[Cruisingdad]

All,

I connected and got all the panels put in this weekend. With the exception of putting a few more screws in to hold the panels down, I am done. I should be able to give you real-life on what they put out by next week. I hooked the panels up last night (so as not to get bit... which I got bit anyways). Thus, I do not have the real-life for you yet.

My budget is somewhere around 150-180 amps day. That is real life. For those of you that have come in considerably smaller, I can only assume you are not running 12 v refrigeration?? No microwave or coffemaker or something. I think you cruise differently than I do or are a lot more efficent (which is very likely). I wanted to be fairly off-the-grid. Here is what I put in, what is cost, and what I can expect. Hopefully it will help many of you as you budget out your cruising money and electrical budget. Maybe this will help many of you make intelligent decisions on what will work best for you.

Arch: Why aluminum? Two reasons, cost and weight. THe arch I had built (I will get you pictures soon) is "overbuilt" as has been mentioned. The folks that built it build them for offshore fishing boats and tend to overbuild versus underbuild. It is a "double" 2 inch frame with connections. It is polished aluminum, not brushed, thus looks like SS except at the bends (and you have to get close to see that). Most of the rest of my boat is SS, with the exception of the toe rail and mast/boom. The arch cost me about $3200-$3500, installed.

To give you a cost comparrison, Valiant wanted about $10,000 to build the same arch. Weight would have been high, not to mention the cost. One man can lift the arch on my boat. It is somewhere in that 100lbs area, without anything on it. Another benefit of going larger aluminum versus smaller steel is the wire runs. Depending on the panels and the system, you will be fishing a pretty large wire down those legs. You have to run one at each end (or two down the pipe). Think series install. You may also have your wind gen going down those tubes which is 12 and will require a larger wire AWG, likely 4 gauge.

The panels. I have 4-Kyocera 130's, giving me a theoretical 520Watts. They weigh about 30lbs a piece, I guess. The KC-130's already have the diodes so a seperate install is not neccessary. Install is VERY easy. They are set up to be opened upside down. You take out the 4 screws holding the "flap" closed, and it latches open. The screws do not come out. Access is easy and straight forward. Only caution: Before you go to hook them up, get some extra screws that connect your lugs. Unless you are a better mecahnic than I am, Triton will get a few of them. Remember you are hooking these things up upside down in the sailboat yoga. I budegted 150 amps/day with this array. Cost of panels is around $650-$700/piece.

The charger. Outback MX60. It is too cool for me to go into too much explanation on, but for that size array, I cannot imagine a better controller. It is solar only. I am not aware of a controller to run both wind and sun. I might still keep them seperate for redundancy. Hooking up the outback is so simple you will not have any problems. Only consideration is to make sure you get the battery temp sensor. It is sold seperate. It is worth the $30.

The only negative of the Outback is the array size. I think you have to get somewhere in the 400 watts or better to realize its efficency. I had a salesman tell me this that sold both the Outback and Blue Sky. He said the BS was better for small arrays, the Outback for large ones. I have not used a BS, I think Sailingdog does. WOrth asking him about it. If you go with a small array, I do not think you will use an Outback and it is cost prohibitive. Cost of Outback is around $450-650.

Batteries. We wrote up a small thread about this on Cruisers Forum. Might be worth taking a look at as you consider your batteries. AGM's charge faster than wets, but they are not exponentially faster. Still, there are so many other positives with agms, I cannot imagine buying anything else for cruising. I went with 4 Lifeline AGM's (4D). That gives me about 840 AH. It is hooked into a Prosine 2.0 Inverter/charger. The Prosine mandates 4/0 minimum up to 350 mcm depending on the wire run. Luckily my run was small. 4/0 wire and the lugs are pretty much special order only. I went through Cobra Wire. The Prosine comes with its own temp sensor and is an easy install. Moving the cables (4/0) through very confined spaces is very difficult. You will also need a 600 amp rated switch and a fuse block (I used a 300 amp fuse).

This system is all paralleled together. I have a seperate bank with its own independent charger and a small Optima. It can be pulled into or out of the system, as neccessary. It is pretty much just there as an emergency backup and will not be used except otherwise. Cost of batteries is about $1800. Cost of Charger is about $1300. Cost of 4/0 wire and lugs, 300-400 (on the low side). The fuseblock and switch will run you about $200 or so online, as I recall.

Wind Generator. The AirX has a built in charge controller. I have everything here to hook it up but have been slow to do wo until winter was over (do not want it walking off the docks). The AirX is a direct wire. (EBS001, not sure which model AirX you have, but the new ones have in theory fixed some of the regulation and noise problems). You have to fuse and run heavy gauge wire. I am running 4 gauge (again) with a 50 amp fuse. At an average of 12 mph wind speed, they say you will get 70 amps/day. Cost of wind is about 800, plus about 200 in wire, plus several hundred in switches, bushings, connectors, pole, sound insulation and fuses.

Diesel Generator. I have used boat a Fisher Panda and a Mastervolt 3.5. My current is a MV 3.5kw. I think I like it better than the FP. Very user friendly and a lot of information at the panel. It just sips the fuel and is tied in with the main engine. Cost is somewhere in the $15,000 range.

Each one of these systems work together and independent of each other. The Xantrex, solar and wind will all work at the same time, which will be beneficial in saving money on charging batteries at the dock (which is a very small $$ anyways). But, Nigel Calder reccomends getting off of city power if you have a green power source.

Let me know what questions you have. I will answer.

- CD