ELECTRICAL

The electrical system on Mirador has been designed to allow us to live at anchor with no need to run a generator or the propulsion engine to recharge the batteries.  We have set at anchor for as long as 22 days with only solar power recharging the batteries.  Those panels can provide enough power during the middle of the day at 26° N to simultaneously run the water maker and the refrigerator while still applying a trickle charge to the house batteries.   Even during the middle of the winter at 23° N the house batteries are fully recharged by 2 PM each day.

Our bottom line goal in designing Mirador's electrical system was that we would never have to worry about using electricity. 

POWER SOURCES

- Four 120 Watt Kyocera solar panels - you can read all about these and see pictures at SolarPanels.
- Powerline "Silver Bullet" 135 amp alternator powered by the Yanmar propulsion engine

- Ferris towed generator - produces 10 amps at 6 knots and 15 amps at 7 knots

- Custom 125 amp alternator built from a DelcoRemy bus alternator chassis -

      This is the back up to the Silver Bullet.  The two alternators can be swapped in about five minutes. 

- Heart Freedom 20 Inverter/Battery Charger (new Feb 2004)

Batteries

-Six EastPenn 6 volt wet cells golf cart (645 amp hours at 12 volts) new in August '09

-West Marine Group-27 Gelcell starting battery

 The six golf cart batteries are the house bank and the Grp 27 is the 2nd bank.  All the power sources connect directly to the house bank.  the Grp-27 battery is managed by a Heart EchoCharger.  That device will send up to 15 amps to the Grp-27 battery if there is more than 13.2 volts available on the house batteries. 

Charge Controllers

- Trace C-40 solar controller manages the power from the Solar Panels

- Heart Incharge voltage regulator (alternator controller) manages the power from the alternator

- Mechanical voltage regulator - this is a backup to the Heart Incharge regulator.  It is mounted adjacent to the Incharge and the alternator control can be changed in about 30 seconds

Instrumentation

- Heart Link2000 battery monitor

- analog DC amperage and voltage meters

- analog AC amperage and voltage meters

-Trace C-40 remote display - mounted at Nav station to show the output from the solar panels and the load on the panels

Inverter

- Heart Freedom 20 Inverter/Battery Charger (new Feb 2004) 2kw inverter

- Heart 300 watt inverter

AC circuits

- Two independent 120 volt circuits with one outlet in guest cabin, one in aft head, four in main cabin, two in owners cabin, and one in forward head, one in engine room..

- All 120 volt circuits have GFI protection

- 30 Amp shore power connection

Cables

-Two 50' 30 amp shore power cables

-adapters for 50 and 20 amp service

- circuit testers

Control Panel

-35  DC circuit breakers

- 5 AC circuit breakers (5 unused AC locations on the control panel)

12 Volt Power Plugs

- in cockpit, at nav station, in forward part of main cabin