Question:

First, I have studied others in the area who have solar for their boat dock electricity. The systems involve solar panels, a charge controller, a battery or batteries, an inverter, and traditional boat dock wiring, outlets, etc.

I made a portable 110 power source we have been using for a couple of years. It consists of a 12-volt deep cycle marine battery and a 2000 watt inverter on a 2-wheel cart. We have used it to power our boat lift, recharge boat batteries, and other remote uses. When the battery needs recharging I would drag it to the house and use an automotive battery charger.

Recently I got a Sunforce 60-watt solar recharging kit: four panels, mounting frame, charge controller and connecting wires. I set it up and connected it to our portable battery/inverter a couple days ago. So far I have used it to operate a battery charger for the boat's cranking battery and the onboard trolling battery charger.

Frankly, for a novice it is pretty slick.

What I would really like is for the system to do what grid electricity offers, mainly not have to worry about having everything going at the same time . . . dock lights, boat battery chargers, boat lift, etc.

So, I am looking for basic information on how to upgrade what I now have.

If I find that the battery powering the inverter drains too fast, what do I do to increase storage? Add another battery?

What about increasing charge rate, so that it keeps up or lessens recovery time?

Anxious to know, and TIA.

Answer:

If you mean how do I know our boat batttery(ies) is/are getting fully charged, for the cranking battery we don't, but for the trolling batteries, the onboard charger has indicator lights. Once it is fully charged, a green comes light on, and it has, and then the charger goes into a mode to just maintain the charge. I believe our present set up would be sufficient to do that, keep the trolling batteries charged, with perhaps an occasional charge on the cranking battery, and an occasional use of the boat lift and/or short duration use of the dock lights for off grid solar power system.

But, we have only had it up and running for a day now.

By implication, since the system is sufficient to fully charge 2 12-volt trolling batteries, I am assuming that it do about the same for the 1 12V Power inverter -volt cranking battery.

By how big is your current battery, assuming you are referring to the one powering the inverter, it is a standard deep-cycle marine battery, like the ones powering the trolling motor. I don't have the exact specs handy, but it is a premium battery from Bass Pro. It has done quite well the way we have been using it, giving us several operations of the boat lift before we have to recharge it.

The dock lights are standard 110 lights, four of them I believe.
- - - - - -
something I meant to say before. . . The inverter has 3 small cooling fans and a lighted meter to show how much charge there is in the battery powering it. It concerns me that the cooling fans and the lighted meter are always on/running when the inverter is turned on, and that is draining some from the battery. I had hoped the system could be always on, so that we don't have to switch it on every time we want electricity. But we can do that we have to.

The solar charge controller  kit is designed specifically for 12-volt batteries. It says the charge controller shuts off the charging, and a green light comes on, when the battery being charged reaches 14 volts. The meter on the inverter has never been higher than 13 volts regardless of how we charge that battery, so maybe it never gets to 14 regardless.

Earlier today I ran the onboard charger for the trolling batteries. The inverter meter started at 13 and got down to 12, close to where the power inverter shuts down. When the trolling batteries reached full charge, the inverter battery had increased to 12 1/2 volts, from the solar charge going into it. I'm gonna go back down and see where it's at now.