I was goofing.. looking on ebay. these trickle charge VW solar panels are
selling for around $15 bucks.

If you have used one? How is the connector changed? Any advice, info..
etc.

I realize this is just a trickle .. but for $15 .. might help out..

What is your expert advice.

On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 10:24:00 -0500, wrote:

You will need several to make it at all worth the effort to have them aboard.
It's about the tiniest trickle imaginable.

Suitable for keeping a few nicads charged, perhaps? For what its
worth, of all the possible chemistries, nicad goes down the fastest,
lead acid the slowest. 1% a day v 1% a month.

Casady

On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:42:49 -0500, wrote:

All they do is try and keep a battery from going totally dead and possibly
freezing while in transit or storage. With a good light source, I'll bet it
would power a small LCD calculator, as long as it wasn't one that prints.

My calculator, a HP48, has 49 keys and a four line display. They don't
make them any larger. I call it the "Calculator that Takes No
Prisoners". Three AAA batteries last over a year. In other words, even
the largest LCD calculators use only tiny ammounts of energy.

Casady

wrote:
On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:25:15 GMT, (Richard Casady)
wrote:


On Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:42:49 -0500, wrote:


All they do is try and keep a battery from going totally dead and possibly
freezing while in transit or storage. With a good light source, I'll bet it
would power a small LCD calculator, as long as it wasn't one that prints.

My calculator, a HP48, has 49 keys and a four line display. They don't
make them any larger. I call it the "Calculator that Takes No
Prisoners". Three AAA batteries last over a year. In other words, even
the largest LCD calculators use only tiny ammounts of energy.

Casady


That's exactly why I used one as an example of the very tiny output of those
disposable VW solar panels. Using one to try and keep a marine deep cycle
battery fully topped up is futile.



Nominal 3.4 watt panel IIC so its good for about 1/4 A peak output.
Allowing for cloud cover, panel orientation etc. you'd be very lucky to
see more than 1/4 AH per day. Does anyone know if they are weather
resistant? If you are on a mooring, at least a couple of them will keep
up with the self discharge. A Rule 750 bilge pump pulls a nominal 2.8 A
so it *might* keep up with a few minutes a day of pump activation. You
can forget about running fans, Navtex or anything else trhats on all the
time.

--
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