Solar Panel Battery Charging

[MattyR]

I don't have power in my garage and, as it's only used for storing belongings (most importantly my car!), I decided to experiment with a small 10W solar panel and conditioner from Optimate. It's a tiny panel but more than man-enough for a small 80Ah battery.

I purchased the kit from Willgen. Click this link if interested:

https://www.willgen.co.uk/solar-lig...rgers-for-vehicles/optimate-10w-solar-charger

I also ordered an extension cable as I had to come through the roof and the standard cable wasn't quite long enough.

I purchased these roof brackets too:

https://www.triplesolar.co.uk/solar-roof-pro-slate-roof-hook.html

Anyhow, after removing some tiles and fixing the aforementioned brackets to the roof batten, I mounted the panel with some threaded bolts, washers & nuts I had lying around. The tiles were fitted back and the car was hooked up.

A few days in and the car is still in maintenance mode. That's good news as it means the panel is doing it's job in quite low light conditions rather than the battery draining really slowly.

The panel is good for batteries up to 240Ah, can be used for seasonal charging of all battery types incl. lead acid and AGM and utilises a four stage system incl. a charger limiter. It's a good piece of kit; I had a similar set-up on my narrow boat for conditioning the leisure batteries.

Some pics you nosey lot!

 

[badbadtz]

It's difficult to get power into my garage so last week I picked up a 185W monocrystalline panel and 20A MPPT solar charge controller. It's massively overspec'd but I only paid £110 for both and it's working a treat. Even today with the snow it was still outputting a decent current

 

[Right_Foot_Blues]

Solar charging

I have the same problem and have just ordered the 20W kit.