Battery charging

saintjanet

I think the cig.lighter could be the problem,dont think mine, mazda mx5, works without ignition,will have to check now its been mentioned.

anewman

On the solar charger, got one today and it says to disconnect it before starting the engine and while driving as electrical surges may damage the charger. So if your cig lighter did not work without ignition it would mean either taking the clips off the battery, or making a switch along the wire so it can be turned off without taking the bonnet up.

Also the suction cups provided are completely useless on my dashboard. Might try it on the parcel shelf and route the cable somehow.

As I understand it, these should save a few pence (ok not much) on petrol as the engine does not have to work so hard to charge up the battery?!

Ether way it's only a tenner at the moment so isn't too bad in terms of the price.

Jamp

saintjanet wrote: »

This is very interesting,i have just returned to the thread and was about to ask if anyone had tried one after reading northern munky's posting,does it really work as good as a normal charger,sounds too good to be true at the price,not doubting you just really surprised.

It works as well as a *trickle* charger, in that it prevents the battery from discharging, yes. It won't charge the battery any appreciable amount, but as explained above it will charge it enough to compensate for natural discharging and load from the alarm and radio memory etc. I am certain it has achieved this for me, over a period which would ordinarily have flattened my battery, and with only about 4 hours per day of direct sunlight (weather permitting!) due to positioning. That was in the summer, but my car is currently parked in the same position and has been for a month or so while I work in Asia - I will let you know if it starts when I pick it up in a fortnight!

You do need to make sure your cig lighter is hard wired to the battery and not switched with the ignition, or mess about putting clips on the battery each time, or do some simple wiring.

Anewman: 3-4A is far too much to trickle charge the battery with, that's more like the rate used to charge the battery when it's deeply discharged, not what you use to keep it topped up. I can't remember the specs of my mains trickle charger, but I doubt it gives more than 100mA.