Car Solar Panel Charger

Would like to add a solar panel to help charge my car battery. Will this affect/hurt my alternator? Do I need to switch from alternator to solar.
I was hoping to leave the panel attached to the car during operation.

I'd...

High wattage High temperature Diodes is your answer.
One on wire from solar panel charger to battery's positive.
Another on wire from alternator to battery's positive.
Current will only from solar panel charger and alternator...

2008-09-23 20:25:16 by weburchin

If you connect a solar panel directly to a car battery, it will eventually overcharge the battery and damage it. That's why you need to use a ...

has anyone used before a car battery solar panel charger? i'm intrested in how efficient they actually are. The idea is the following: i would use a car battery to constantly power a mobile phone over a long camping period and use a solar panel to...

My advice would be to forget charging a car battery with a solar panel, the amount of charge you will get from the panel will be to low to really keep the battery topped up not to mention the fact that a car battery is very heavy.
There are...

2009-07-17 15:53:31 by tizio

My 5 watt solar panel car battery charger manual states that charge controller is not necessary for panels under 15 watts. I'm trying to understand the physics of why that's the case. Even if my panel is only putting out say 15 volts at 350mA...

A typical lead-acid battery can safely be "trickle charged" at C/100 rate, where C is the capacity (if you are talking car battery, that is about 50Amp-hours typical). C/100 for a 50Ah battery is 500mA, so 350mA won't hurt it. The...

2009-11-17 11:35:08 by Michael S

I've never seen any car with one in, but see a lot on sale.

My car battery is old, and I'm just thinking this might be a way to extend it's life.
Oops... my router went down for 20 mins... thumbs up for you all.

they work really good, i use one on my old car to keep the battery up in it,and it works really well,its always at a 100% charge when i go to drive it,and the good thing about is it wont over charge it,it even works on a cloudy day also,i have...

2007-09-27 18:32:54 by Narky

I have a childs electric car, for the 4-6 year old. It runs on a 6V 4.5 Ah sealed lead acid battery. This car came from Spain and has only a 220V charging unit that cannot, of course, plug into a standard American outlet. When I got it the...

The battery is doing what good sealed lead acid batteries do; slow decline in voltage after being disconnected from the charger.. Battery sounds good.

There are several things you can do:

Use the 220v you have in...

2008-08-17 07:38:04 by italo

OK i have a 91 350sdl mercedes. I like it a lot, but the problem is that when I am at school, the car usually just sits parked, and only gets run when I have to drive home or on a road trip or something. It is also fairly cold here, usualy 15-25...

these work pretty well, aren't expensive and are easy to install. Usually they simply plug into the lighter or 12vpower socket and you place it on the dash. keeps a low trickle charge to the battery. Google it.

2007-03-01 14:40:25 by odysseyxltd