help with solar charger for 12v battery.

[Bigleo18]

I would like to put a solar charger on my cart for my 12v aux. battery and have it stay hooked up and have it charge when needed. Do they make them that will check the battery volts and charge it and then turn it off also what will I need to buy and how did you hook yours up thanks.

[sapperxl]

If you size the solar panel right taking into consideration self discharge rates and use you can get away without a charge controller. You'd still need to hook it up to a regular wall charger once in awhile to keep the battery from getting sulfate on the plates. If you use a larger panel you need a solar charge controller, but I'd still advise hooking up to a bigger charger or a BatteryMinder or something similar once in awhile to keep the battery from getting sulfate on the plates unless your panel can supply close to 10% of the aH rating. They also make two different kinds of charge controllers PWM and MPPT. I'd advise a PWM for that application, they are cheaper then the MPPT also.

[Jd62]

Hey i got another question, if i put a 12 volt deep cycle with a good solar charger, did the battery will be strong enought to keep my light on for 3-4 hour a day

[scottyb]

I dunno about 3-4 hours you would have to know the draw and the charging rate and do the math.... based upon peak hours of sunlight etc.

I use a smallish HF solar panel on the tractor BIG 12 battery. It puts out about .5 amps (17v) And I can leave it on all week and have a good battery charge to use on the weekend. I rigged it up to plug into a cigar lighter.

[scottyb]

About 6 months ago somebody brought a sale to our attention and I bought the 15 watt 12v solar battery charge system from Northern. Recently I notice the charger has stopped working and after messing with it - I see power coming in from the panel but no life in the charger - Anybody had a similar experience?

[Gregorio]

I used this http://www.solar-electric.com/stso66ampsoc.html on my Cat D6 bulldozer before I had electricity at the shed. It worked great most of the year. However, the self discharge rate of four 8D batteries in a series/parallel configuration was sometimes more than the 150w panel could keep up with in the winter.