Solar panels

[MH Hawker]

I am sure your right and on a boat its not ever going to be at what ever the max capacity is. Thats why I went with a 15 watt instead of a 5 watt to give it a bit more capacity. I am not trying to promote them or any thing like that. In fact I really wished I had a 15 amp charging system instead of a 4 it would make life a lot simpler and if I had 120 V on my slip I would add a maintainer. However ever their a lot of people in the same sort of circumstances on limited HP lakes restricted to low charging systems. This is just a alternative I am exploring.
This would not work for trolling motor battery's or any that get deeply drained but in my case it seams to be working to keep it topped off. I have used it hard the last 3 nights and it wasn't back to full charge by any means but by now I would of needed to of pulled the battery and brought it home to charge it, 3 nights of fishing would of dropped the charge down to 60 to 70 % and last night it was around 85 %.

When I looked at the regulator last night I was surprised, it has 3 lights on it to show the charging voltage, green is over voltage and it turns it off, yellow is charging, and red is to low and is also shut off, to my surprise it was on yellow at midnight, my guess is a street light on the dock behind the boat is throwing off enough light to keep it at a weak charge.

This is what I use to keep a eye on the battery.

[tuned]

More power to ya! (Pun intended)
I was just passing along some surprising info about the shading. I can't recall the numbers, but the website suggested that even 10% shading results in something like 25% reduction in output. Weird.
I am fortunate to have a big roof to install my panel on. Still haven't gotten that sucker going yet. I went out there a couple of days ago and forgot part of the mounts that I had built. I at least got the wiring and controller in, so it should be pretty easy next time I get there.

[MH Hawker]

I am sure your right, the little bit I have seen on the solar panel farms have a tracking mechanism to keep the panels focused to keep them at max. I wont be out to the boat for a few days so it may get back to full charge. The helm seat pedestal mount broke last night so today I am looking for one, boats its all ways some thing.

[redbeard]

MH Hawker what kind of black lite do you use?

[MH Hawker]

I got this exact one back around 1995 and have no idea how many hours its been used but at least a thousand, its been one tough light. It can be wired in for 12 volt or will run on 6 D cells I have used it both ways on a set of D cells you can get about 4 nights fishing out of it, On the boat I use 12 volt.

I made a mount out of PVC pipe that has one piece screwed on to the front gate and a second piece that just drops in to hold the light up above the fence, cant find the pictures right now though. But will get some .

http://www.cabelas.com/product/Blackeye ... 699867.uts

[redbeard]

Thanks James

[MH Hawker]

Knew I had a pic some place

[LisanJohn]

this is probably a stupid question, but ive never used a Black light for fishing. what exactly is it used for?

[MH Hawker]

No its not at all, At night you can use a lantern of some sort to try and see your lines and it works to a limited extent but it draws in a ton of bugs and you cant really see your lines all that well. A lot of the fishing lines are fluorescent and glow under a black light and you can see them extremely well and no bugs.

[LisanJohn]

wow I never thought of that. Awesome Idea. Thanks