I've been having some battery issues on my MacBook of late and it has me thinking quite a bit on things electrical aboard "So It Goes"...
When all is said and done, we have a very modest power use and if we were to add another hundred watts of solar we'd more than likely be in balance. The issue at hand is that finding space for that extra hundred watts of panel is some kind of problematic.
So I keep an eye out with the other boats that anchor near me looking for that cunning installation plan that brings on a Eureka moment. But, it is simply not happening...
Part of the problem is that most solar arrays on sailboats are of the "how-dumb-is-this" variety as they are rigidly mounted allowing only partial use of the panels' output except for an hour or two as they are simply not facing the sun at a happy-making angle. Other panel installations I see on a regular basis have panels under permanent shadows from booms, radars, and wind generators.
Luckily, for us, when the Honda gave up the ghost we had to go back into "solar mode" and orienting the panels to face the sun about three times a day which more than doubled the output and reminded us just how important pointing the panels at the sun actually is... We'd become lazy and forgotten just how many amps a day we were pissing away as a result.
So, the next project energy wise is doing a couple or orientable solar mounts based on the most excellent solar tracker design by James over at Atom Voyages.
Listening to Charles Brown (with a little help from Johnny and Shuggie Otis)
So it goes...
