Solar Powered 12V Battery Trickle Charger

[Mad Mart]

I saw this on the Maplins website:-

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?Mod ... s&doy=7m12

Looks good for £9.99, anyone got one?

[Hasbeen]

I had a unit like that on a tractor, I used only 5 or 6 times a year. Because the batteries were being kept fully charged, they lasted about 5 years each.
The charger lasted a little over 10 years.

[Purplebargeken]

Had one a few years ago for my jag which was famous for having a flat battery after a few days of non-use. Well recommended.

[SprintMWU773V]

My Dad made one from a solar panel he "found" at work to charge the caravan battery when we went away. Still works very well. Not much use at this time of year though as decent solar PV cells are very expensive. Often thought about rigging one up on the back of my house and trailing the lead to the garage, one day.

[xvivalve]

I have that exact model to keep the Lotus conditioned. Excellent for that, but no use whatsoever for charging from flat

[1300dolly]

It should keep a good battery topped up but i think they cannot be used on maintanence free or sealed batteries.

[SprintMWU773V]

They should be fine on a sealed battery as the charging current is quite small so there is less chance of gassing from the battery as they simply don't get hot enough under a trickle charge. Went to look at a car once to find it connected up to a lorry battery charger and I could actually hear the acid boiling at 10 paces and see the seller about the spark up a fag in the vicinity. I moved away quickly.

My Halfrauds battery charger will charge a battery from flat albeit quite slowly and when reached it switches to maintanence mode to keep it topped up. Had my Sprint battery for 2 years now keeping it disconnected when not being used and occasionally topped up with extra charge. It's holding about 13v now when fully charged though under load it's not great. Fortunately it has a 3 year warranty so i'll probably need another one next season but given it doesn't get used that often it's done pretty well.

[AdamF]

Might think about getting one of these for the leisure battery in my camper van...

Once I've fixed the van so it doesn't chuck all its oil out after 3 miles...