Solar panel wiring route help

[Krill]

Hi All,

i am looking to fit a solar panel to the coach roof in front of the spray hood, this is on a Bavaria 30 Cruiser, i am just looking for advice on best way to get the cables into the cabin, namely the control panel / under the starboard side bunk to the batteries

i cant see anything obvious in way of a deck penetration other than the mast which is a bit far away, i could go into the heads with it but i want to keep it out of sight and im lost for ideas...

directly below the panel installation is the companionway where i could route via the engine and bilges but i would see it on the ceiling... or can i remove the headlining panels and find a route back to the control panel this way??

the dilemma is where can i route it out of sight, any other installations and photos would be much appreciated.

[Salty]

I had my solar panel mounted on top of the hatch garage just forward of the spray hood. The cable from the panel was brought aft along the starboard side of the hatch garage, under the forward part of the spray hood to the area between the sloping side of the grp cabin top moulding on the starboard side of where the hatch slides, and the starboard side collection of rope clutches. There I fitted a side entered cable entry gland (I’ll get a photo of this next time onboard), and fed the cable from the panel through and into the space under the cabin moulding and from there down into the engine compartment.
A year or two earlier I’d fitted a raymarine multi display instrument at the cockpit end of that sloped area (see photo below), and which also enabled access to a space leading down into the engine compartment. That space was used to feed the cable from the solar panel down to the engine compartment and then on to the battery charging device and so the batteries. I know it sounds a bit complicated, but it enabled me to keep the leads from the solar panel out of sight at the time.
Since then I’ve had an “A” frame made and I’ve moved the panel to the “A” frame where I get better results from the solar panel, and the cable from the panel now enters through a cable gland in the boats transom.

[JEN-et-ROSS]

We have 2 NASA 20W panels on the coach roof in front of the sprayhood on a B38, but to take the cables to the base of the mast would have created a serious 'trip' hazard due to the distance.
 The only safe solution was to install a cable gland through the coach roof just in front of each panel so that only about 4 cm of cable is exposed.
 It was a simple matter to then drop the headlining to run the cables out of sight above it.
 This arrangement also reduced the length of the cable runs to a minimum to minimise any power loss.

 They are well worth installing as the batteries are always topped-up. We also installed a Rutland 913 wind genny.
 The assumption being that on the West coast of Scotland it's either: a) Sunny with little wind.
                                                                                                    b) Overcast/pouring and howling a 'hoolie'.
                                                                                                    c) any other permutation of the above.
     Good luck with the installation...........Bill

[Krill]

thanks,

am i right in assuming the side entry gland can be bolted to the deck and the hole through the deck will need no special treatment other than decent sealant?  or should i oversize the holes, fill with epoxy putty / resin re-drill then fit the gland?

i've not fitted anything to deck before and just dont want to bodge it.

@salty thats more likely where my panel will end up on the hatch garage and i was thinking of putting the side entry gland under the spray hood out the way

i havent taken the headlining off yet, common problem of trying to plan a job yet not on board but if i can get the cable into the circled area i assume the lights wiring will feed back down to the control panel somewhere accesible



what i dont understand is those mouldings (arrows) which arnt headlining if my entry hole is more central how to get it across them?

i suppose the closer to my blocks i get the further starboard i will be and should be somewhere above this panel if im lucky

[JEN-et-ROSS]

"am i right in assuming the side entry gland can be bolted to the deck and the hole through the deck will need no special treatment other than decent sealant? "

  We made our own side-entry glands out of small blocks of spare 'Delrin' and bolted them to the deck. The hole for the cable can be as small as possible and filled with sealant.
  Though, if we had had a hatch garage I would have placed the panels on that and led the cables in through the garage, but we don't, so on the coach roof they had to go..!!

[Kibo]

Not exactly the same but I fitted my panels on my bimini and ran the cables through the aft deck.

I used a proprietary cable gland from the chandlers, drilled the hole through the deck just large enough for the wires, ran the wires through the gland and then the hole in the deck. Before screwing the gland assembly to the deck fill below with decent sealant like 5200 or Sikaflex and screw down the gland to bed it on the sealant, wipe off any excess squeezed out from the base of the gland, the rubber collar in the gland is the primary seal once you do up the lock nut so not need to fill that with sealant from above.

Not leaked in 4 years and we are in the Caribbean so gets a lot of UV.

So I think you will be fine with glands and sealant.

Good luck with the routing of the cables.....

[artemis]

Hi There

I've 2 solar panels on a bavaria 34 on a stainless gantry frame. The wiring goes throu the deck at the back next to the name Artemis one is the SSB arial cable the other the solar panels and wine-vain cable it then runs inside the locker throu the heads under the sink into behind the main electrics, Under the chart table I have the HRDI box it goes there then a short run to the batteries under the std side lockers.

Rgds
Mike
Artemis

[Jeff Jones]

Kenneth, I have just complete installing 2 solar panels on my B34 2000

1- on the garage
1- on the coach roof of the fore cabin

On mine, I couldnt hide the PV cable inside the garage cover so used a cable gland into the coach roof.
Firstly I had to feed the cable into the hole in the direction of the nearest light fitting and fish it with a draw tape. it was less than 1000mm and I used a USB endoscope camera on my smart phone to find the the draw tape from inside.
it is fiddly but managed to do it on my own.

A couple of pointers,

The inner skin and coach roof are bonded together with big blobs (size of your fist) of resin random placed as spacers between the skins.
(on a bright day you can see the dark shadows)

My B34 has a solid inner roof skin, so I don't have soft panels that can be removed for access.

Your biggest problem is routing the cable from the roof area down to the batteries, there is very little gap down the sides were the windows are.
I found that if you fish the draw tape down the sides of the toilet or fore cable bulk head it will pop out at the toe rail - then it should be easy to go from there. Inside all the cupboards there are a small strip of plywood that can be removed to get to the underside of the tow rail and cleat bolts - this is where the cable will pop out.

I routed both of my solar panel cables to the foot of the mast (inside) and connected the cell protectors there (so that I can play around with series and parallel connections) and then round a single cable down to the underside of the chart table were the MPPT controller is mounted.

I didn't have chance to take any photos but will do next time.. and post later

I hope this helps.

[Krill]

Great help everyone, many thanks, ill update once i've tried fitting this w/e

[Krill]

was delayed in doing this for one of many reasons..

1st attempt - The right sized torx screwdriver bit was missing from my toolkit - so we went sailing
2nd attempt - The drill decided to switch itself on in the boot and drain its own battery - so we went sailing
3rd attempt - I left the cable in the car and was half way sailing to lymington (with the view to fitting in the evening) when i realised
4th attempt - it was sunny & windy so i sailed instead :O

Bit of a theme here ^^

but......for anyone else doing this, the easiest route i found (when i finally got round to it) was...

Hole through the deck under the spray hood - literally just behind the bottom part to the left of the companionway in between the lines led aft.

then cable can be grabbed via a access hole in the inner skin on the inside, there is one both sides so i assume this is part of the mould.

run cable between the "void" alongside the cabin light power cables, head towards the mast.

At the mast there is a capping bit of wood covering the copper rod for the earthing connection of the mast to the keel bolts, there is room here to poke your cable down, i managed to feed a draw wire through it without taking it off and pulled the cable through

Follow the route of the earthing rod underneath the floor - then i noticed the cabin sole had a gap of ~4mm covered by the side sofas storage compartments ( the sole slides under them slightly but not all the way) so thats where my cable went up into the storage box under the sofa.

Then its simple from there...

Solar panel now all in & working, completely hidden wiring