Solar Panel to Maintain Battery

Sam Spade wrote:

Craig A wrote:
I just purchased a Battery Tender 15W solar panel and am setting it up tomorrow to charge and maintain my deep cell battery. Do you have any suggestions?

Since this is "Battery Tender" brand I assume that it has a smart controller built-in. If that's the case it should be fine.

Be sure the batteries are fully charged first.
Check the water level....unless they are AGMs.
Disconnect all parasitic loads.

Check the water level again at least every 60 days.

I'm with Sam. I have the same setup and in my 1990 Bounder with fully charged house batteries it would keep the charge up. I had eliminated all the parasitic drains because I did not have a battery disconnect.

We now have the Winnie and it does have the disconnect and I have the some draws but haven't had the inclination to check how much. I haven't really had any experience with it keeping the charge up but I am hoping it will keep fully charges batteries charged.

Many folks have talked about using the 120 volt Deltran Battery Minder on their batteries when they remove them for the winter so I expect the solar charger will do the same for my house batteries.