What Rich said.

 

My 25 has no AC system, and I use a Guest portable battery charger to
maintain the batteries, one of which is in a box in the forward end of each
cockpit locker. I hook up the portable charger to one of the batteries, turn
the 1-2-all switch to all, and plug the charger into a 50 ft 12 ga power
cord that has been modified to have a male 30 amp plug on one end instead of
the 15 amp male plug that came on the cord. Most of the 12 ga extension cord
and the power wire for the charger gets dropped into the locker, and the lid
gets closed. 19 years, no damage, no leaks.

 

The 35 watt Sunforce solar panel (bought on EBay, but identical to the
panels they sell at West Marine for over twice as much) that I use to charge
the 85 AH battery under the v-berth on Imzadi came with an 8 or 10 foot long
cable about the size of the 14-16 ga extension cords you have around the
house. On the end is a Cole Hersee polarized DC plug like this:
http://www.downwindmarine.com/Cole-Hersee-Universal-Trailer-Connector-2-Pole
-p-91001840.html . I just put the solar panel on the foredeck in front of
the hatch, drop the cable down, and then dog the hatch closed. The foam seal
on the hatch has more than enough "give" to accommodate the small size of
the power wire. I permanently wired the pigtail for the other end of the
connector to my forward battery after drilling a 3/16ths hole in the
bulkhead just below the step up into the v-berth. That way I just need to
plug the connectors together, and when the panel is in storage the pigtail
attached to the battery is out of sight and protected from damage.

 

The Sunforce panel also came with two other pigtails that have a Cole Hersee
connector on one end for connection to the panel. One has 6-8 feet of wire
and ends in a pair of clamps for battery terminals - for something like
trickle charging a car battery. The other pigtail ends in a male connector
for a cigarette lighter plug. I have a cigarette lighter plug wired to my
house bank and use it for stuff like charging cell phones and my Wi-Fi hot
spot. On occasion when at anchor I've laid the solar panel on the top of the
dodger, dropped the wire into the cabin, and plugged into the cigarette
lighter outlet. On a good day this arrangement only produced 8 or 10 amp
hours of power, so it would never be adequate for recharging my house bank.
But it does do a bang up job of powering the stereo and the various
instruments I tend to leave on like the GPS and the wind instrument.

 

Someday I have GOT to get around to putting 300-500 watts of solar panels on
the boat to be a source of power when cruising. Another project.

 

Rick Brass

 

From: CnC-List [mailto:cnc-list-boun...@cnc-list.com] On Behalf Of Rich
Knowles
Sent: Monday, January 13, 2014 4:31 PM
To: cnc-list Cnc-List
Subject: Re: Stus-List Solar panel wiring

 

Most wires up to about 1/4" in diameter can be run into a locker at some
point around its perimeter and then close the lid on it. 

 

Rich




 

On Jan 13, 2014, at 5:17 PM, David Knecht <davidakne...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

I bought one of these Blue Sea connectors in preparation, which I thought
would work:

<242266.jpg>

 

I have not looked at the lazarette, but how would you run the cables into
the lazarette without drilling holes, especially given the size of the MC4
connectors? Dave

 

 

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