Solar powered trickle chargers

[muzikill]

Looks like a good thing for those with garages & no power or bikes under cover.

£30 on ebay ....

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_od...riser&_sacat=0

Same thing £13 maplin.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/solar-powere...charger-223251

Back to ebay £10

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Solar-Powe...item2ebc76db68

[rictus01]

had one for some time already

Looks intriguing. Are they any good, i.e comparable to an Optimate, etc?

[rictus01]

much depends on the rating of the unit, those little ones are normally 1.5w / 125mamp.

I got my unit to test about a year ago, it's a 5w / 350mAmp one, I purposely fitted a battery passed it's usable limit (as in it needed charging every few days), the unit helped hold a charge in the battery for week of non use and the bike started fine, I also flattened the battery on a test and (although batteries will recover a certain amount given time anyway); it started it in 2.5 hours.

so they work, it's not as good as a mains charger, but useful in the right circumstances.

Cheers Mark.

Hmmm, could be worth considering then. I'm looking at getting electric to my bike shed but may not be practical. Good to know there is an alternative.

[Nobbylad]

My bike had been off the road since late October, stood outside throughout the winter. Battery was fine last week when I started her up. Took a bit of starting in the end, however battery held up fine for the 6 or 7 goes it took to get going. Hadn't used a top up charger or anything.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Pricey12

Hmmm, could be worth considering then. I'm looking at getting electric to my bike shed but may not be practical. Good to know there is an alternative.

We have a 125 watts of solar on the boat charging 2 x 100 amp hour batteries. We can see 7.5 amps during a mid day summer so a good solar panel with a couple of batteries is certainly now a good alternative for a shed if you have a south facing roof. You need a PWM regulator between panels and batteries if the amps generated is more than 10% of the batteries total capacity or you risk boiling them dry.

From this set up we can run a slow cooker for 5 hours or a Dremel etc via a 12v > 240v converter. A bigger converter would run a mains power drill but I have a 12v Dewalt portable for that and yes it is charged up by solar. We can survive easily for a week on board without running the engine to charge the batteries during the summer. However, during the depths of the winter the amps can drop to 1.5 AH.

I do like solar, after the initial outlay its energy for nothing and solar panels on e bay are now less than 75p per watt, that's a 3rd of the price a couple of years ago because the Chinese have flooded the market to drive the Germans out of business.

Pete