Solar panel size for powerboat

Solar panel size for powerboat





This is the table showing what charge controller goes with what panels.  It depends on your system voltage, for example if you have a 12 volt boat the 100/50 can accommodate 700 watts of panels but if you have a 24 volt boat the same controller can accommodate 1400 watts

There are a few other things to keep in mind.  
  • If there is any chance of the panels being shaded unequally they should be broken up into groups of equal shade.  
  • You can put your panels in series or in parallel.  
  • The voltage of the panel needs to be a minimum of 5 volts more than the actual battery voltage to get the MPPT started.
  • The first number in the part number is the maximum allowed input voltage (that is the open circuit voltage of the panel)  so in a 100/50 charge controller 100 volts is the maximum allowed input voltage and they would like you to keep the design voltage to 10% below that.
  • For safety reasons you should keep the panel voltage in the range that will not electrocute you, I personally would not like to get a shock of much more than 50 volts
  • The wireboxes are terminal covers to prevent you from getting a shock if you accidentally touched the terminals of the MPPT

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