Simple Solar RV expertise needed
I want to purchase a simple solar panel to keep my 4 golf cart 6v batteries up to charge when in storage. Any idea of what I would need? My RV sits most of the time and it's not near a plug to keep...
Forum Discussion
A solar charge controller should be a smart charger with at least 3 stages: bulk, absorption, and float. Same as a plug-in smart charger or converter. You get what you pay for to an extent, the higher quality ones will have selectable or even fully programmable charge settings for differently battery chemistry. So in theory, your fully charged batteries in storage would transition to float pretty quickly on a daily basis and you wouldn't lose much water since most of the time it would be in float charge. But it depends on how the charge controller does its absorption phase, if it does absorption based on time rather than a measurement then it may be in absorption for too much time each day and you'll lose more water. One 100-watt panel isn't a whole lot when matched with 4x6V batteries, but without a charge controller to monitor things I think it would be enough to boil them out and wreck them.
My PWM solar charge controller is fully programmable and I change the program for storage to lower voltage settings. I leave the solar charging system in operation year round.
