Solar Panel for trolling motor.

[TinyTiffin]

I just picked up a Blue Planet 1.8 Watt solar panel at canadian tire on sale for $12 (how can you go wrong) When i go camping i spend a long time out on the lake, a good 8 hours, primarily using my trolling motor to fish. So my question is has anyone here used a solar panel to help maintain their trolling motor battery (or audio equipment etc) While using it out on the lake. Im aware that these panels dont produce a lot of power and are just maintainers not chargers. But when your on the lake for 8 hours i would imagine It would at least help to get another couple hours out of my trolling motor Battery. Is it safe to have it on the battery while using the trolling motor?
So if anyone has done this, let me know how it worked out for you!
Thanks in advance.

Tanner

 

[Don S]

Re: Solar Panel for trolling motor.

It will not charge your battery. Even a noticeable amount. AT best it will keep a good unused battery topped off.

It will take that panel with perfect sunlight about 2 hours to recharge your battery back up after using the trolling motor for one second.

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: Solar Panel for trolling motor.

You would need a panel about the size of a football field.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: Solar Panel for trolling motor.

Consider this. Your trolling motor draws about 45 AMPS in on hour. That is roughly 500 WATTS. Now I ask you - do you really think adding 13 watts from this panel in 8 hours is going to extend run time enough to notice?

 

[Rancherlee]

Re: Solar Panel for trolling motor.

1.8w is enough to maintain, you need at least 5w per battery to charge them. I have a 15w panel and it does a pretty good job at recharging my batteries over a 1 week period if I ran them down to ~50%. My grandpa has 60w worth of panels on the dock that will provide a good 5 amp charge, but 5 amps still means 3 days of sunlight to full charge a single dead deep cycle.