Solar Battery Maintainer for Diesel Truck
During the winter, our 2004 Dodge Ram CTD sometimes sits for a couple of weeks or more at a time between times it gets driven. So during those periods, I want to put a battery minder / maintainer on ...
Forum Discussion
hwybnb wrote:
I use two 5-watt panels in parallel to maintain two 6-v house batteries and one 12v engine battery on my Class A gasser, Works great here in sunny Southern California., and you most certainly do not need a charge controller for panels that small. The ones I use are from Volkwagen - ones they install in new cars being shipped from Germany. Much better quality than many of the cheap ones sold at Harbor Freight, et. al. You can find them on eBay:
VW Solar Panels
Best to wire them directly to the batteries to minimize wiring losses.
Thanks very much! Those VW panels look very interesting. None of the ebay sellers seemed to provide dimensions of the panel. Can you tell me the approximate length and width? Are they plastic? And if so, do you think they could stand up to the extreme desert heat in Southern Arizona?
