Any recommendations on a solar panel to maintain battery for my lift? I have a cheap harbor freight panel that can’t keep up. Battery is shot now. What are you guys using ? I don’t have power at my dock. I don’t have much to mount to. Pic for attention.
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https://www.lakelite.com/boat-lift-solar-charging-kits/
How far away is A/C power? May be cheaper to dig a ditch and run some underground power, in the long run.
I cooked a set of batteries 2 summers ago and started looking at RV forums and some of the off grid living forums for DC systems. Seems a charge controller really helps with battery life, I just got lazy and didn’t buy one yet but it’s on my list.
What type of batteries are you using? Should be a deep cycle type and I would try to get ones that are serviceable. The set of batteries I killed was due to the water level in the cells. I think they were getting overcharged and boiled off the water then their death was inevitable.
Works great I can run it all day and have no issues.
You should have a regulator on it or you’ll cook your battery
We ski 10.5 months of the year. So I found a 170 W BP used solar panel on FB for $50.
I added a cheap solar controller (20 amp,) and it keeps the battery charged year round.
The panel is mounted vertically on a post facing East. The panel is 70 feet away from the lift the wiring run in liquid tight conduit to the control box. We replaced the battery this spring after about 4 years. We pretty much use the lift 5 days a week so it is a very robust system and we are very pleased with the system.