Support & How-To
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OPE Support topics featured below:
- Why & how to calculate daily loads
- Solbian solar deck installation by Paul Cronin
- Solar panel and controller wiring by Paul Cronin
- Multi-meter 101
- Battery troubleshooting
- Panel troubleshooting
- Advanced Troubleshooting
- Lithionics BMS Network Configuration
- Lithium Installation Overview by Bruce & ABYC
Why & How to Calculate Daily Loads
The first step for assessing how to improve your energy storage and charging system is to figure out how much power you use per day & how much power you can generate from your various sources per day. This can be done in a number of ways. The easiest is if you have a battery monitor which tracks and logs all the amps in and out of your battery. In this case, simply read your battery monitor to get the desired information. Of course, much of the time, it is not that simple. In many cases it is necessary to identify and calculate what each individual load & charge source consumes or generates over the course of the day and add it all up. We have a few tools to help you do that. We have our online energy calculator which you can access here OceanPlanet Energy Calculator. If you prefer to work on it offline, we have a Load Calculation Spreadsheet that you can download. And, if you want to do the calculations the old fashioned way, we have a Load Calculation Worksheet you can download and print and then do the math yourself. For all of these methods you can use either observed values if you have them from your time out on the water or estimated values using the data sheets for the various components. Regardless of how you come up with the numbers, having a rough estimate of your power usage will help to determine what size battery bank you need and how much solar (or other charge sources) you need to cover your loads.
How-to videos by Paul Cronin Studios for Solbian solar panel deck installations and wiring
You can check out the Paul Cronin Studios blog here to see all episodes of “In the Boat Shop”.