As the heading says, has any one tried one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-Camper-12V-Solar-Panel-Trickle-Charger-PV-T2Customs-/271050569588?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item3f1bdf7774 or can you recommend an alternative, cheers.
I have one like that on the dash of my bus just to keep the main battery topped up when the bus isnt being used
i have one i got from JK ... I leave it on the roof when parked at home and dangle the battery clips into the engine thru the air vents to keep it trickled ....
Provided your battery is in a reasonable state of charge already it will compensate for internal losses when left standing. Given its size the output will probably only be in milliamps so virtualy useless for serious battery charging IMHO.
I have a ten quid special from Maplins which is attached permanently to my leisure battery. To be honest I'm not convinced that it does anything, but its got a blue flashing LED.
these are crap ,you need to get decent solar panels for it to be of any use. It dosent even give the output of the panel so it must be terrible.
I had one and had it connect for a while and then decided to put a multimeter on it and it barely read anything so it now sits in the back of the shed!
even if they do state a wattage rating that'll be peak, best case, good sunshine and correctly angled towards the sun,
I've got a 13w Solar briefcase one and its not any good really, it would struggle charge a phone up in full sunshine, looking on some caravan websites they reckon owt under 50w is a waste of time
Ive got a 55w panel and regulator, put it on barneyrubble's dead battery at grill n chill and in 3.5hrs it put enough in to start his camper on a sunny day, it always keeps my battery topped up when away in camper.
We have one of these strapped to the roof of the T5 but also use it on the T2 and in the the T2 a 5watt on the the engine batt and another 15watt on the leisure batt. http://www.maplin.co.uk/60w-solar-power-kit-223250
I'm putting mine into storage from November to April. The place has sky lights so was wondering about leaving one of these on the roof and attaching it to the battery
I have a 50w maplin one to keep the leisure battery topped up, or at least was the theory. I have a GPS tracker that draws about 500mA so hoped it would be sufficient but the leisure battery still drains from full within a couple of weeks It is supposed to work even on cloudy days but I don't believe that, I checked and it was outputting about 80mA
40w maplins brief case style Never had a low main battery after being left standing since Thinking of getting another for leisure battery (old main battery) as that went flat months ago
I've got one and to be honest I'm not convinced so ditched it and got a ctek battery conditioner charger thing, I now it defeats the whole solar panel thing but you want to keep your battery ship shape over the winter get one. it really is good. ...but I may still use the solar one in the summer when camping to keep plugged in, but by the time it reaches the battery is it doing anything with poss a voltage drop in old vw wiring all the way back to the battery.
Its the cheap brown or blackish amorphous silicon solar panels which are a scam. They are built in such a way that most of the current just leaks across the cell until the sun is full on summer time. Good for pond ornaments power. A good quality and more expensive solar panel like the £120 (half price bargain) 20 watt polycrystalline panel on my boat keeps putting in charge even in the winter. It just fades away with the light rather than stopping on a dull day. This panel is about 60cm by 30cm and was 'dumped' by the Chinese at a low price a couple of years back. Stopped the boat sinking by running a pump every hour or so for a month after I cracked a fitting off the hull underwater.
