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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

[Music]

English (auto-generated)

Videolytics

 Tools

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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