electrical cart before the horse
So I wanted a refrigerator on Bagatelle.I bought a ICE CO refrigerator. After which I discovered I didn't think well ahead of time. The refrigerator uses 8 amps. When the cool section is 37° and the freezer is 0°. If I let the refrigerator run for 4 hours without being connected to AC power, then the battery that it was on, a 65 amp hour battery, was down to less than half capacity. The motor when it's running puts out 6 amps. I have a trickle charger on the boat that keeps the batteries well charged while it's on the AC power. But once I leave AC power I need some way to keep the batteries up, so that I can run my refrigerator as well as the lights and the radio. I'm buying solar cells in order to keep the battery up while running the boat off the grid. The pilot house roof has room for a 50 watt solar cell on each side of the hatch. And I'm going to put another 100 watt solar cell on top of the Bimini removable when the Bimini is down. I will also a...