Comments on: Solar Panel Car Battery Charger

By: patriotpa

patriotpa — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:34:00 +0000

Sounds like your teacher’s a nut. Tell her what she wants to hear to get through the class, but keep your own mind intact and stay away from the Kool-Aid.

By: Rex

Rex — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:59:38 +0000

And if the panel is permanently connected what will starting do to it, if anything? Normally a cigarette lighter socket turns off when the ignition is used.

By: Rex

Rex — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:57:34 +0000

I’m surprised no one has questioned the alternator power figures. An 85 amp alternator would be 1020 watts.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:50:20 +0000

Tracey, I’m from puerto rico, I own a jeep. On weekends the jeep club gets together and we tour the island, my problem is that I like to here music and I have a very good system in my jeep. When I play my music it really drains my batteries (2 each) in the jeep. My question is? will this solar pannel keep both of my batteries charged.
PS: Excuse the mis-spelled words, Inglish is my second language

Thansk
My e-mail is: papomasan@yahoo.com
please reply, I thank you in advance

By: enrgzrbny

enrgzrbny — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 17:50:22 +0000

I have a question I bought my solar power panel charger it has mounts for the window
do I [have to] mount it on the window why can’t I just lay it on the dash board so it will be less likely to break ?
my other question I don’t get where the alligator clips are supposed to be used the cord connected to the panel is not very long so how to get them placed on the battery under my hood?

the weather outside today is below zero I know that my battery is going to be pooped out hoping what ever advise I can get will help me hoping someone tells me something before I have to go to work tomorrow so I can manage this in a timely manner thanks

By: laz

laz — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 13:25:50 +0000

Um, if you had a solar charger hooked up to your car in your garage, how would it get sunlight to charge the battery?

By: Graham

Graham — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:05:00 +0000

I’ve just returned from a fortnight away from home. I had left one of these 12v solar chargers connected to my car battery [in situ] in the garage.

I have just gone to start the car and there is absolutely no charge in the battery at all. Completely dead! I wonder whether the terminals are marked incorrectly [positive+ and negative-]. If so, would this would drain the battery even more than the normally accepted loss?

Any experts out there to give us a bit of feedback/advice before I knacker yet another battery, please?

By: bob

bob — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 02:40:41 +0000

Get a fluke or some kind of volt meter you will see that these DO WORK and they do put out voltage, Im running some to 2 deep cycles and it charges enough to run my 70 gallon fish tank, minus the heater.

By: Nino

Nino — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 14:33:58 +0000

Tim, you’d have to check what kind of drain your bike has on it at rest. Either you have a greater drain than the charger put out, a defective charger, OR a battery that was on it’s way out. If the battery is dying (sulfated, damaged internally, etc) no charger will save it’s life.

By: Tim Holman

Tim Holman — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 20:08:19 +0000

Hmmm… I’ve attached a 1.5W solar panel to keep my motorbike battery charged up, and guess what? It’s run (almost) flat… !
Sunlight in the UK is pretty poor, but I’d have thought even the basic of trickles would have kept it up to notch.
I suspect the alarm drained it in the end – unfortunately no way of turning this off unless you’re a thief and know how to nick these things.
Leave it to the power companies to feed the grid with alternative energy – it’s far more efficient for them to do this on a large scale than for households to attempt to contribute by buying their own generators. Think of all the plastic (oil) waste that goes into making solar panels that don’t perform. Most household ones will take 10+ years to pay for themselves…

By: Kayla

Kayla — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:28:57 +0000

I am an eighth grader, and my Science teacher gave us a project that basically says we can’t use any of the fossil fuels to……I guess live. The teacher said that we had to use alternate energy sources to live our life. The sources I chose were: solar power, wind power, geothermal power, and biomass. I also had to “buy” a car that also ran on alternate energy sources; a Hybrid. I could not find any site, until I found this one, that would tell me what a solar powered charger was, how it worked, or how much it cost. So thx site for helping me get a good grade on my project!

By: Christine Sattler

Christine Sattler — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 18:35:44 +0000

My neighbor has come to charge his cell phone in my cigarette lighter for three days now. will this drain my car battery?

By: Ian Hemphill

Ian Hemphill — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:47:48 +0000

I have had an ICP Sunsei Solar 12 V 2 watt solar panel connected to my car battery for a few months. (Take note Gavster:) Under cloudy skies my panel produces 63mA at 13 volts dc, and its maximum output is claimed to be 137mA. At 63mA the panel puts approximately 5.5 amp hours of power into the battery weekly (given an average of 12.5 hours of daylight). This primarily offsets the constant 31mA drain that the car (alarm, etc.,..) puts on the battery while sitting. A car battery also loses power because of auto-discharge, which varies by temperature. These two losses are before you consider recharging the battery or compensating for accessories run from the cigarette lighter. A rough limit of unregulated solar charging for a lead acid battery is 2% of its capacity (which is amp hours, NOT cold cranking amps). 16 watts of solar panels (500 mA to 2 Amp output) would seem to be a prudent limit for a 100 amp hour battery. Anything more and you risk boiling the battery electrolyte away by overcharging on a bright sunny day. Run the calculations for yourself using output figures for panels (both max and realistic), what the normal drain is from the car sitting, and what your battery can take in terms of a constant overcharge. One word of warning: many cars have inactive cigarette lighter circuits when the ignition switch is off. No current will flow to the battery through the cigarette plug when this is the case. Some people use the OBD connection to feed power to the car. I wired my panel directly up to the battery and the panel sits on the rear deck in the rear window.

By: Gavster

Gavster — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 10:29:01 +0000

Unfortunately in the UK we don't get that much sunlight, or this would only good in the summer, alternatively this USB car charger would be a good bet as I can charge many different devices as it plugs into the car cigarette lighter socket USB Car Charger

By: Gas saving myth: Turn off your AC?

Gas saving myth: Turn off your AC? — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 06:43:53 +0000

[...] in cars today like GPS, DVD etc. It does take energy to recharge the battery. I am a big fan of recharging your battery with solar devices. I say have two batteries one for the engine and another for everything else. People could charge [...]

By: Gas saving myth: Turn off your AC? » Hybrid News

Gas saving myth: Turn off your AC? » Hybrid News — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:14:11 +0000

By: Gas saving myth: Turn off your AC? | Auto Blog News

Gas saving myth: Turn off your AC? | Auto Blog News — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 20:12:34 +0000

[...] cars nowadays like GPS, DVD etc. It does take energy to recharge the battery. I am a big fan of recharging your battery with solar devices. I say have two batteries one for the engine and another for everything else. folks could charge [...]

By: mr Pempi

mr Pempi — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:24:38 +0000

when driving, the car’s alternator does the charging of the battery!!
my unit works just fine and after 3 weeks i can get in and go !
i got crocodile clamps that can be connected directly to the battery and thus does not charge through the lighter socket. jon kennedy is spot on.

By: Cheeze

Cheeze — Thu, 24 May 2007 08:18:23 +0000

No this will not maintain the battery for those who crank car stereos and A/C. The output of this one is rated at 1.8 watts nominally and I would expect much lower in partial or indirect sunlight. By comparison the car’s alternator put out from 65 to 100 watts depending on what the manufacturer specified. This device as someone has mentioned is ONLY for someone who is expected to leave thier car for a long period of time without starting it. It will maintain the charge similar to a trickle charger. It can counteract very small drains put on, by say, an alarm system or keep a poor battery from completely going dead. It will NOT charge a dead battery. If you are having battery problems then you should get a new one, not spend half of the money on this then curse it when you are left stranded.

By: Philip Yong

Philip Yong — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 09:55:09 +0000

I’m country Malaysia, how can I buy this product? I am very interesting on it. Please reply.