Solar Panel

[PhilR]

Hi Andrew,
I took delivery of my new R-27 recently and I'm busy reading the voluminous information that comes in the two black bags....lots to learn. Apparently the Dual Battery Charging Solar Controller handles two battery banks....the house bank and the engine battery, I presume. My plan for next winter is outside storage with a cover and clear plexiglass over the solar panel to keep the batteries charged. Will the thruster battery be left out of the solar charging? One more question...does the inverter power the AC panel or specific circuits? I'm sure to have questions for you from time to time, but I promise to read the owners manuals first!
Thanks, Phil

 

[Andrew Custis]

Hello Phil,

Sorry for the delay. I have been a bad boy in not keeping up with the forum. My normal email has been keeping me busy. Hopefully I can answer some questions for you.

The solar panel we install on the R25, R27 and R29 are a Kyocera 135 Watt panel. I have seen up to 10 amps of charging on a really sunny August day here in the northwest. Notice how I daid "day" and not "days". We only get one day of sun here in the Northwest.

The Kyocera panel comes with a controller that allows charging of two battery banks. We set it up to charge 90% of its power to the house bank and 10% to the engine. You can change this to a 50/50 charge by switching the dip switches on the controller.

The Sun Saver display is strictly a display. You cannot change any setting of the charge by playing with this panel. The center button will change views on battery, battery 2 and a little Sun. Once selected on one of these settings, you can use the left or right arrows to view the different charge, amp hours that have been added to the bank or even what the controller has seen as high or low voltage on that bank. The sun indicator will tell you what the total output is on the solar at that time.

If you would like to reset the total amp hours or min/max battery levels you see, simply hold the left and right arrow down for 5 seconds and it will reset.

The solar panel will not charge the thruster bank unless you jump the positive leads on the battery from the house to the thruster battery. That would be cheating but would work for a storage solution to keep the batteries charged.

The inverter will power everything on the AC panel. This is a great question because it is very important to power manage so you dont overload the inverter.

I promise not to yell at you if you dont read the manual before contacting me. I think my written explanation on the solar panel is better than the actual manual it comes with. This is the biggest issue with the Kyocera panel. 😀

 

[PhilR]

Andrew,
Thanks for your explanation. Tugalong is being launched in Lake George tomorrow ! Yahoo!!!!

Phil