Has anyone tried a sloar trickle charger?

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wayno · #1 Post by **wayno** » Tue May 04, 2010 12:29 pm

I'm thinking about getting one of these as my bike will soon be in the girlfriends garage and there is no power there.

Has anyone tried one? Are they any good?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/12-volt-solar-car ... 519266e3ae

#2 Post by **mangocrazy** » Tue May 04, 2010 1:00 pm

I use one (well, actually two wired together in parallel) to keep the battery on my car in France charged while I'm away. One on its own is marginal for a car, but two seems to keep the battery topped up quite nicely. It certainly spun the engine over very happily this weekend just gone.

I suspect that a single panel would be sufficient for the much lower capacity battery on a bike, but you need to be aware of a couple of things. Firstly, the amount of charge developed is very heavily dependent on postioning of the panel. You need full sun for a good percentage of the day. If the panel is mainly in shade the efficiency drops dramatically. The friend who gave me his spare panel (I'd already bought one) had his panel mounted behind the windscreen of his car, which was mainly in shade during the day. He pronounced it useless...

I have my two panels mounted right underneath the roof skylight, which receives sun for most of the day. It's also in the South of France, and they get a lot more sun than we do, whatever the time of year. The panel needs to be protected from rain, as they aren't meant to be used outside. In practice this means behind a window. A south facing window could work OK, but a skylight with an unobstructed skyward aspect is best. And you need to keep the window and the panel clean for decent efficiency.

So the answer is 'it depends'. But if you've got no electricity in the garage, it nay well be worth a punt...

Chabby · #3 Post by **Chabby** » Tue May 04, 2010 1:36 pm

It might be better keeping it in your girlfriend's greenhouse

wayno · #4 Post by **wayno** » Tue May 04, 2010 1:44 pm

Chabby wrote:It might be better keeping it in your girlfriend's greenhouse

Lol, I wouldn't want to blow all the glass out first time I started it though.

I did think about hacking into the outside light circuit so I could optimate it during the evenings, but I'm not sure the residents in the other flats would appreciate that.

I might get one and try it, I can stick it on the roof and feed the cable through, I'm sure I've seen waterproof ones.

wayno · #5 Post by **wayno** » Tue May 04, 2010 2:48 pm

Well I just ordered one from oxford products, their solariser. I managed to find a company selling them for the bargain price of £23.99 + postage :)

I'll keep you all informed about the results (which won't be known until winter anyway lol)

xx