Solbian Solar Panels

[smac999]

You can take a look at the gioco panels. My understanding is they are made basically in the same street as Solbian. Formed by employees that left solbian. For much less $

[gspeak]

Originally Posted by SO49

OK - so what I figured out is that I need a solar controller with a battery voltage sensing wire. That gets around any issues with the isolator. Morningstar and Outback Power make solar controllers like that but unfortunately do not make them large enough to support 600 watts of solar configured as 60 volts/10 amps from solar and 12 volts/50 amps to the batteries. Victron makes solar controllers that are plenty big but none in that range with battery voltage sensing input.

I guess I'll need to look around more.

The Morningstar Tristar MPPT 60 works fine for what you want. 12v 800 w, 60amps, max PV open circuit voltage 150volts, voltage & temp sense. Plus you can hook it to your wifi/router via Ethernet & access the live operating data & 200 days data logging via a web interface on computers, tablets & phones.

We see up to 24amps in from a single Sunpower 327 panel (tiltable).

Dave

[SO49]

Originally Posted by gspeak

The Morningstar Tristar MPPT 60 works fine for what you want. 12v 800 w, 60amps, max PV open circuit voltage 150volts, voltage & temp sense. Plus you can hook it to your wifi/router via Ethernet & access the live operating data & 200 days data logging via a web interface on computers, tablets & phones.

We see up to 24amps in from a single Sunpower 327 panel (tiltable).

Dave

Hi Dave - thanks - are you feeding the power from the Tristar MPPT into a battery isolator?

Jeff

[john61ct]

Don't you mean a combiner?

Charge sources should be connected directly to a bank, especially ones with remote sensing.

[SO49]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Don't you mean a combiner?

Charge sources should be connected directly to a bank, especially ones with remote sensing.

We use a Victron Diode Battery Isolator to allow the simultaneous charging of three battery banks (house, starter, bow thruster) from a charging source. The Isolator prevents the discharging the house bank from draining the starting battery or bow thruster battery.

A combiner works in the reverse and allows two or more DC power sources to be used in parallel to supply a mission critical load. Failure of one source will not interrupt power to the critical load.

See descriptions at VictronEnergy.com

https://www.victronenergy.com/batter...tery-combiners

and

https://www.victronenergy.com/batter...tery-isolators

If you have multiple battery banks and want to charge them simultaneously from one solar array it would seem you have no choice but to go through a battery isolator.

[john61ct]

No there are hundreds of choices in dozens of categories. Diode isolators was the original, now the least used.

But I was just checking, if you're au fait and happy that's good enough for me. Victron's good stuff.

[SO49]

Thanks for the suggestion. I found the perfect solution on another thread:

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...-177942-4.html

The Xantrex Echo-Charger - It's a one-way combiner that can be inserted between the house bank and a secondary bank to feed excess charging current to the secondary bank. We can use two to feed both secondary banks. Should be able to work without removing the diode isolator.

[john61ct]

Yes the EC is a long favorite, very robust, also one-way unlike most auto combiners. Only limitation is that 15A limit, but no problem for keeping starter or reserve topped up.

Many other ways to go too, but that's a good unit (all credit to Heart, but I guess a little to Xantrex for not messing with it 8-)

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by SO49

Should be able to work without removing the diode isolator.

Pass the final schematic by a pro to confirm that before wiring, having multiple similar devices can make things less simple than things should be.

And ideally:

Have all "target" batteries fed off a single source bank (usually the biggest most cycled House), hub and spoke topology rather than daisy-chain.

And have all charge sources feed directly to that hub bank.

Also note the voltage provided by the EC gets dropped by 0.4V, limited to max of 14.5 I think.

That's usually a good thing, but special maintenance cycles, high-volt conditioning, balancing etc needs to be handled separately.

And conversely if you have a sensitive chemistry on the target bank that gets damaged by the higher floating voltage, like Firefly AGM, they should be fed (in this 'combining context') by a more intelligent DC-DC charger.

Likely NP for you, just for completeness for others. . .

[OceanPlanet]

Originally Posted by john61ct

Pass the final schematic by a pro to confirm that before wiring, having multiple similar devices can make things less simple than things should be.

And ideally:

Have all "target" batteries fed off a single source bank (usually the biggest most cycled House), hub and spoke topology rather than daisy-chain.

And have all charge sources feed directly to that hub bank.

Also note the voltage provided by the EC gets dropped by 0.4V, limited to max of 14.5 I think.

That's usually a good thing, but special maintenance cycles, high-volt conditioning, balancing etc needs to be handled separately.

And conversely if you have a sensitive chemistry on the target bank that gets damaged by the higher floating voltage, like Firefly AGM, they should be fed (in this 'combining context') by a more intelligent DC-DC charger.

Likely NP for you, just for completeness for others. . .

Adding to this...sometimes a DC/DC battery to battery (B2B) charger is good if the target battery has a different ideal charging profile than the main/hub bank.

Also, after a lot of discussion with Firefly, we are raising the desired float voltage up to 13.4-13.5 (from 13.2), which may save some hassles for many with stock charger settings that don't have a 13.2 float.

[gspeak]

Originally Posted by SO49

Hi Dave - thanks - are you feeding the power from the Tristar MPPT into a battery isolator?

Jeff

Jeff,
No the controller is fed direct to the house bank, the positive to the positive battery terminal & the negative (like all the other negative leads) to the battery monitor shunt.

I have then installed two Yandina Combiner 160 to combine the two starter batteries/alternators to the house bank. It has worked for the past 5 years to automatically charge all batteries via alternators, shore power charger & solar. In other words all charging sources charge all batteriy banks & then isolate them all automatically when no charge source is active.

See below how I have setup the completed system. This is the diagram that I sent to Yandina to get their approval of my intended system. Sorry if the diagram is not all that easy to follow.

HTH

Dave

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by OceanPlanet

Adding to this...sometimes a DC/DC battery to battery (B2B) charger is good if the target battery has a different ideal charging profile than the main/hub bank.

Also, after a lot of discussion with Firefly, we are raising the desired float voltage up to 13.4-13.5 (from 13.2), which may save some hassles for many with stock charger settings that don't have a 13.2 float.

Wow thanks, breaking news! Can you say why the change?

What would be "the current best" voltage if longevity were the only priority?

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by gspeak

Sorry if the diagram is not all that easy to follow.

No, she's a beaut!

(be gentle noobish Qs, sorry if hijack)


A single charger connection to House would suffice with the C160s right?

What is House negative switch about? Isn't ground shared across every circuit?

Would a Blue Seas (Dual) switch (NOT "Dual Plus!) be good to consolidate that, or would you ever need to isolate one polarity not the other?

[john61ct]

Originally Posted by john61ct

And conversely if you have a sensitive chemistry on the target bank that gets damaged by the higher floating voltage, like Firefly AGM, they should be fed (in this 'combining context') by a more intelligent DC-DC charger.

In updating my notes, I see "damage" is not the right phrasing here at all, properly treated these Firefly Oasis AGMs are so uniquely long-lived handled properly, so forgiving of what would be murder-abuse of any other lead chemistry, that I was fantasizing about getting every last hundred deep cycles out of them by being gentle as possible. Saving my pennies. . .

Really as Bruce put it, a B2B DC-DC charger like Sterling is the way to go with any significant difference between what the two banks want in charging voltage.

As opposed to standard voltage-following isolator / combiner solutions, including the Xantrex (ex-Heart) Echo Charge.

[Steadman Uhlich]

Howdy All!

I have started a new thread on CF that is to serve as an "Illustrated Guide to Solar Installations on Boats"

I hope you will participate in that thread too, by posting some photos and answering a few questions related to your own Solar Installations. The questions are easy but may help others.

The new thread is not intended to take away from this current discussion, but is intended to provide an easy way to look at a lot of different installations for ideas and information. I hope you will add to it too.

Here is a link to that thread:

Illustrated Guide to Solar Installations on Boats
Illustrated Guide to Solar Installations on Boats - Cruisers & Sailing Forums