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 Post subject: Nomad 12 Solar Panel
PostPosted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 4:12 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 09, 2012 1:17 pm
Posts: 72
Has anyone tried one of these to recharge the torquedo battery out on the water?


http://www.goalzero.com/shop/p/12/Nomad ... Panel/3:4/


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 Post subject: Re: Nomad 12 Solar Panel
PostPosted: Sat Aug 10, 2013 6:53 pm 
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Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3058
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
I thought the Torqeedo's ran on around 29 volts. I believe Torqeedo's solar charger puts out 44 volts. The unit your showing is only 12 volts (you can't transform DC voltage like you can AC).
What you can do though is take along the torqeedo AC charger ( in a dry box of course), then run the output from your 12 volt solar panel to feed a small inverter which in turn feeds the 110 AC for the torqeedo charger. It will all then work. But you will likely need about a 50 watt panel (or 3 of those units) to get enough current to operate the inverter (with no battery, but you will then likely need a regulator as well, to protect the inverter), or run thru a small AGM lead acid battery (like a motorcycle battery (the battery is kind of an automatic regulator)) to smooth out the deficit. This is just a guess but if you start out the day with a fully charged motorcycle battery, with good sun and your 13 watt unit feeding in constantly to the AGM battery, the inverter/charger combo should last about 5-6 hrs. But I highly recommend putting in either multiple 13 watt solar panel units, or a larger panel, then you can go all day, or as long as the sun shines plus 3-4hrs until the AGM battery goes dead.
I'm just guessing but my guess with just the AGM battery driving the inverter (no solar panel at all), a fully charged battery will last about 4 hrs.

Basically it would be doing the same job as the torqeedo solar charger does (charging the torqeedo 29 volt battery, and adding some supplemental power to the drive. but it is deficit power with too small a panel, this means the AGM battery will eventually go dead (more going out than what's coming in powerwise ).

It's kind of the long way around the horn, but should only cost a couple hundred bucks vs the Torqeedo solar panel which I think is around a thousand or some crazy big $$$ number. And better yet it will actually work better believe it or not, because it will continue working up to 4 hrs after the sun goes down (as the AGM battery drains to nothing).

Hope this helps you
Bob


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