solar panel battery charger...

[greenz]

Does anyone use one of these? Bass pro has one, it's a trickle charger with a fullcharge shutoff. There's nineteen reviews, but one person says it's great awesome grand, the other said it's not what they expected. Problem with that is they don't provide follow ups. Were having our biannual canada trip here in 2-3 months, and i want to drag my new to me fishing boat up there with us. This boat, unlike our bigger boat, hasn't left me on the lake one time, but i don't want that one time to happen on this trip. So my batteries are wired seperately, and i know the rectifiers are sensitive on the mid 70's mercs, so i'm keeping them seperate, one for motor/running gear, other for the bow mount, which i plan on using alot up there. There's really no power near the lakes edge to hook up a battery charger to recharge the bowmount battery, and of course i want that battery to stay charged for that "oops". So i'm looking for alternatives to keep the batts charged. Any advice on alternative chargers, or this one inparticular would be great! Thanks!
http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/s...225000000_225007000?cmCat=CROSSSELL_THUMBNAIL

 

[Bondo]

Re: solar panel battery charger...

Ayuh,... Good batteries before ya start will save yer trip,...
A solar charger, Won't...

 

[H20Rat]

Re: solar panel battery charger...

You need to find out the specs, I'm guessing that panel is probably 12-15watts, so at best its the same as a 1 amp trickle charge. Solar panel chargers are good for maintaining, but if you want to actually recharge a battery in a reasonable amount of days, you are going to be spending $1000+ and have 10 square feet of panel.

 

[MTboatguy]

Re: solar panel battery charger...

In my younger days when I could afford a sports car, I had one like this mounted on the spoiler:

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/s...2_225000000_225007000?cmCat=CROSSSELL_PRODUCT

I can tell you, it will not charge a battery, in fact, I could run the battery down even with it hooked up if I sat too long listening to the stereo in the car, of course that was with several amps in addition to the head unit. The solar maintainers work great, but they just don't quite have enough surface area to actually charge a battery.

I have not tried this one, but it seems to get good reviews, it is a 15 watt charger:

http://www.harborfreight.com/15-watt-12-volt-solar-panel-96418.html

I do own one of these kits and they work like advertised:

http://www.harborfreight.com/45-watt-solar-panel-kit-90599.html

I would have no reason to believe that the smaller one would not work as advertised.

 

[Silvertip]

Re: solar panel battery charger...

This has been discussed to death and the answer is always the same. A solar panel with enough capacity (watts or amps) to actually "charge" rather just "maintain" one that is already charged would need to be the size of your boat. These small units are simply incapable of charging a discharged battery. Do a search on this forum using keywords "solar panel". If you don't know how, look at the very first sticky at the very top of this page. In short, invest in good batteries rather than an small solar panel.

 

[1980Coronado]

Re: solar panel battery charger...

You need to find out the specs, I'm guessing that panel is probably 12-15watts, so at best its the same as a 1 amp trickle charge. Solar panel chargers are good for maintaining, but if you want to actually recharge a battery in a reasonable amount of days, you are going to be spending $1000+ and have 10 square feet of panel.

By the size of that panel...it's 5 watts or less. I'm actually looking at buying one of the units they put on boat lifts with 12V motors. A 10 watt panel is 13.8" x 11.45" x 0.95" a 20 Watt panel is 26.85?x11.45?x. 0.95?....the one listed above is 6-1/2'' x 4-3/4'' x 1/2''. Just to give you a reference...10 Watt panel is 158 sq in and the one he's looking at is less than 31 sq in.

They recommend the 20 watt system for boats over 4000 lbs on lifts used more than 4 times/week, just to maintain the battery.

The bass shop system might keep your flashlight batteries charged!