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Solar battery chargers - complete waste of time/money?

Marcg99

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3 Jul 2014
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Much as I think I know the answer to this, looking for some alternative suggestions potentially.

I'm not using my car enough so keeping getting a flat battery. I can't easily connect it to a trickle charger or similar as I don't have a driveway (shocking I know!) so was hoping that my original comment may be proved wrong and someone can suggest a decent solar charging option or perhaps some other vaguely viable alternative?

Thanks in advance
 
Drive the car more?

Solar charger's aren't great from my experience of using them, ok during the summer, but during the rest of the year the car will often be draining the battery faster than the solar charger can replenish it.

But if you have no other way of keeping the battery topped up, then at a pinch it can work, but you will need a fairly large solar panel and even then you might find the battery going flat over the winter unless you disconnect the battery terminal or fit a battery isolator switch to stop the car draining it and to give the solar charger a better chance of keeping it charged.

The other option maybe to fit a a AGM battery or leisure/deep cycle or traction type battery, as they seem to last longer than a normal starting battery when you have a constant drain like the alarm system on them, plus if they do get discharge they are more likely to still be able to at least start the car and are less susceptible to being permanently damaged by being heavily discharged
 
I had a small one and it was a complete waste of time. I now use a CTEK on an extension lead every week if I am not driving the car.

MC
 
I have the same problem, except worse because mine is kept in a lock up garage with power or sunlight.

Solution is to drive the car more!
You can go to a supermarket/gym/driving range/strip club further away. :thumb:
 
The small 4w ones aren't much use because they rarely put out 4w
There some larger units that will fit in the windscreen and fold away when not in use,
Buy the most powerful you can afford, try to position the car to face South and set the panels at 35*
Make sure they have overload protection built in,
Shade on any part of the panel will affect the whole panels performance
You can find 50w panels on eBay for around £60 with built in protection :thumb:
 
If anybody has had a good experience with any I would certainly be interested to hear about it.

MC
 
They are certainly a waste of time in Scotland - the sun only shines two days a year and todays the day :thumb:
 
the one I have on my dash board is excellent, even with very minimal sunlight, it plugs into the cigarette socket and the car is always at optimal charge even with alarm and camera always on.
look on ebay for the item number 131088393281
same as mine, and is spoty dog
 
Bought one off ebay for £15 and placed it on the dash and fed into fag lighter of my Audi that was parked up, alarmed and left in a outdoor car park for 6 months. On return car started on the button.

No issues for me :thumb:
 
I got a grunty one , can't remember the wattage but it was up there, approx 30cm square IIRC. Built a bracket at around 45 degrees, threw it on the garage roof and it keeps the battery topped up and conditioned with the additional controller. Absolutely no problems over this winter when I only drove her every 2-3weeks to keep the fluids moving, up to operating temp and that's it.

A very worthwhile purchase in my situation as the garage is away from any mains power, and she's a weekend toy only, and with family commitments I don't get to drive as much as I would like. Just make sure you get a high power panel and a controller to manage the charge. :thumb:
 

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