Quote:
Originally Posted by cube
How many watts does your solar panel put out?
How many watts does your trolling motor draw?
in most cases you will find that solar panels of today are not worth the hassel unless you have a lot of space toput them.
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As an example
Minn Kota Maxxum 55 lb thrust has a 50 amp draw at full
The Coleman 7.5 W folding solar panel from Canadian Tire put out no more than 0.625 amps per hour.
So if you look at optimal conditions full afternoon sun directly over head, no clouds, never in the shade, perfectly clean etc etc. you can expect to get at most 4.375 amps (52.5 watts)
4.375amps/ 50 amp draw/hr= 0.0875 hrs X 60 min/hr= 5.25 min
So charging for
7 hours under ideal conditions will get you an additional 5 min max of run time (at full).
( I am not an electrical guy and someone else can certainly do these calculation better than I can but I'm pretty sure you do not get meaningful run time increases until you put up some much larger solar panels)