Hello all, have recently bought a 1988 houseboat whose owner had passed. Appears the po was gathering components to install a solar system and need a little help in trying to figure out his intentions so I might finish the install. Have been around the construction industry for 30yrs, I am just familiar enough with electrical configurations to be dangerous.
Live in southern Florida, plenty sunshine. Not much as far as power consumption per day - small fan, led tv, small fridge, occasional microwave or coffee pot and battery charger to keep the starter batteries topped of while docked away from shorepower. Most days its on shorepower, longest trip out of dock anticipated at 3 days. Night time power is the most desirable. Small tv, anchor light and a fan. Fridge is on a timer and doesn't run at night . There is a 5000 watt generator on board, just didn't want to run it at night for the small load that the pv might provide while on the river.
There are:
5 BP panels - SX3175N, 175w, 36.1v, 4.5a each.
4-12v 190ah agm sealed batteries
Tripp-Lite inverter MV2012UL - 2000 watt (12v input, 120v out)
I know I will need a mppt charge controller. I am not married to the inverter, would like to work with 24v or 48v, but that is a nice inverter to just toss aside.
Regarding the PV setup...series or parallel? Have read opinions for both. My impression is that the correct mppt controller would work either way, but opinions are all over the place.
If I series the batteries 2 banks of 2 or 1 bank of 4....are there charge controllers with inverter modules or must the inverter be a separate unit?
If these components don't work with each other, looks like craigslist or ebay may be getting some business....
Thanks so much...
Live in southern Florida, plenty sunshine. Not much as far as power consumption per day - small fan, led tv, small fridge, occasional microwave or coffee pot and battery charger to keep the starter batteries topped of while docked away from shorepower. Most days its on shorepower, longest trip out of dock anticipated at 3 days. Night time power is the most desirable. Small tv, anchor light and a fan. Fridge is on a timer and doesn't run at night . There is a 5000 watt generator on board, just didn't want to run it at night for the small load that the pv might provide while on the river.
There are:
5 BP panels - SX3175N, 175w, 36.1v, 4.5a each.
4-12v 190ah agm sealed batteries
Tripp-Lite inverter MV2012UL - 2000 watt (12v input, 120v out)
I know I will need a mppt charge controller. I am not married to the inverter, would like to work with 24v or 48v, but that is a nice inverter to just toss aside.
Regarding the PV setup...series or parallel? Have read opinions for both. My impression is that the correct mppt controller would work either way, but opinions are all over the place.
If I series the batteries 2 banks of 2 or 1 bank of 4....are there charge controllers with inverter modules or must the inverter be a separate unit?
If these components don't work with each other, looks like craigslist or ebay may be getting some business....
Thanks so much...
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