Hello,
I am trying to be as minimilist as possible when it comes to my sailboat but am still unceratin about how electricity works on yacts.
I know some people run their engine to recharge their batteries and others use solar panels or wind turbines etc.
What is the best option for running nothing but night lights, small echo sounder and simple handheld gps?
Any info on products, including gps and echo sounders would be appreciated.
I am looking for small, long battery life, low power use and the easiest to power method.
Thanks for ay info:)
A decent marine battery will do the job depending on how long you want to be out for. I use mine for fluro nav/cabin lights and a GPS/fishfinder unit probably about 15 hours worth of lights, 20 hours worth of fishfinder, probably more in the last month and have yet to recharge the battery. If I was to go on an extended trip, a decent 10w BP solar panel will probably be more then what is required for both yours and my own low power usage. Im not sure what type of battery it is, haven't had a decent look at it yet and probably wont till I need to charge it :). I cant imagine it would be something very flash.
Also I love my fishfinder/gps combo. It is a cuda eagle something that sells for about $400 or so.
Look up a company called Absorbed Power Batteries, they'll give you all the stuff you need for electrical on a small boat with no generation system.
We have a double solar panel on a post on the pushpit and one small 12 volt battery. It seems to be enough to run the lights and the Autohelm for a day or so, but we do plan to get another couple of batteries for longer trips....
Mick
Great, thanks a lot guys :)
I'll buy one of those batteries and search around for a panel.
Cheers
I don't know what class of boat you are sailing, but there is a fair bit of information on the subject you are inquiring about in my ebook "Cruising Essentials for TS and small boat skippers". It includes some advise on batteries, recharging your power source and keeping your consumption to a minimum.
You can download the ebook for less than five dollars from the ww.bookhabit.com. website. From their home page click on nonfiction and then adventuring (or sport). There is a free download of the "first chapter" which in this case is a compilation of a selection of pages including the contents pages. The "first chapter" is a bit fuzzy-edged due to the way it was compiled but the full download is razor sharp print quality.
Hope it will answer many of the questions you might have.
Cheers
Bob Couper
if it is a trailer boat u wont have a problem but if u keep the boat in the water listen up ....... u must ,must conect ur earth lead to a brass plat that is allways under the water ...... or anny thing metal /( props) with corode away like thier is no tomorro .... ur prop will only last bout 2 months
In the time before kids I use to live on a yacht (4 of us in fact) which had minimal electrics, Depth sounder, VHF radio compass/nav lights and interior lights. The only way to charge the 1 X 70A house battery was with solar panel. (solarX 40W). We had heaps of power as long as we didn't read all night or leave lights on when not needed. I would recommend getting a regulator (fairly cheap) so you don't boil your battery and an amp meter so you know that it really is charging your battery. Things like the shadow from a piece of rope or a towel draped careless across 2% of the solar panel can have a substantial effect. Ah the good old days, boozing I mean cruising the coral coast.
I'm guessing you are still refering to your redwitch mission, so seeing as you are on the budget budget another tack to consider is running LED lights off their own batteries (eg AA size ) a small AA battery charger and a solar panel to run it, charge up ashore or just use a bag of batteries. you can get LED nav lights that will draw under 0.2 amphrs so a couple of batteries will last nights. Of course you can run your hand held GPS of the same stash of batteries.
anyway just a thought I have had brewing after one to many times chasing wiring faults in small uncomfortable spaces.
