Tips and Advice
Our top tips and advice for a successful sail and green way of living.
The most important part of your power management system is the STORING of the accumulated energy. i.e the right battery and the right charging system for that battery.
BatteriesCommon to all batteries, to extend the life keep it charged. A battery is much more efficient when it's fully charged rather than discharged.
When designing your battery for your system, calculate your consumption and your peak draw. Install one battery of the right size - example, 2V cells of the right capacity. This is because batteries in parallel have inherent problems of discharging into each other, and also when charging depending on their internal resistances which changes over time, each battery in a parallel bank charges at a different rate. Therefore batteries in parallel tend not to last. Additionally battery problems become harder to detect.
Charging SystemsAlso important in your battery management system is to charge your battery at the right rate. In most lead-acid batteries this is 20% of amp per hour capacity.
Example, if your alternator is 60 Amps and is connected to a 600 Amp battery, within half an hour of charging it will have reduced the charge rate to about 22 Amps. After an hour it will be down to around 16 Amps. Not so good if there's a further 400 Amps to go! The solution is a booster system, such as the Sterling Universal Advanced Alternator Regulator - Standard engine alternators are not designed to be good battery chargers. The Sterling Universal Advanced Digital Alternator regulator converts any alternator from a constant voltage supply to the latest 4 step, constant current battery charger. This enhances the alternator's charge rate by at least 400%, it will compensate for voltage drops and charge the batteries much faster and increase the life of the batteries by reducing sulphate damage.
If your power system is on a boat or in a house you are going to have some 220V systems to supply. Naturally, you don't want the generator running the whole time. So you will need to convert your stored DC energy into AC energy. This is done with the help of an inverter, of which there are many available on the market. However, cheap inverters tend to be unprotected against voltage fluctuations and consumption peaks, and hence don't last long. In our experience, for a house a good quality inverter/charger is essential.
See our products pages for our recommended quality brands to make the most of these top tips and to avoid cheap and nasty product headaches!
