good
morning YouTube it is just a glorious late May day here
on the Niagara River and I am aboard my 24-foot Larson Cabrio
pocket cruiser to give you part 2
of the application my solar power generator
project I recently completed. I'm standing on the bow of the boat and
looking over the bimini top and what you can see is that I have placed my 100 watt
Renogy flexible photo voltaic solar panel on top of the bimini.
It is simply bungee cord attached to four points on the bimini frame and it is quite
secure.
I was out yesterday travelling at about 25 knots and
that panel never moved so I'm quite confident that
whether I am at anchor, on the hook, or underway
that panel is going to be just fine up on top of the bimini.
Let's go aboard I'll show you how this has been attached to the solar
power generator that is down below in the
cabin.
welcome aboard....what
we have done is simply run the
cables from up top of the bimini where that
solar panel is located, down alongside
the framing and structure for the bimini top
cable runs along the helm here...and simply down to the floor
and then into the cabin where
you'll find we have placed the portable solar power generator
right now have it up on a pedestal just so it's easier for everyone to see but
eventually it will be down in this well that is
in the fore view here so that it is
out of the way and secure while we're underway. I did have the boat out yesterday
we were cruising along for about three hours at an average of
20 to 25 knots and as you might imagine with the weight of those batteries
this
portable solar power generator isn't going anyplace
very stable and secure inside the boat. You'll notice a couple upgrades I have
made since I
posted the last video. You'll notice on
both the left and the right sides of the case on the front
there are a couple more features. Basically what I have installed are
two more terminals for alternate distribution of
power. There are heavy-duty
remote battery terminals covered by the large red and black
covers there. In the event that the boat needed a jump start I could attach jumper
cables to this
generator and jump-start the boat very efficiently.
There's also a couple other other terminals with
screw-on knobs, again both positive and negative in the event that I'd like to
attach an even larger external
inverter. Right now, as you might recall, under the top there is a 400 watt
pure sine wave inverter and
at some point I may upgrade and simply carry along inside the cabin
a 1200 to 1600 watt inverter
for
occasions that require a little bit more electricity to be generated, AC power to be
generated.
Right now the portable solar power generator is charging and is showing
about 13.8 or 13.9
volts and it is currently charging
my netbook which is used for navigation purposes and you can see we're
drawing about .2 amps, its showing about 107 volts
and you can see again where
this is placed inside the cabin there is
my netbook just really being charged and
I think that this portable solar power generator application is gonna work out
exactly as I intended for my purposes
primarily on this pocket cruiser but also for camping purposes
as well. Thanks for taking a look and for those of you who are
considering building your own I wish the best for your projects and thanks for having a
look at mine.