Solar Panels

Hi,

Just bought a UniSolar SmartCharge FLX-11 (10.3 watt) solar panel and thought I'd pass along my observations in case anyone's interested...

It's a flexible 12v ~4 AH/day panel that I'm going to use to keep my batteries charged over the winter. It comes with a short stub of a cable with ring terminals and a connector to hook onto the battery, and the panel itself has about a 10' cable with a connector at the end. It's about 17"x21" and ~2 lbs.

Construction:

The backing material appears to be a heavy rubber/vinyl coated canvas. The corners have large stainless steel grommets, and the top coating is some kind of rugged clear flexible non-gloss plastic. They say it's perfectly ok to walk on it and I believe it.

It's got a 5 year warranty for 90% output of rated power.

First Impressions:

Seems well built. I didn't order a charge controller because given the size of our battery banks and the amount of actual sunlight per day around here during the winter, I highly doubt it could overcharge our batteries over the winter.

Sailnet seemed to have the best price on it.

Looking forward to not needing to drag my generator to the boat and stand around for a day anymore. I'll report back in the spring on my results if I remember.

Cheers!

Jeff

Hi,

I don't haven't taken any pics myself yet, but will after it's completely installed.

Sailnet Page:

http://www.sailnet.com/store/item.cfm?pid=12106&searchterm=%20UNSUSF-11

Uni-Solar Page:

http://www.uni-solar.com/PDF%20Files/FLX_seriesPrint.pdf

It's top surface is pretty slippery so I think It may only have snow on it for relatively short periods of time during the winter. (maybe a few days at most or less if it is angled more).

This year, I'm attaching two of the grommets to the ridge pole on my winter cover frame, and will tie some string to the lower two grommets and tie them off down lower to keep it in place. Since it's fairly steep there, I don't expect any long term blockage.

The panel is fairly shade tolerant, so even if there is some ice or a small amount of snow, covering all or part of it, I'd still expect a little current on a bright day.

They have a pretty cool looking 32 watt version that's the same width, but ~55" long that would attach nicely to the top of a bimini and supply a nice little boost for those on a mooring... Looks like it ought to be good for ~60+ ah/week.

We'll see... :)

-Jeff

Jeff,

The solar array looks like a great addition. While you have the solar array connected to the batteries, are they still connected to the power panel (and bilge pump) or are they isolated and unloaded?

It seems to me that this would be ideal for a boat in a private slip or on a mooring for the winter (and no electric utility connection), especially if you can still run the pump.

Ken

#937 - "WindSong”

Ken,

I think I'd hook them directly to the batteries (these solar panels have an internal fuse to protect against any malfunction in the panel which caused a short.

So, with this wiring approach, they'd supplement the batteries should anything draw off them. If you're keeping your boat on a mooring and use anything larger than ~10 watts in the summer, you'd probably want to add the charge controller which will disconnect the solar charger when the batteries are fully charged to prevent any overcharging and reconnect them if anything starts drawing off them.

-Jeff