Companion way (continued) and solar power

 As I mentioned in a earlier post I had to consider additional measures to prevent water draining into the cabin. I had a piece of pvc (?)  from an anti wearing mat for furniture. That neither welds nor glues very easy so after some fitting and testing I riveted to the hatch. The hatch now is complete rain resistant.

Solar Power

For the solar power it took a while before I found a flexible panel with the right size. Of course there are lots of small panels available but to have a reasonable output it became a quest for the biggest panel that fits on the companion way garage. And dat was not a standard size. Besides that lots of small panels were equiped with "so handy" usb connectors wich I - obviously - did not like very much because of the poor water resistancy.

The Charger/regulator was another aspect. I found a (very popular) model on the internet which could do the job considering the specs. Thes model apeared to be faulty and I had to replace it. My habit is always not to replace it with the same brand and model as it allready "proved" not to be completely reliable.

Below the faulty one where you can see the problem: output on the regulator 12.8 V and on the panel just a mere 7.8V ???

It now works very fine and charges a AGM battery of around 50AH. I mainly use this for the cabin lights, to charge my cell phone and tablet and for navigation lights.

As you can see in the pictures below the LED navigation lights creates i nice "christmas treee" 😀

The top light was a bit more work and creativity. I decided not to insert a cable into the mast during the build of the mast. I thought that would be possible afterwards as well. (which proved correct)

    

Yes the bulb is a LED too...

In the picture above you also see that I made some changes in the rigging as well. I plan to paint the top of the mast white in the winter.