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Sanity check a solar powered boat setup

limpkin

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Joined
Jun 30, 2024
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Location
Lausanne
Hello everyone!

Am I glad to have found this forum, as I wasn't able to find anyone to sanity check an electrical architecture for a boat a friend is renovating.
As you can see from the attached picture, the idea is to use solar panels to rely as little as possible on port AC power and on-board gas generator.
I'm located in Europe, hence the preference for victron (they're quite easy to find second hand too).
What is obviously missing from the attached diagram is the fuses, and possibly a monitoring system (cerbo gx?).

What do you think? Did I miss something? Is it ok to use the solar panels in 4s2p configuration?
Thanks :)
 

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Hi limpkin,
for the configuration of your solar panels you should take into account shading.
Especially a sail boat has usually a lot of shading due to the rig.
If you have multiple charge controllers you can minimize the effect of a shaded panel on the production of the other panels.
Eg. here is my configuration (24V system). Each group (in red) has its own solar charge controller:

1719900046580.png

2: in series
3: in series
4: 2 in series connected in parallel
 
Hi svfalkor,

Thanks a lot for your feedback, I really appreciate it!
I therefore updated the diagram for 2 separate strings (attached here). For fuses, what do you typically use? I saw the thread in the "up in smokes" sub-forum that seemed to indicate that a melting fuse was the cause of a house fire, and people recommending class T fuses.
The battery doesn't mention any fuse: https://tbnation.net/products/epropulsion-e-series-e163-lithium-iron-phosphate-battery-lifepo4
 

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  • architecture bateau english - photos.drawio(2).png
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