Hello all , this is my first post , i have just bought my first trailer tent ,and i love it , i just wondered if anyone knows anything about these solar powered battery chargers , are they any good ? i know some act like trickle chargers , but the more expensive ones re-charge the battery , i only want to know because i might spend some time off the mains ? many thanks
From what I've read about them they may help to some extent but for the cost you might aswell get a 2nd leisure battery or even a small petrol generator (you can pick up a genrator for about £60 now)
Anything less than an 18w solar panel won't do much and you can probably get more power from running a generator for 5 mins than you would from a solar panel in 24 hours.
Many thanks s66614a, i did think about a generator , but i was unsure of the noise and smell , and also didn`t know i could charge a battery from a generator , thanks for you help , will buy a second battery cheers
Noise is the real problem, you can get leisure generators but they start at £299, they are light weight, very quiet and have built in smoothing, so they can run sensative electronic equipment.
The cheaper ones will charge batteries some even include clips to do it.
But a second battery is the easiest option, you can always take it out in the car and charge whilst on the go, when your out during the day.
Have a look in the Caravan Section re solar panels you'll find plenty about them there.
We have an 18w solar panel (cost £150 last year) which keeps our battery topped up perfectly in our caravan. Battery runs 2 lights, water pump for taps in kitchen and shower and plenty of tv time if son with us! Last year we went away for 9 days and not once did the battery ever look like it was going to die.
Many thanks Jazzycats, thats exactly the info i wanted , i`m new to this aspect of camping , and have a lot of goodies to buy , i just want to make sure that i buy the correct stuff , cheers
Just checked with OH, our solar panel trickle charges our battery. If the battery got down to 50% the solar panel will charge it back up - that's with full sun on the panel. However, if it got well under 50% it is unlikely to charge up. This is based on our 18w solar panel.
When we get on site, one of the first jobs is to get the solar panel connected so it is constantly topping up the battery as required. The battery (75amp) is now 4 years old and we've been using the solar panel to keep it topped up for almost 2 years now and it's still going strong.
Any more questions just keep asking as there's always someone about here to help.