Solar System on a Sailboat

Question:

Hey PYS, I have found out about your company through your great youtube videos and thought I'd ask you a couple of questions: My girlfriend and I have recently bought a Kelly Peterson 44 sailboat, onboard there are: 3xGPL8D AGM Lifeline house batteries (765 Amp hours) from 2013/14, 2x Kyocera 144 Watt Solar Panels connected via aBlue sky solar boost 2000 E Charge controller.  We thought about upgrading our solar, but after seeing your Boat Show 2018 video I'm not sure if that would make sense, since we have just passed two weeks on the boat relying only on solar power, and the batteries seems to handle the loads pretty well. We'd like to upgrade a bit on electronics too, do you think we should just do that and see how the existing system handles that?  Thanks for any input.  - David & Patricia

Answer:

Hi David and Patricia, Do you have a battery monitor onboard, something like this: https://www.pysystems.ca/products/power/battery-monitor/.  You should find out how low in amp-hours you are bringing your batteries on a daily basis. Battery capacity and NOT battery voltage will tell you if you need to increase your solar array to increase your battery charging. - Jeff