Solar Charging Units.

[rocstar]

Anybody have any good experience with solar charging units for your trolling motor batteries? I use 24 volt system.

[Whoaru99]

Not directly, but as I've posted in other threads about solar chargers the math of what the panel can supply vs how much charging you need works out.

Generally speaking, unless you have a very large solar array (probably larger than you think) the recharge times are pretty slow. That's fine if you need only trickle charge/maintain a topped up battery. But, if you're going to pull a fair amount of power out of the batteries then recharge will be slow.

For example, a "15 watt" solar panel seems to be a common size. That's about 1A of current at battery voltage and of course assumes decent sunlight shining on it to get full output.

So, if you're trolling and use (for example) 50 amp-hours from your battery system, that 15W solar charger would take at least 50 hours at full output (and quite likely more) to recharge the battery(s). Remember, nights don't count and cloudy days/indirect sunlight reduces output.

[Northlander]

I found Im better off carrying a extra battery along. Those solar chargers take forever and like said above you need a much bigger one than you think to get the job done.