SolarRat
Solar Addict
I will be slowly converting my pontoon canal cruiser boat to electric. I'm not ready to pull off the 50hp 4 stroke just yet but I found a good deal locally for some panels. I'm thinking of picking up 1120 watts worth (4x280w). I want to install the panels now while sourcing/building the new E-motor and lithium banks...I'm not in a rush so it may take 6 months or more.
The boat has a tiny 55 lb thrust bow mount trolling motor on it now that I mainly have as a backup in case the gas motor leaves me stranded. It is connected only to a single 12v 120ah FLA battery. The motor draws 50 amps at full speed (~2.5mph). I sometimes cruise the canals with the E-motor but range is obviously limited.
I'd like to temporarily be able to use the array to power the motor at full draw indefinitely as long as the sun is out. The problem is I don't want to charge the battery at any higher than ~15 amps. If I put 3 more batteries in parallel I could just use a 60 amp charge controller, but i don't want to waste money on LA batts I won't need later.
So, is there a simple and cheap way to allow the motor to draw a full 50 amps while the battery never sees more than 15 amps of charge? Is there a cheap controller that can do this, or a more expensive one that I will still be able to use after going to a 48v setup? Could I run the motor directly off a cheap 60 amp PWM controller (maybe using diodes to the batt so it always senses a battery, but can't charge it) , and have a second cheap 10 amp controller to keep the battery charged?
Thanks for any thoughts!
The boat has a tiny 55 lb thrust bow mount trolling motor on it now that I mainly have as a backup in case the gas motor leaves me stranded. It is connected only to a single 12v 120ah FLA battery. The motor draws 50 amps at full speed (~2.5mph). I sometimes cruise the canals with the E-motor but range is obviously limited.
I'd like to temporarily be able to use the array to power the motor at full draw indefinitely as long as the sun is out. The problem is I don't want to charge the battery at any higher than ~15 amps. If I put 3 more batteries in parallel I could just use a 60 amp charge controller, but i don't want to waste money on LA batts I won't need later.
So, is there a simple and cheap way to allow the motor to draw a full 50 amps while the battery never sees more than 15 amps of charge? Is there a cheap controller that can do this, or a more expensive one that I will still be able to use after going to a 48v setup? Could I run the motor directly off a cheap 60 amp PWM controller (maybe using diodes to the batt so it always senses a battery, but can't charge it) , and have a second cheap 10 amp controller to keep the battery charged?
Thanks for any thoughts!