Ring solar panel trickle charger

[coromar]

I am thinking of buying a Ring 10w solar panel to keep my boat battery topped up. If we have sunny weather and the battery has a good charge (after a long run) is the solar panel likely to over charge the battery?

I see some larger panels have a charging regulator. Would I need one?

thank you in advance for your help.

Paul

 

[Assassin]

In a nutshell they dont work as they are too small and if you put them inside a window the UV coating prevents them working as they rely on UV to work.
These were marketed as car battery chargers/maintainers and at 10W they didn't even overcome the batteries resistance.
Better options exist and the 100W solar panels with charge controller are available for around £80 and in best conditions they throw out around 4-5 amps.

 

[PaulRainbow]

I am thinking of buying a Ring 10w solar panel to keep my boat battery topped up. If we have sunny weather and the battery has a good charge (after a long run) is the solar panel likely to over charge the battery?

I see some larger panels have a charging regulator. Would I need one?

thank you in advance for your help.

Paul

What battery ?

 

[coromar]

80amp/hr leisure battery

 

[PaulRainbow]

80amp/hr leisure battery

You can connect a 10W panel to that without a controller. I won't add much (if any) charge to it, but it should keep up with natural losses.

 

[coromar]

Thank you for your information.

Best wishes,

Paul

 

[Refueler]

You can connect a 10W panel to that without a controller. I won't add much (if any) charge to it, but it should keep up with natural losses.

I have a plain 10W panel trickle charges a 90 A/hr battery in my speedboat .... no controller.

Previously it maintained a 7 A/hr SLA House Alarm battery - to power the auto bilge pump ... then I fitted nav lights - planned a radio / music etc (still to fit) - so swapped to the decent sized car battery which had come out of one of my cars ...

In a nutshell they dont work as they are too small

10W certainly works for me .. its slow of course ... doesn't get fully charged ... but its good enough to be a viable setup.