Am I shortening my battery life?
We have not been able to go out much in the last year so I have kept the 53r plugged in at home. I check the two Cr235 6v batteries monthly and top off as needed (which is not much). The 5er has a WFC...
Forum Discussion
brulaz wrote:NinerBikes wrote:
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My system is stored fully charged, and fully disconnected. Bulk charge is what works for me on the generator. Solar panel is for when camping.
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You don't use the solar system to maintain your batts in storage ???
Also - the 15V top off ... will that damage any internal electric devices or do you need to disconnect? I'm currently disconnecting at 15.3V ...
If I left my 120W portable folding solar panel out in the storage yard, it would grow legs and walk off, so no, I don't leave it out to maintain charge the T-1275. The top off charge, every 2 months, not the maintain charge, for my application, is where it's at.
That's somewhat the beauty of my portable, aimable solar panel. By aiming it a few times at the sun during the day, it's amperage yield makes it very efficient in harvest of energy for it's size, and ability to add significant amperage during the shoulder parts of the day. When you are using 12V solar panels to charge your battteries, it's all about the amperage output with a PWM charge controller.
A portable solar panel becomes "The little Solar Panel that Could". Well, except for the shortest of winter days. But I'd need to run the generator anyways if I wanted to run the microwave, so may as well give the battery a bit of a push too with the Mega Watt power supply unit.
15.0V is below the 15.4V threshold that starts causing circuit boards to pop on your refrigerator.
