Marine Solar - A Practical Engineering Guide (Paperback)

Paperback. Most marine solar installations underperform for reasons that have nothing to do with the panels. Shading from the rig, heat derate, undersized conductors, and a charge profile that quietly starves the battery bank - these are engineering problems, and Marine Solar gives you the engineering answers: a measured power budget, honest derates for real sailing conditions, and a nine-step installation walkthrough that ends in a system you actually understand. This is not a rooftop-solar book with boat photos stapled on. Every calculation, wire table, and mounting detail in this guide assumes what a boat actually does: it heels, it shades itself with its own rig, it gets hot, and it has no grid to fall back on. WHAT YOU'LL LEARNDaily power-budget worksheets, built circuit by circuitHonest array sizing with real-world derate factors - not laboratory numbersPWM vs. MPPT compared on the actual numbers, not marketing claimsLiFePO4, AGM, and flooded lead-acid battery banks: capacity, acceptance, and lifeWire gauge and voltage-drop tables for 12V and 24V systemsA fully illustrated nine-step installation walkthrough, in the order it must happenGalvanic corrosion, stray current, and lightning protectionCommissioning checklists and a fault tree that turns "the solar isn't working" into a diagnosis in twenty minutesFillable worksheets, reference tables, and a glossary - Appendices A through DTHREE REAL BUILDS, FULLY COSTEDEvery method in the book is applied to three complete, itemized systems - not toy examples: A 30 ft coastal cruiser on weekends and shore powerA 40 ft liveaboard running solar-primary, full timeA 46 ft ocean passagemaker with no shore power for monthsInstalled cost included for each. WHO THIS BOOK IS FOROwners doing their own refit who want to understand the system, not just install it - and who would rather size an array correctly the first time than troubleshoot it at anchor. ABOUT THE AUTHORDaniel Kestrel has spent fifteen seasons commissioning and repairing DC power systems on cruising sailboats. He writes for people who intend to do the work themselves - and who would rather understand a system than be sold one. Twenty-one chapters. Four appendices. One system that still works in ten years. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. …