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TODAY I LEARNED

Solar needs servicing as well as everything else!!!!

AS we have been sliding into the Autumn months our solar output has been sagging a lot.

The other day I went down into the engine room and one by one turned off each panel, each panel has its own breaker on our boat. This way I was able to see what each individual panel was generating and the discrepancies got me out cleaning all the connections on each panel.

Now the interesting part. No connection showed any signs of corrosion or damage. But as I cleaned each with electrical contact cleaner and then put them back together using a little Dielectric Grease the output increased, panel by panel.

By the end of it I was generating double the Wattage that I had been and sunshine had not increased or decreased noticeably. Indeed the next day we jumped up considerably on our power generation and we have not needed the generator since.

The sea is a harsh environment. Clean and service those solar panels, breakers and MPPT’s on a yearly basis at least.

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