Solar battery charger

[coolguy147]

Any good solar battery chargers that are weatherproof?

Harborfreight?

EDIT: Just to maintain the battery. Not charge it.

 

[coolguy147]

Re: Solar battery charger

Anybody of good outdoor solar battery trickle chargers?

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: Solar battery charger

They don't really have enough out put to do much of any thing.

 

[coolguy147]

Re: Solar battery charger

They don't really have enough out put to do much of any thing.

really?

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: Solar battery charger

Depending on the battery it takes around 3 amps of out put capacity just to maintain a charge. the charge maintainers I have looked at are 3 to 5 amps, The solar ones that have that sort of capacity run 300.00 plus, although I haven't looked in a long time the prices may have dropped.

Not saying they wont work, but boat battery's are high amp capacity it will work ok on a lawn tractor or a ATV or a motor cycle and so on.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Solar battery charger

Depending on the battery it takes around 3 amps of out put capacity just to maintain a charge. the charge maintainers I have looked at are 3 to 5 amps, The solar ones that have that sort of capacity run 300.00 plus, although I haven't looked in a long time the prices may have dropped.

This is untrue in a couple of respects. There are an abundance of "Maintainers" on the market (Shumacher is just one) that has 1.5 amp units. They work well and I can attest to that as I've used them in everything from my boats to constructions trailers. It does not take 3 - 5 amps to "maintain" a fully charged battery. Gee whiz, many of the on-board chargers being sold today have 5 and 6 amp outputs per bank. Even the portable battery chargers for home use are 5 - 6 amp units. I have a 5 watt solar panel that is doing its job of maintaining the battery in my tractor at this moment. It works well and in the spring my tractor will fire off with no issue. There is also a 15 watt panel in a remote building that keeps a group 27 deep cycle battery topped off. That is just a bit over 1 amp. It came from Harbor Freight several years ago and was a about $35.00. Charging a battery is one thing and anything from 1.5 amps on up will do that. Maintaining a battery is quite another and it does not take 3 amps to do so. Charging is about the available current and the amount of time available. A 1.5 amp charger will take 10 times longer to charge a battery than a 15 amp charger but both will do the job.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Solar battery charger

Depending on the battery it takes around 3 amps of out put capacity just to maintain a charge.

If a battery is fully charged, likely to be less than 100mA depending on the temperature. If it is higher temp, a battery will self discharge faster and require more current.

If you are actually pumping 3A into a battery long term, the battery voltage would rise so high as to boil off all the electrolyte.

 

[beardeddone]

Re: Solar battery charger

I agree with Silvertip, I've used a Battery Tender plus on my motorcycle battery for years and it worked just fine, this last year I sold my motorcycle and in doing so kept the Battery Tender which only puts out about 1.5amps, when I bought my boat I needed a new battery for the motor, my choice as the one in there was old, so needed new battery for piece of mind, I fully charged the new battery with a regular charger until full then hooked up the Battery Tender and it has been working fine for it, so a solar panel that can produce at least 1 to 1.5 amps should work just fine and that is what most of those are made for areas that electricity for chargers isn't readily available..

Just make sure your batteries are fully charged before you hook up the solar panel as all your trying to do is maintain a charged battery and it won't charge during the nigh time hours or real cloudy conditions, so you should be fine.

Some states have been using solar panels for call boxes on the highways for years, California for one, mainly for the battery backup units.

Callbox - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Solar battery charger

so a solar panel that can produce at least 1 to 1.5 amps should work just fine

Doesn't need to be that big. Many vehicles shipped from overseas to the US have a small (less than 1A) solar panel suction cupped to the front window and plugged into a cigarette lighter. It is used to keep the battery topped off. As I mentioned before, you only need 100s of mA to keep a battery topped off.

I have one of these that came with a BMW that I use to keep a battery charged.

 

[coolguy147]

Re: Solar battery charger

I know for sure my neighbor never uses his pontoon. He had a battery charger on his battery and when we went to try to start (gummed carbs) it turned over perfectly fine. I might ask him where he got his.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Solar battery charger

iBoats has a number of solar panels from 100 mA and up.

solar panel in Boat Parts & Accessories For Your Boat - iboats

Even Lowes has a couple of nice panels. The 5 watt unit is about the same price as you find anywhere. Even a 15 watt that has fair charging ability would be in the $50 range.