A QUICK AND EASY WAY TO ADD A SOLAR POWERED LIGHTING SYSTEM

I mentioned awhile back how living on my boat with it's LED lights and Solar Panels inspired me to build the solar powered lighting system for my house.
Now a company called BIOLITE has come up with a compact solar lighting, charging and music system that is priced reasonably and could be used at home or on a boat.

It even has an FM radio and MP3 player built in. Here is an overview:



Looks like a quick and easy way to add a solar powered lighting system to a boat or home.

 Kit includes a 6 watt solar panel, screws, the control box, three individual string lights with individual switches, including one with a motion sensor.

• Lighting includes 3 over-head lights with their own switches: 2 100-lumen string lights and 1 motion sensor light.
• Control box includes 20-watt hour rechargeable battery to store solar energy, 2 USB device charging ports, digital display for feedback on power availability, and speaker control
• Enjoy the built-in FM radio and speaker or use the SD card reader to play your MP3 music

At $149 the BioLite SolarHome 620 Portable Off-Grid Solar Lighting System is at a minimum a great way to light up your evenings or if you already have solar it could provide the backup lighting you need for nights at anchor. While allowing your current system to deal with important functions like refrigeration. 

Hat Tip: Boat Bits

ANOTHER LOOK AT REGEN

I installed electric propulsion in BIANKA for several reasons. One was because my diesel engine died. Two because I spent a good amount trying to get it running again. I began looking at alternatives to having a diesel. Diesel works well where it is worked hard. On a sailboat where most people use the engine to primarily get into or out of the harbor is not the best way to use it. Installed on a trawler is a much better match. So diesels tend to rust out before they wear out or fail at some point when you least expect it. Hopefully in some location  where you can get help and parts.  Another thing about electric propulsion is the ability of it to regen i.e. recharge the battery bank when the boat reaches a certain speed under sail. I thought for the first few years  that my system was not capable of regen but, then one day I discovered that it did. Hybrid Marine has a nice video of how regen works.  The boat in question is a hybrid design and still has a diesel engine. Which would mean the engine might be used even less than in a normal engine setup. But, you still have all the maintenance issues involved with having a diesel installed. But, for those not quite ready to make the leap to a pure electric propulsion system it is an option. Anyway this video is a good primer on the regen aspects of electric propulsion. Hat tip Elektra Yachts:

HARVESTING THE MOTION OF THE OCEAN

Though it was a shortened season for me having worked all of July hundreds of miles from the boat. It still was an enjoyable one. I was also pleased at how little I needed to fire up the Honda Generator this season. Despite having added some new energy using items on board. Adding an 100 watts of Renogy Solar panels helped with the house bank and also the 48 volt Marine Air-X wind turbine also did it's share of adding energy to the propulsion bank. Which I also tapped into using a 48 volt Inverter and powered a  bread maker with it. The nice thing about having an electric boat is the number of ways one can capture and store energy easily for use at a later time. Something that is not easily done with fuel consuming conventional on board internal combustion engines. I'm always keeping an eye out for new ways to add more energy into the mix.   Boats even when at anchor or at a dock are still often at motion. Some research at Georgia Tech offers some interesting ideas on maybe harvesting some of that energy from this motion. Something to keep an eye on.

ASSUMPTIONS

So I started my first cruise of the season. It's late and I'm chomping at the bit to get out of the harbor. My first leg was a twenty five mile trip to Mattituck. Since I was in the hurry and plenty of water even with one tank dry I did not bother to stop at the dock for to refill it. My plan was to splurge and tie up at a marina dock at my destination where I could refill the water tanks, charge my electric propulsion and house bank etc...

The trip was mostly without wind. So I fired up the Honda 2000 generator and pretty much motored the whole way at around four knots  under electric propulsion along  with a favoring current. I was thinking maybe I should also charge the house bank when underway since I was using the generator as part of my poor man's hybrid propulsion. I can normally electro sail and charge my 12 volt house bank at the same time as long as the house bank is not really low. In which case it tends to trip the Honda's breaker. Nah, I thought I'll be at the dock soon enough and can charge to me hearts content. I arrived at Mattituck inlet at sunset and by the time I meandered up to the harbor it was dark. I tide up to an outside dock and went to plug in the power. But, my 30 Amp 3 prong marine plug would not fit. There was a cryptic warning not to try and connect a 30 amp plug into the 120/240 outlet. No doubt for some much bigger motor yacht to dock here. Turns out there was going to be no charging overnight as I had planned because I assumed the electrical outlets would be the same as my home marina. I was able to get things charged in the morning with the help of a dock hand and the fact that I had a 50 amp to 30 amp pigtail adapter on board which fit an outlet on the other side of the power post. Since the time need to charge cut into getting a favorable current to get around Plum Gut I decided to stay another night at the dock. It was another reminder never to assume too much until you actually reach your destination and to charge things up whenever you can.

WATTS GOING DOWN ON LAND AND SEA

I have mentioned that those of accustomed to living on boats may have an easier time than those who are only living on land after storms like Hurricane Sandy. That's because cruising on a boat like BIANKA involves getting away from land as much as possible. My boat is usually on a mooring or anchored off in some picturesque spot that pleases me. Very rarely will I tie up to a marina's dock. So one is well aware of how much power one can use and where it comes from. We sailors know it is not seemingly unlimited and always available at the flick of a switch. Millions of people who reside on land including the residents of lower Manhattan had a "reality bites" experience after Hurricane Sandy blew through the area. They might learn a thing or two from sailors like myself who have taken some of the technology that worked so well on board our boats and have transferred it sucessfully to land based structures. You can save quite a bit of power (watts), money  and have an automatic emergency back up system to illuminate the rooms in your house at the same time.  Like my whole house LED lighting system:

I have converted many of the lights on board BIANKA to energy efficient LED's from the masthead anchor light to the ones over the galley and cabin.   They worked so well in the boat I wondered how they would do in the house. So I went about building a simple system that would meet my needs. It's easy to do with off the shelf components the heart of which is a Morningstar SL-10L-12V SunLight 10 Amp Charge Controller LVD .

This unit does a number of things. 

1) It turns on up to 10 amps of 12 volt LED lights at dusk and off at dawn. It also has timed switched presets if you don't won't to have the lights on all night.  

2) It controls the charge to battery from the solar panel(s). It also has a jumper to select charge profiles for Flooded or Sealed batteries. 

3) It uses the output of the solar panels to sense when dusk begins and turns on the lights and also when dawn begins and turns them off. 

4) It has a low voltage disconnect it will disconnect the lights from the battery bank once the battery voltage drops below 11.8 volts to protect the battery bank until the solar panels once again are able to start charging the battery again.

Connections are simple:

Two terminals are for the solar panel connections.

The next two terminals are for the 12 volt battery

The last connections are for the wiring to the LED lights.

I use In-line AGC Fuse Holders on the output to LED lights and the battery to protect against a short circuit. It's for safety and I recommend it.

Two Siemens 12 volt 75 watt solar panels that were left over from a boat project that changed direction provide the charging for the batteries. I've mounted them on the south side of the house.

As you can see one has not yet tilted one of the panels for optimum sun exposure but, it's on the to do list though the system works fine as is anyway.  

 The batteries are two Sealed Lead Acid Battery (12V; 35 AH; UB12350) batteries connected in parallel. 

The only reason I am using two is because one arrived with the lug damaged and the other one was the replacement. So rather than just have one sitting around sulfating I put both of them to work on the LED house system.

I use two types of LED's in the system. One is a   Disc Type G4 Base Side Pin 6 SMD LED 10 - 30 Volt DC  unit. I like to use the warm white version.

It also has a buck regulator that keeps current regulated so that the LED junctions do not overheat and fail due to voltage or current fluctuations in the wiring. It's something you should look for in any LED's you use on board the boat or at the house as a slight variation in current or voltage can blow the LED electrical junctions destroying the LED.

The other LED light I use is the BEKA Light from BEBI Electronics. ( BLOG UPDATE: Bebi Electronics is no longer selling LED Lights )It was designed to be used on a boat as a cockpit anchor light. But, I use them in the house when I want to illuminate bigger rooms like the living room or dining area. I ordered mine with warm colored LED's facing downward and the bright white LED's for the outside  perimeter facing ones.  

 The downward facing LED's  provide a warm incandescent like look directed downward. While the bright white LED's bounce off the walls and illuminate the room with a bright indirect light.

Just about every room in my house is lit up by one of these two LED lights. They provide enough illumination so you can walk from room to room without ever having to turn on a light. Since they are charged by solar energy once the system is in place there are no additional costs and the rooms are lit from dusk to dawn. During Hurricane Sandy my neighbors wondered why I was the only one who seemed to have power when they saw my LED lights on. On the boat it's all about saving as much energy as possible by being as energy efficient as possible. On land this also has the added benefit of saving you money and also providing light when the electrical grid goes down as it did after Hurricane Sandy.  

GOOD TO KNOW: KINDLE AND GOPRO CAMERA CHARGING TIP

I was out on a charter in the Leeward Islands recently and bought along my new GoPro Hero camera. I also bought along a 12 volt USB adapter and the GoPro charger cable to charge it. But, when I got on board I found that the boat did not have any 12 volt cigarette sockets on board that were wired.  But I did have a 120 volt outlet in my cabin hooked up to the  boats inverter. So I did what any good sailor would do and looked around for something that I could adapt to charge the GoPro camera. I found just what I needed with my Kindle e-reader charging cable:

The Kindle comes with a small 120 volt to USB adapter plug with a removable cable. So I was able to plug the GoPro Hero camera cable into the Kindle adapter and charge via the boats 120 volt inverter. It's a good thing to know if you need to charge the GoPro camera and just have a 120 volt Kindle charger. It will serve a dual purpose charging both your Kindle and GoPro camera.
Speaking of the GoPro cameras nothing gets me looking forward to summer and the up coming sailing season than a video like this: