[Shop-talk] Solar car battery chargers

[Randall]

> Here's the real deal... My '06 Chevy van will slowly 
> discharge a battery if let sit for a week or two.  

Seems like a lot of draw to me, to be balancing with a portable solar panel.

Lessee, if we assume you are losing 50 Ah over 10 days; that's about 200ma
or 2.4 watts.  As a rough rule of thumb, you need an array that will supply
about 10 times that much (peak), so a 24 watt array should do.

This looks like the ticket:
http://www.batterystuff.com/solar-chargers/PF25W.html

But, it's over $300 and unfolds to 41 by 32 so it's not going to fit will on
your dash (unless you have a really large dash).

Of course a smaller array would still help, but eventually the battery would
run down.

Randall