Solar Battery charger ?

[steve_s]

I was looking at solar panels to keep the battery on me motorbike toped up anybody use one or can recommend on that works ? I might want to up it to do the lighting in the garage as well if possible
Cheers
Steve

 

[frank horton]

we used 1 to charge the battery on the electric horse fence.........never a problem......
good idea to use a battery for LED lighting as well........

 

[Wendelspanswick]

I was looking at solar panels to keep the battery on me motorbike toped up anybody use one or can recommend on that works ? I might want to up it to do the lighting in the garage as well if possible
Cheers
Steve

I had one from Maplins to keep the battery charged on my son's MG BGT and it worked fine till the protection diode blew then it flattened the battery flatter than a flat thing that had been flattened by a steam roller!

 

[8ob]

I tried quite a large solar charger on a machine that sits for quite a long time between uses and that never worked, very underwhelming things IMHO.

Bob

 

[Alan Reynolds]

I used these to keep my Iveco van battery topped up. It copes with keeping the imobiliser, alarm and tracker from draining the battery but during the shortest coldest days of winter the battery will still discharge in just over a week.

So it should easily cope with a motorcycle battery. I didn't see the point of buying one of the 5 or 10 watt solar cells and I'm contemplating buying another 12v solar cell to cover the winter period.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fast-10A...082920?hash=item25f741ed68:g:3T4AAOSwl8NVXg~y

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/20W-12V-...m=183372614136&_trksid=p2045573.c100507.m3226

 

[james butler]

fitting an ammeter between the battery and solar charger will show you how much is going in.
i have found with mine it tops it up enough to prevent it going flat but i doubt it would be able to charge a flat battery or if it did would take far to long.
i got mine from halfords https://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs...productId=1222434&categoryId=255205&langId=-1
it was in a sale at the time so paid £25 iirc

 

[winchman]

I fitter 300w of panels and 200AH of batterys on my camper ts fantastic, I use dLED lighting in my garage but needanothe panel but cant find any cheap at the moment

 

[julianf]

I have one on the landrover, but that is part of the camper conversion anyhow - but its a stecca controller (i can look up the model, but i think theyre about £40) and then any panel.

This setup works. Battery is always fully charged. I think it even does a conditioning cycle, but im not certain.

 

[julianf]

This is (probably) what i have -

https://www.steca.com/index.php?Steca-PR-en


Mine has the screen, but it looks like you can get the one without the screen for under £40.

One thing to note - theyre rubbish for use with an alternator. Theyre dual voltage (12/24) auto sensing, and the charge from the alternator makes them think theyre on a damaged 24v system. There is no hard setting - its all software.

Eventually ill change it for somthing else, but, for what you want, although much more expensive than a panel with a diode, it is assured to do the job.