install on Pandora was a a bit more complex being a 24v boat.<\/p>\n