I have just bought a solar powered trickle battery charger so I can keep my 2wd Saffs battery topped up. The garage I keep it in has no mains electricity so I am mounting it on the back of the roof and feeding the 4.0m long leads that it came with through a ventilation brick and onto my car.
It has quite a big collection panel and its fitted with a diode which stops it drawing out the battery charge and only lets a small charge in.
Anyone else got one and if so how do you find it?

 

Used to have one on my fishing boat and never had a flat battery even when left all winter 👍🏻

 

Sounds a great idea.

Worth putting in a drip loop so that if any water runs down the cable it drops off before it hits the car.

 

Hi mate I have one that I bought off eBay, can't remember the wattage but it was fairly high, I also have no electric in my garage but if I leave it a couple of weeks to a month then the battery is still dead but I have a very old sigma alarm and immobiliser that draws a lot when armed

 

Mate of mine used to use one, his old car had a small battery and it was always going flat as he rarely used it. It did a great job of keeping it topped up. Of course you get what you pay for, dome cheaper ones only produce power in good sunlight, others will work well just so long as it's daylight.

 

You need to keep a solar panel clean, even a 50 pence sat on one significantly drops the output.

 

Yup that covered area becomes a resistor

 

Investigating these, incidentally.

The thing is the cigarette lighter can not be used on the car I am wanting to use it on, so means me connecting under bonnet, so will probably find another source in the car to use, but the reviews I have read so far have been good.

Martin

 

With mine being inside a garage the only option is to have one fitted outside with leads coming in and connected to the battery.

 

On my trickle charger it came with a "Tamiya" plug but with the latching bit cut off, this is designed so that if you drive off with it connected it just disconnects with no danger, you could easily solder in a USB male and female to do the same thing and even have a proper female plug hidden under the car permanently...I have been thinking of doing this on my Pug

 

My Solar panel is now fitted at the back of the garage roof pointing so that it will get as much sun as possible. It is attached to a bracket which I had welded up and the leads come inside the garage roof and are clipped to the roof timbers and go down onto the battery in the car.
Hopefully it will keep the battery topped up now.