What are my best possible battery options ?

[TomCat58]

I plan to build a solar boat in the near future. I will be using lightweight semi-flexible solar panels(about 6 x 100 watts). About 200 watts motor for propulsion. The panels will take a lot of space and will catch lots of wind when there is a breeze. But since they are light, I can configure them to be folded almost the same as how they fold plane wings on an aircraft carrier. The only difference is the panel folds downwards and under, leaving some of the panels still productive. Not more than 100AH @ 12V battery. Battery wattage will mostly be used on camp at night. Early on the next day, once the panels are able to produce 150 watts, start sailing again. In about an hour later, panel output will be more than the motor consumption and start charging the batteries. In the afternoon, when the panels production drop lower than 200 watts, throttle down and consume only what the panels generate. Lower than 100 watts, i'll set for camp. In this way, the battery will serve mostly as a regulator for the motor , back-up and camp use.

I look forward to seeing your ideas take shape. My solar canoe is going through a complete once over right now. I am addressing the many things I learned on the 5 day Columbia River trip. With a bit of luck it will be back in the water around new years and I will share a few pictures. There is another tread on this forum posted by SolarCanoe and he is building a solar canoe/boat also. Maybe al three threads should all be on the same page/thread and we can compare notes ?

Thanks everyone for your post and input. When you all get your solar canoes in the water your going to notice something. Its almost totally silent. Its even quieter the paddling a canoe because there is now paddle noise from a paddle dripping water between strokes. The wildlife allow me to come right up to them. I have gotten within 30 feet to deer on shore as well as a massive moose in my canoe.

There are some things we give up by having a solar boat BUT there are other things we gain. No Noise, no smelly gas and oil and no wondering how much gas we have left and the cost of fuel and internal combustion engine break down and repairs

TomCat58

[axis11]

I plan to build a solar boat in the near future. I will be using lightweight semi-flexible solar panels(about 6 x 100 watts). About 200 watts motor for propulsion. The panels will take a lot of space and will catch lots of wind when there is a breeze. But since they are light, I can configure them to be folded almost the same as how they fold plane wings on an aircraft carrier. The only difference is the panel folds downwards and under, leaving some of the panels still productive. Not more than 100AH @ 12V battery. Battery wattage will mostly be used on camp at night. Early on the next day, once the panels are able to produce 150 watts, start sailing again. In about an hour later, panel output will be more than the motor consumption and start charging the batteries. In the afternoon, when the panels production drop lower than 200 watts, throttle down and consume only what the panels generate. Lower than 100 watts, i'll set for camp. In this way, the battery will serve mostly as a regulator for the motor , back-up and camp use.

[TomCat58]

Is your current battery on its way out? If its still accepting a good amount of charge, I would still use it until it dies. And then get a new set of batteries. With 260 watts of panels and a 100 watt motor, and sailing only during the day, maybe you can get away with a smaller battery. Less weight=faster. The downside is your reserve capacity to sail on less productive hours and night will be reduced and you need to drop anchor earlier than usual. Im not sure how much distance covered you would loose or gain from reducing battery weight but with shorter sailing time, compared to longer sailing time with the heavy batteries.

No Axis11 my two walmart deep cycle batteries are only 6 months old. I am just looking at my system and its components and trying to learn how to make it function better. A amp or two or a better battery that maybe charges faster or whatever. I guess what i am saying is with my boat/Canoe I feel like I have reached a max on panels and I have a great motor so now I am trying to learn if small things and changes can improve on what I already have.

I should explain something clearer. When I woke up while I was camping along the beaches of the Columbia River I had a few hours of day light before launching. Packing up and making breakfast and waiting for the sun to come over the ridges.

I might leave shore and my panels are reading 3 to 4 amps. BUT I went ahead and turn the trolling motor up to a nice speed of 2.5 to 3 mph which is about 7-8 amps. Now after a few hours and with not many clouds I was bring in 9-11 amps but left the motor speed the same at 7-8 amps. Now if I thinking correctly I used solar and battery power in the morning but am not replacing it with 2-3 amps and I am still holding my speed.

Late in the afternoon the winds start to come up river and it can get pretty nasty so about 6pm I would get off the river for the day. This allowed my battery to top off with the 2-4 hours if light left in the day.

Sunking says it can't be done. Well with this system yes it can be and has been done. I would have explained my system earlier but I don't want to argue with sunking. I want to learn from sunking.

Anyone is welcome to ask any questions they my want.....

TomCat58

[axis11]

Is your current battery on its way out? If its still accepting a good amount of charge, I would still use it until it dies. And then get a new set of batteries. With 260 watts of panels and a 100 watt motor, and sailing only during the day, maybe you can get away with a smaller battery. Less weight=faster. The downside is your reserve capacity to sail on less productive hours and night will be reduced and you need to drop anchor earlier than usual. Im not sure how much distance covered you would loose or gain from reducing battery weight but with shorter sailing time, compared to longer sailing time with the heavy batteries.

[TomCat58]

haha, 11 volts to me means dead battery. I rarely let my landlocked bank get less than 24.4V (that's 12.2 for your 12v system). Different use altogether tho as I don't draw high amps like a trolling motor. Doubt that charger reading makes any sense.. let that battery sit there a while without charging and voltage will climb when the battery balances out inside. (Sunking is better at describing battery chemistry than I.)

Most cheaper charge controllers do have a very small amp value on their load terminals, but Morningstar with better design/construction will let you draw more. I'm a Morningstar fan myself and have read the manuals. Your battery selector switch seems redundant, the only advantage you get is not having to watch your voltage. "Then I would slowly and gentle return to the land at about a 2-3 amp draw which on calm water and little wind is about 1 mph." Designing a boat for ideal conditions can get you in trouble, wind, tide and current do not always agree with where you need to go.
oh yeah... back to the battery... single string is always better than parallel and a pair of 6V would be better. If you have a need to spend money AGMs would eliminate cell checks and give you a faster charge time with a bigger charger. Concorde SunXtenders good choice. Read the info at Trojan , Concorde , and others to decide what suits your needs. Use the 5-8Ah capacity rating which applies to your use better than 20-24 hour rate. The knowledge is out there. It takes time to research. You can do it yourself or listen to Sunking's (his name should be BatteryKing) excellent advice.

Thank you FloridaSun for your reply and information. I need to now do some reading and understand better what you folks have shared with me. I know sunking is very knowledgeable but he could come across in a better sociable manner. Everyone is on a different level of knowledge and its not productive to be rude when a newbee post a question.

I will do my home work now and get back to you good folks soon

TomCat58

[FloridaSun]

FloridaSun, I am a rookie on electricity but am learning a little everyday. " How on earth did I figure a 20% discharge" ? I simple hooked up my 120 volt battery charger right after I experienced a LVD low voltage disconnect from my Solar Controller. My battery charger has a led that tells me voltage or with the flick of a switch the percentage of charge in the battery (80%) it might not be real accurate but I am hoping close enough. My battery charger: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sunking goes crazy when I say this BUT ! Sunking tells me NOT to hook the trolling motor to the load and connect ONLY straight to the Battery. But that is not what Morningstar tells me. By running through the Load I can read the information on the controller meter 1. my battery volts 2. my amps coming from the solar panels. 3. my amps being consumed by my trolling motor. The can be seen in the video I posted here the panels are generating 9 amps and the trolling motor consuming 8 amps. SO I then know I am running with solar panels only while possible still charging the battery with the extra 1 amp....... The controller: PS-30M http://www.morningstarcorp.com/en/su...m?Name=ProStar

Well after talking with Morningstar tech's I was told what I am doing is OK IF I installed a diode in the trolling motor so I would NOT get any spikes back to the controller. I also never use the load connections to run the trolling motor over 14 amps draw. The controller has a 30amp "load" rating.

Now as far as having to row back to shore. I have taken this canoe out on lakes and rivers all over this area including 100miles the 1200 mile long Columbia river. I am never more the 2-3 miles from shore. I would guess 35 to 40 days I had it in the water so far. From a few hours to 10 hours per day. When the LVD shuts down I have a backup. Its a simple battery selector switch. Number 1 is power from the load on the controller and number 2 is wired strait to the battery. This switch allows me to not have to row. I simple switch the battery switch to number 2 and I am now drawing power straight from the battery. Then I would slowly and gentle return to the land at about a 2-3 amp draw which on calm water and little wind is about 1 mph.

So back to the batteries question. I have maxed out with 2 solar panels, I have now a MPPT morningstar controller with 97% efficiency and a 15 amp LOAD limit and the choice to read my amps volts etc. OR switch to straight battery. Now seek the knowledge and products (Batteries) to see if its worth changing my walmart deep cycle batteries.

haha, 11 volts to me means dead battery. I rarely let my landlocked bank get less than 24.4V (that's 12.2 for your 12v system). Different use altogether tho as I don't draw high amps like a trolling motor. Doubt that charger reading makes any sense.. let that battery sit there a while without charging and voltage will climb when the battery balances out inside. (Sunking is better at describing battery chemistry than I.)

Most cheaper charge controllers do have a very small amp value on their load terminals, but Morningstar with better design/construction will let you draw more. I'm a Morningstar fan myself and have read the manuals. Your battery selector switch seems redundant, the only advantage you get is not having to watch your voltage. "Then I would slowly and gentle return to the land at about a 2-3 amp draw which on calm water and little wind is about 1 mph." Designing a boat for ideal conditions can get you in trouble, wind, tide and current do not always agree with where you need to go.
oh yeah... back to the battery... single string is always better than parallel and a pair of 6V would be better. If you have a need to spend money AGMs would eliminate cell checks and give you a faster charge time with a bigger charger. Concorde SunXtenders good choice. Read the info at Trojan , Concorde , and others to decide what suits your needs. Use the 5-8Ah capacity rating which applies to your use better than 20-24 hour rate. The knowledge is out there. It takes time to research. You can do it yourself or listen to Sunking's (his name should be BatteryKing) excellent advice.

[inetdog]

I read through the Peukert Law article you posted above. So tell me if this website with its excel spread sheet calculations testing a trolling motor and battery a good example of Peukert Law ?

It is a perfect application of Peukert's law, just in a simplified form where N is empirically determined by the battery specifications at two discharge rates for a particular battery model rather than being predicted for a particular battery chemistry and construction.
It is worth noting, as described in the smartgauge site, that for general applicability one of the two measurement points should be the C₂₀ capacity.

The values which are shown in the example output are a good illustration of how important the Peukert effect can be in a typical trolling motor application.
And it shows that once you are into the range where the effect is strong, a charge meter which just counts up the current used will not be a perfect indication of remaining battery capacity.

Using the values in the table, you can see how doubling the battery size (cutting the current to capacity ratio in half) will give you extended run time for exactly the same amount of charging input into the battery.

This will NOT be directly applicable to the extent that your panels are providing current directly to the motor as well as charging the batteries.

[TomCat58]

Putting two 6 volt 200AH (the H is important)

But having twice the AH will give you better performance from the motor and more efficient charge utilization because Peukert's law would not be reducing the energy you can take from a fully charged battery because of the high discharge rate. So for the same amount of charge from the panels, you will get more energy to use for the motor with the larger battery bank.

BTW, the other pages on the smargauge.co.uk site are very helpful and many are even oriented toward boats, just not canoes.

I read through the Peukert Law article you posted above. So tell me if this website with its excel spread sheet calculations testing a trolling motor and battery a good example of Peukert Law ? I plan to use the blank spread sheet he created and shared on his website to test my new controller and whatever batteries I end up with come spring time. Its 10 degrees out here today so not a good time to spend a few days testing right now LOL

By the way... "Thank you" for helping me improve my project and teaching me instead of criticizing and saying it can't be done. Sunking may be a wealth of information but his knowledge is no good to anyone if he has a "I know it all" "It won't work" attitude ......

Check out this website mike

http://tufox.com/hobie/TrollingPerformance.html

TomCat58

[TomCat58]

Read Sunking's sticky again...

http://www.solarpaneltalk.com/showthread.php?11906-Peukert-Law-Batteries-and-You

Pulling a 9amp load from your batteries? You do not have 228Ah available. That 228 figure is with a 1amp draw.

How on earth do you figure 11volts to be 20% discharged??

Would be useful to know your daily motor use along with your daily panel production, Wh. You might consider getting a few Turnigy power analyzers (wired to both sides of battery, power in and out) that would show you this info with their logging feature. Your batteries are fine, made for trolling motors, cheap, easy available. Put your money into knowing just how much juice you have available to determine when to pull that ark out of the water before you have to paddle all that weight ashore. Stay safe, breathe air not water.

FloridaSun, I am a rookie on electricity but am learning a little everyday. " How on earth did I figure a 20% discharge" ? I simple hooked up my 120 volt battery charger right after I experienced a LVD low voltage disconnect from my Solar Controller. My battery charger has a led that tells me voltage or with the flick of a switch the percentage of charge in the battery (80%) it might not be real accurate but I am hoping close enough. My battery charger: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Sunking goes crazy when I say this BUT ! Sunking tells me NOT to hook the trolling motor to the load and connect ONLY straight to the Battery. But that is not what Morningstar tells me. By running through the Load I can read the information on the controller meter 1. my battery volts 2. my amps coming from the solar panels. 3. my amps being consumed by my trolling motor. The can be seen in the video I posted here the panels are generating 9 amps and the trolling motor consuming 8 amps. SO I then know I am running with solar panels only while possible still charging the battery with the extra 1 amp....... The controller: PS-30M http://www.morningstarcorp.com/en/su...m?Name=ProStar

Well after talking with Morningstar tech's I was told what I am doing is OK IF I installed a diode in the trolling motor so I would NOT get any spikes back to the controller. I also never use the load connections to run the trolling motor over 14 amps draw. The controller has a 30amp "load" rating.

Now as far as having to row back to shore. I have taken this canoe out on lakes and rivers all over this area including 100miles the 1200 mile long Columbia river. I am never more the 2-3 miles from shore. I would guess 35 to 40 days I had it in the water so far. From a few hours to 10 hours per day. When the LVD shuts down I have a backup. Its a simple battery selector switch. Number 1 is power from the load on the controller and number 2 is wired strait to the battery. This switch allows me to not have to row. I simple switch the battery switch to number 2 and I am now drawing power straight from the battery. Then I would slowly and gentle return to the land at about a 2-3 amp draw which on calm water and little wind is about 1 mph.

So back to the batteries question. I have maxed out with 2 solar panels, I have now a MPPT morningstar controller with 97% efficiency and a 15 amp LOAD limit and the choice to read my amps volts etc. OR switch to straight battery. Now seek the knowledge and products (Batteries) to see if its worth changing my walmart deep cycle batteries.

[inetdog]

Thank you Mike, That would almost double my AH. I will open and read the links you posted. I am wondering the time it takes to charge my batteries v those 6 volt batteries would be twice as long or what ? Having twice the AH would be a big improvement improvement as long as it doesn't take "twice" as long to charge them back to a full charge.

This is the kind of answers I was hoping for when I posted this thread


I don't know much about volts and amps YET ! But am I correct that hooking to 6 volt batteries like these:

http://www.solar-electric.com/cr225am6vode.html?gclid=CLfLzdDVqLsCFcQ9Qgod0mAAOQ

In series to get 12 volts would still be 220 Amp's ?????? or am I doing the math wrong ???

TomCat58

Putting two 6 volt 200AH (the H is important) batteries in series will give you 12 volts at 200 amp hours, yes. You would have a total of 6 cells for which to check SG and add water.
Two 12V 100AH batteries in parallel will also give you 12 volts at 200 amp hours, but will be harder to maintain and will probably not last as long. You would have a total of 12 cells to check and maintain.
One 12V 200AH battery would be twice as heavy a unit to move around and would cost more if you find one because it would be a specialty battery.

It is true that if you use twice as much energy from the battery bank before recharging, it will take up to twice as long to recharge. The Bulk stage will be twice as long, but the Absorb stage, where you are not currently using the full output of the panels, may not take much longer than now. But it will be your choice as to whether you use that additional energy (in an emergency, for example, or when it gets dark before you find a good campsite) or do not use it. It is a cushion.

But having twice the AH will give you better performance from the motor and more efficient charge utilization because Peukert's law would not be reducing the energy you can take from a fully charged battery because of the high discharge rate. So for the same amount of charge from the panels, you will get more energy to use for the motor with the larger battery bank.

BTW, the other pages on the smargauge.co.uk site are very helpful and many are even oriented toward boats, just not canoes.

[Wy_White_Wolf]

deleted

[TomCat58]

If I was doing it, I'd use 2) 6V 200ah class batteries, wired in series to make a 12V bank. But no more than 200ah @ 12V. That's all the battery you want to kill at a time. I'd buy the 6v 200ah batteries that cost about $100 ea. They will be flooded batteries, and you will need to check/add distilled water monthly.

Thank you Mike, That would almost double my AH. I will open and read the links you posted. I am wondering the time it takes to charge my batteries v those 6 volt batteries would be twice as long or what ? Having twice the AH would be a big improvement improvement as long as it doesn't take "twice" as long to charge them back to a full charge.

This is the kind of answers I was hoping for when I posted this thread


I don't know much about volts and amps YET ! But am I correct that hooking to 6 volt batteries like these:

http://www.solar-electric.com/cr225am6vode.html?gclid=CLfLzdDVqLsCFcQ9Qgod0mAAOQ

In series to get 12 volts would still be 220 Amp's ?????? or am I doing the math wrong ???

TomCat58

[FloridaSun]

(2) 12 volt panels with a total of 260 watts and rated at 7amps each. So 14 amps total @12 volts

(2) Walmart MAX 96 series 29 deep cycle batteries connected in parallel 114 amp hours @ 1AH. each. So a total 228 AH @1AH total. Correct ?

(1) Morningstar sunsaver 15amp MPPT controller. The controller doe s low voltage disconnect at 11 volts and I have that figured out that to be a 20% discharge with 80% of the charge remaining. So that is my targeted max discharge.

The load I will consume is with a small trolling motor at lets say 6 to 9 amps draw continues.

My question is Batteries ? I went with the walmart deep cycle because of cost but now I would like to know if different batteries would be better for my system ?

PS The amount of solar panels will remain the same. The charge controller will remain the same also. The only improvement easily made is with the battery types.

TomCat58

Read Sunking's sticky again...

http://www.solarpaneltalk.com/showthread.php?11906-Peukert-Law-Batteries-and-You

Pulling a 9amp load from your batteries? You do not have 228Ah available. That 228 figure is with a 1amp draw.

How on earth do you figure 11volts to be 20% discharged??

Would be useful to know your daily motor use along with your daily panel production, Wh. You might consider getting a few Turnigy power analyzers (wired to both sides of battery, power in and out) that would show you this info with their logging feature. Your batteries are fine, made for trolling motors, cheap, easy available. Put your money into knowing just how much juice you have available to determine when to pull that ark out of the water before you have to paddle all that weight ashore. Stay safe, breathe air not water.

[Mike90250]

If I was doing it, I'd use 2) 6V 200ah class batteries, wired in series to make a 12V bank. But no more than 200ah @ 12V. That's all the battery you want to kill at a time. I'd buy the 6v 200ah batteries that cost about $100 ea. They will be flooded batteries, and you will need to check/add distilled water monthly.

[TomCat58]

A video simi complete solar boat

This is my solar canoe project in the works and is no where complete. But for showing the solar canoe to Sunking it should work. Taken from Oct.15th through Oct. 10th 2013 Location starts just south of the Canadian border and ends just before Grand Coulee Dam on the Colombia River.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3wdUXNEFRI

TomCat58