Solar Powered Trickle Charge

[VViCKiD]

Hi All,

After replacing my batteries over the weekend, I figured I should probably put more effort into taking care of them and maintaining them.

I hear keeping them constantly charged via a trickle charge is best. Though my boat is parked on the street.

Was just hoping if some one can please explain how to trickle charge using solar panels ?

I hear that over-charging your batteries can also shorten their life. So how do we prevent this ?

Cheers

[fragmeister]

Hi WiCKID,

There is a lot of confusion over trickle chargers but it is certainly true that correctly used they will prolong the life of your battery.

There are two types ( Trickle Chargers and Float Chargers) and although they are not the same they are often referred to as the same thing.


Float chargers come with electronics that cycle the charger on and off when the battery is fully charged. This is a good alternative if you are going to have the charger connected to the battery for a long period.

Trickle Chargers are similar to float chargers in that they provide a slow, steady stream of low-current to charge the battery. Trickle chargers, however, do not automatically turn off when the battery is fully charged and can cause over charging. They are much cheaper than float chargers.

I did a bit of product research online and found this website. http://batterytender.com/products/solar.html

They are not local but you can buy online from ebay.

This looks the goods. It has a solar panel and it is regulated to make sure it doesn't over charge.

Remember that this is all about battery maintenance and increasing battery life. Float chargers will take an awful long time to charge a flat battery. The 15 watt job would take a 4 days of good sun to return a typical marine battery to full charge. Charging the battery is the job of your outboard's alternator and if you get a flat battery then I would advise using a conventional battery charger.

Hope this helps.

Jim

Edited May 7, 2014 by fragmeister

[chocolate]

Hello , I had a float charger on my boat ONCE , Never again . One night I had certain power outage / short did not know were it came from any way went in the boat on the weekend and the charger had blown up , It was strange I took it back to the technician at work and even he was blown away. This was pretty good charger. What I do now is just put the charger on for one whole day then start the motors as you should every 3 to 4 weeks that charges them up , I will never charge them like that again on the float charger. HOPE IT HELPS. I also have 3 batteries on the boat. The trickle charge is ok when your away from or on the water.

Edited May 7, 2014 by chocolate

[VViCKiD]

Thanks chocolate. Def. not going for that option then. That sounds nasty.

Thanks for the advice frag. Yeh that solar powered charging looks good.

But it's located in the states. I think I'll probably try and get a 20W solar charger and hook it up to a regulator that is connected to my digital VSR switch.

One more dumb question, would having a regulator connected to the VSR (without solar panels) drain the battery or anything ?

[fragmeister]

Hello , I had a float charger on my boat ONCE , Never again . One night I had certain power outage / short did not know were it came from any way went in the boat on the weekend and the charger had blown up , It was strange I took it back to the technician at work and even he was blown away. This was pretty good charger. What I do now is just put the charger on for one whole day then start the motors as you should every 3 to 4 weeks that charges them up , I will never charge them like that again on the float charger. HOPE IT HELPS. I also have 3 batteries on the boat. The trickle charge is ok when your away from or on the water.

I don't deny your experience but I suspect that you were unlucky.

I used to supply Weather Stations for remote locations had they had to be reliable. We always fitted Solar Panels with float chargers.

The only difference really between the two is that a Float charger is a regulated device and this is always best for an unattended charging system.

Cheers Jim

[fragmeister]

Thanks chocolate. Def. not going for that option then. That sounds nasty.

Thanks for the advice frag. Yeh that solar powered charging looks good.

But it's located in the states. I think I'll probably try and get a 20W solar charger and hook it up to a regulator that is connected to my digital VSR switch.

One more dumb question, would having a regulator connected to the VSR (without solar panels) drain the battery or anything ?

I strongly suggest you do your own research on this but I am an electrical engineer and in my opinion chocolate was just unlucky.

It is easy to be turned off a solution by a bad experience but that doesn't mean the product is not the best option.

If you are going to have an unattended charging system you are better off with a Float Charger.

As far as the VSR goes it draws a very very wall amount of current ( something in the order of 20 milliamps) so battery drain is not a consideration.

Yes the product I mentioned is a US product. I ordered one on Ebay for delivery in a week as for testing one of my remote hardware solutions so if you wait a while I will give you a report.

Cheers

JIm

[Twinfisher 4.9]

Hi Chocolate. also think you may have been unlucky. Have used a Float Charger for years, not cheap but neither are batteries. It is a well known brand and I swear by it.

Cheers, Steve

[VViCKiD]

Oh I wasn't concerned with the vsr draining the power, but more so the regulator some how draining the power. Would that be possible?

I was thinking of using a wpm or a mppt as the regulator. That should cut the charge once the battery is full I'd expect

Please keep us updated on ur panels .. I'd be very interested

[chocolate]

I strongly suggest you do your own research on this but I am an electrical engineer and in my opinion chocolate was just unlucky.

It is easy to be turned off a solution by a bad experience but that doesn't mean the product is not the best option.

If you are going to have an unattended charging system you are better off with a Float Charger.

As far as the VSR goes it draws a very very wall amount of current ( something in the order of 20 milliamps) so battery drain is not a consideration.

Yes the product I mentioned is a US product. I ordered one on Ebay for delivery in a week as for testing one of my remote hardware solutions so if you wait a while I will give you a report.

Cheers

JIm

Hello, yeh I was unlucky , It just spun me out when it happened.

[fragmeister]

Oh I wasn't concerned with the vsr draining the power, but more so the regulator some how draining the power. Would that be possible?

I was thinking of using a wpm or a mppt as the regulator. That should cut the charge once the battery is full I'd expect

Please keep us updated on ur panels .. I'd be very interested

I wouldn't be concerned about any electronic regulator draining power. These solid state devices draw insignificant power when in Idle mode.

As far as using an mppt this would be a nice touch as it would ensure that you got the best out of the cells in all conditions but it may not be necessary depending on the capacity of the the solar cells you use and how long the boat sits idle.

From memory your objective was to keep a maintenance charge going on the boat which is parked on the street using solar panels.

It would seem all you really need is system which replaces the battery discharge which will happen if any boat electrics are still connected with the ignition off and the

battery switch turned off and also because batteries "self discharge" at an average rate of about 5% per month although this can be a lot more in older batteries.

Based on 5% per month or roughly 1 percent per week if you had a Dual 50 ampere hour battery setup for a total of 100 ampere hours you would only have to charge at 200 milli-amps to top those batteries up in a 5 hour session. Basically a 5W solar float charging system should handle this without any trouble.

I will keep you posted on my testing of the US Product.

Cheers