Solar trickle charger for battery maintenance?

manorlife · 12-31-2011, 09:15 PM

here is a solar trickle charger... what do you guys/gal think about this? I would love not to have to take the battery out in the winter and just hook this upto it. despite the cold if the battery get trickle charged wouldn't that keep the battery in good condition? http://goodsam.campingworld.com/shop...-chargers/9365

or should I just get onee of these? plug and play...
http://goodsam.campingworld.com/shop...r-junior/46406

any advice is welcome... thanks

scrubjaysnest · 01-01-2012, 04:58 AM

If you go the solar panel route you will need a 5 Watt and they can be gotten cheaper off the internet. This route assumes you start with a fully charged battery and get 4 hours of sun daily.

The charger is another option but the 4 stage is ad hype. You will need to check battery fluid levels monthly.

A third option is just plug the TM into shore power and check battery fluids monthly.

Options two and three are not my preferred because of the slight chance of boiling a lead acid battery dry. Also requires a little more work. If your battery is a gel cell I wouldn't use option two or three as there is to great a risk to damage the battery.

01-01-2012, 07:22 AM

If you have access to shore power and do not want to leave the TM plugged in, you can also look at the battery tender. I have use on all my motorcycles as well as TM and tractor. On Motorcycle ( always connected when not riding 6 yr old battery started bike after 5 month winter storage.

http://www.batterymart.com/p-del-021-0128.html

**Bill** · 01-01-2012, 09:30 AM

Manorlife -

Charger advice depends to some extent on which converter/charger is built into your TM, which in turn is determined by what year your TM was made. Why don't you add the year and model number to your signature line?

If you use a trickle charger, solar or otherwise, the first step when putting your camper in long-term stroage is to disconnect the battery from the TM. A trickle charger may not be able to keep up with the parasitic loads.

Bill

01-12-2012, 07:19 AM

I went this way.

http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...02&postcount=1

Koz

01-12-2012, 11:07 AM

My father-in-law has used these for a long time on his Class A. They're fairly inexpensive.

http://www.harborfreight.com/automat...ger-42292.html

03-10-2012, 05:04 PM

I've had my solar trickle on my 1999 - 3023 for a year now. All winter here in Colorado it keeps the batteries at full charge...still connected to the TM. Have an elec jack so it is real important to have full juice.

03-11-2012, 02:40 PM

heck of a good idea. I think it would be well worth looking into. Thanks for
introducing it to the forum

Brittany Dogs · 03-11-2012, 08:34 PM

I use the battery tender all winter long. I have sealed batteries and I also have a knife switch that disconnects the camper loads from the batteries for long term storage. I feel the battery tender has more "smarts" in it than the solar charger does to prevent any overcharging. However the 5watt solar charger probably won't do any overcharging since 5 watts is really quite small.