Solar powered trickle chargers.....

[SmokeEm]

Does anyone on here use them to any great effect?

 

As my OSF has to sit outside on drive between uses, I was wondering if those things I have seen on the Bay of E were any good?

 

At the minute, my battery is fine n dandy but I don't want to go to use it and it not start.

 

I have seen 2w & 4/5w ones for £15-20ish that plug onto battery or cig lighter.

 

 

 

Your experiences please?

[Vista]

I think you need to be quite careful with choosing the right one. An intelligent one to avoid overcharging the battery for instance.<br /><br />

[Posse]

I have never seen or herd of these but sounds a recipe disaster ?

[flyingbanana]

my dad has one and they trickle a little charge out of them,not many volts if i recall correctly.....i belive they have a auto cut off when the batt is charged ....never used one myself tho

[katana]

I would imagine the chances of over-charging a battery  with something that  puts out between 0.15A and 0.3A is pretty remote! A stereo memory and an alarm is going to draw more than that. Plus those figures, i'm guessing, are in ideal conditions - moderate sun and you could halve the figures?

[buzzard]

I have  used these for years with no problems . great when only using cars in good weather . lol . my mate had a mk 3 Cortina with a dynamo and helped loads with keeping the battery topped up . carnt see that it can over charge. not enough power .

[texr2000]

My understanding of them is that they arnt chargers at all, they put out little amps as they just power the things on the car that need power hence why they often dont even put out 1amp. most cars have around 0.2 amps drain....but this is modern stuff 

 

Truth is if your battery is good and there is no drain it shouldn't go flat. i keep battery DC when in garage.

 

I prefer the mains battery conditioners if u have access to mains power, they allow the battery to charge and discharge and keep it in a cycle, i have 3 in the garage one on mk1, 1 on Caterham, and 1 on the bike, only really uses them when know gonna be parked up for a long period of time and have it on a timer so only on a few hours aday.