serene – 3, part 18

fter lots of considerations, I made up my mind to implement the electrics – electronics system of this Serene – 3 kayak as simple as possible. There would be no built – in compass and nav lights. Only a set of six 18650 Li-ion battery cells charged from the solar panel, and a reed switch to activate the bilge pump. That would reduce the electrics wiring hassle to minimum, simplify the installation quite a lot. Of course, the compass still needs lighting to be used at night, and the nav light too.

Looking back on the electric, electronics part of Serene – 2, I’ve seen that I’d over – engineered quite a lot, things should be simpler. The compass and nav lights would now be a single hand – held torch, powered by rechargeable AA batteries, I would detail this “solution” in later posts. And the electrics components should be decoupled to facilitate repairing, upgrading. All the wiring runs inside plastic tubes (as additional protection) and can be pulled out of the hull for repair when needed.

So basically, the system composes mainly of Li-ion cells that would have 2 duties: power the bilge pump & the charger that would replenish some AA batteries. The AA batteries would be then used to power the Garmin and the light torch. Also in the waterproof electric box is the USB charger, which could be used for a variety of electronic devices. And I believe most if not all chargers could be modified to use either the 5V (USB) or the 12V (Li-ion) source, would try to check (prove) it later on.