solar panel(s)
 

I would like to get some "real world" experience, from you racers that are using solar panel(s) to maintain the battery in your trailers. What do you use and how did you hook it up?
I am looking at a small maintainer/charger. Do you always need to use a charge controller, to prevent overcharging your batt?
My batt. (Optma yellow top) is hooked to the tow vehicle charge system, when I am running down the road, but I would like to keep the batt. up at the track, and when I have the trailer idle at home. TIA

Re: solar panel(s)
 

Solar panels work, just not very well. Would you try to use solar to recharge your race batteries ? Are you the same guy that posted this question on the bullet ? ---Trevor

Re: solar panel(s)
 

I'm not the OP on the bullet, but I have posted on the thread....... http://www.yellowbullet.com/forum/sh...=481735&page=2

Re: solar panel(s)
 

The bigger the panel(s), the more wattage they'll produce. You won't keep your battery charged with a single 30" X 60" panel if you are running a weather station, lights, a radio, etc.. It will recharge it eventually as you drive down the road (assuming you mount it on the roof), or while sitting in the driveway.

Here's something that caught my eye- flexible roof panels. Each one is 15 inches wide and 16 feet long. They have an adhesive back, intended for mounting on hard surfaces like a trailer roof. Each roll produces 124 watts, so eight of these will make about as much wattage as a small portable generator. These flexible panels are not as efficient as glass panels, but they are cheaper. Here's a link to a vendor's description on E-Bay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...#ht_2335wt_928

Re: solar panel(s)
 

These are 24V.................

Re: solar panel(s)
 

I purchased this unit at my local Farm & Fleet, along with a 10 amp controller...
I will give it a try and report back.........
http://www.wirthco.com/watt-solar-pa...1128-l-en.html

Re: solar panel(s)
 

My only experience with a charger like that is we have an old beater truck on my sons acreage that has a very iffy battery in it and as long as that charger has been on it that thing will still crank like a fresh battery no matter how long the thing has been sitting. It simply plugs in the lighter and lay the charger on the dash. We also have a couple that Volkswagen used during shipping of vehicles. I have no idea who makes them but those will charge a run down battery in a day or two. They are only slightly bigger than the first one I commented on which looks like the one you are talking about.

Re: solar panel(s)
 

That's a less than 1 amp charger why would you need a 10amp controller ? The only way solar is economical is if utility power is not available in my opinion. ---Trevor

Re: solar panel(s)
 

My Pace trailer never came with any provision for charging the trailer battery off the truck. The only one that get's juice is the trailer break-away battery. I'll bet a lot of other trailers are the same way and people don't know it. Upside is just like an RV with a battery isolator you won't kill the truck batteries while at the track for a weekend.

I put a small maintainer/charger in the generator compartment and plug the land line in while at home. The trailer battery will charge either when the gen set is running or I'm connected to another source. Last battery was good for 6 years.