solar powered trickle charger.

[Navigator]

Anyone have any experience with a unit such as this? I am looking for something that would charge deep cycle batteries at remote locations where electricity is not available. Any input is welcome! Nav

[92python]

A friend has a place on a island on LOTW. He uses a solar power trickle charger on deep cycle batteries that power the lights. Works well. The batteries are fully charged when you get up there. This is summertime use. He brings the batteries back in the winter.

[Surface Tension]

Jon, this subject came up a long time ago. Solar chargers are worth having say for a remote cabin where time between visits is long enough for the batteries to charge. I'll give an example. You can get a 50" x 23" solar charger that puts out 5 amps, cost is around $570. A 115 amp hr deep cycle battery would take around 24 hrs of sunlight to charge. Lets say it takes 3 days to charge if setup in a location where the sun can get to it all day long which brings up another problem, clouds.

[ice_shack]

Just thinking in a different direction have you thought of wind generators? I would think that you energy source would be more reliable.

[LABS4ME]

We have a solar panel on one of our houses. It was on it when we bought it, couldn't figure out why it won't charge a battery... a little more investigation and I found out it is basically a maintainer... it probably helps a little when hooked up to prolong the life, but even after a week it didn't bring a battery up to full charge. ST is right, a decent charging unit will start at around $500.00 and go up from there... we looked into a wind generator and there are some fairly inexpensive reliable units out there... the one thing I can't get past is, the thought of going up fishing and finding my wind generator removed. My guess is someone would be willing to make a midnight run for it... so for now it is still lug the batteries back an forth and charge them at home.... a good deep cycle will run our house for a minimum of 2 days, usually 3 and depending on how much we are using the fan and lights, we may get 4.

Good luck!

Ken

[lawdog]

You can get these small portable 1000W generators for pretty cheap and plug in a battery charger and charge them. You can't put in that nice slow charge, but its a pretty good quicker solution. My little generator is only about 12*15*15 I'd guess. It will run 6 hours on a tank of gas too which is only about 1/3 gallon or so.

[Navigator]

Thanks guys. I think a small generator is the way to go. We don't have electrical service at our land in Ontario and I need "something" to charge the deep cycle boat batteries. Nav

[Navigator]

What does a small generator cost?

[hovermn]

http://www.sportsmansguide.com/ has a small generator for around $250. I'd imagine that it would work great for charging batteries, running a TV and other light equipment.

[lawdog]

That's exactly the unit I was talking about Navigator and it works pretty well. I think I might have even gotten mine from the Guide but I don't remember.