Solar trickle charger fail!

Gdetrailer wrote:
You can disconnect your battery from the RV and that battery can sit for 3-6 months without the need to be recharged...

x2. And AGMs will hold a charge much longer.

I pull the negative car battery cable for the winter and 6 months later it starts right up.

You may have more issues. Seems like a stretch to get from 9.6v to 100% charge with just 100 watts in one day.

That 10 watt system should have the battery fully isolated. I recommend using the 100w panel for storage.

Yosemite Sam1 wrote:

2oldman wrote:
Are you saying the 10w panel let your battery discharge? 16w isn't much better. That's barely an amp for maybe a few hours/day.

Not totally, but substantial drop to 9.6V.

10.5V is considered totally discharged for a 12V battery, 9.6V is beyond dead, pretty much a severely discharged and damaged battery. Even if you get it recharged, it will never have the capacity it had before this event.

It is time to replace your battery and not repeat this mistake.

10W or 16W solar panel is not going to ever be able to prevent this from happening with your RV attached to the battery, just not enough power and time to overcome the inherent self discharge of the battery combined with all the phantom loads of your RV.

You can disconnect your battery from the RV and that battery can sit for 3-6 months without the need to be recharged..

If you really want to keep the battery connected to the RV yr round, you WILL want a panel of around 100W and a solar charge controller.. That is the real way to do it.

2oldman wrote:
Are you saying the 10w panel let your battery discharge? 16w isn't much better. That's barely an amp for maybe a few hours/day.

Not totally, but substantial drop to 9.6V.

Are you saying the 10w panel let your battery discharge? 16w isn't much better. That's barely an amp for maybe a few hours/day.