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solar battery maintenance
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2012 4:02 pm
by legionnair
So I am think about buy one of these to go along with the odyssey battery. Might roof Mont it on my halo headache bar. I just ordered all LED interior lights so my draw will be nothing
http://batterytender.com/solar/15-watt- ... arger.html
What do you guys think?
Dustin
Re: solar battery maintenance
Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 6:30 am
by naterade
A good idea, to help recharge your battery while you are on the go. However, 15W will not do much more than keep a charged battery charged, it will basically compensate for the ~1%/day self-discharge that a battery experiences. Running LEDs, I agree, the draw will be minimal, so you should be ok. If you decide you want to run more from this battery though, just be aware your 15W panel will not help much if you are deep-discharging the battery.
If LEDs are in fact all you want to run, why did buy a huge optima battery? I would have bought a small 12V sealed lead-acid battery for much cheaper - they are much smaller too. Or are you using the Optima as your main starting battery too?
For my set-up, I have a normal deep-cycle marine battery (separate from the starting battery), 1600W inverter, and a 50W solar panel. I like to bring my Vitamix camping (for my morning smoothies), and we run lights, charge cell phones, etc off it as well. It is pretty sweet having 110VAC wherever you go.
Re: solar battery maintenance
Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 6:41 am
by legionnair
The odyssey battery is my starting battery but looking around an doing some more research I will be going with an 80 watt panel and a battery tender controller. This will give me total freedom and then I will save my pennies for the engel fridge.
Dustin
Re: solar battery maintenance
Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:07 am
by naterade
Good call on the bigger panel
Re: solar battery maintenance
Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:52 am
by psilosin
I would also at least look around at other brands as well. That 15W + controller Battery Tender is double the price what you can get at canadian tire (ie 15W panel $49.99 controller 29.99) and looks of similar quality.
If going for a quality 50W+ panel (ie sharp) and quality solar controllers I would check prices at somewhere like Battery Direct etc. Typically much cheaper than buying units that slap a brand sticker on their product and sell at a specialty store.