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+--- Thread: Solar Battery Charger (/Thread-Solar-Battery-Charger)
Solar Battery Charger - Diane - 05-02-2014 01:40pm
Has anyone fitted and used one of these?
My car was unused for a month for various reasons beyond my control. Consequence - dead battery. The AA man said they sell a lot of Solar Chargers and recommend them for cars not used regularly. (My car is often left for 7-10 days unused). The charger just trickle charges the battery and keeps it topped-up.
I rang my local Range Rover garage and they said it seemed a good idea to them, but they had neither seen one, nor fitted one themselves.
Can anyone offer advice?
Ideally, I would like one to be permanently wired-in onto the battery, with the wires going directly from the engine into the car to the solar panel sitting on the dashboard, so that I didn't have to mess about under the bonnet myself. Neither do I want to leave wires hanging around outside the car.
Is this possible?
Would there be any downsides to this?
I would be grateful for any advice and help here, please!
RE: Solar Battery Charger - cjfp - 05-02-2014 01:56pm
Have a read through this one
http://babyrr.com/forum/Thread-Battery-conditioners
Not sure about MY14 cars, but part of the problem is that none of the power points stay live for more than 10minutes once the car is turned off so it would need to be hard-wired
RE: Solar Battery Charger - XFullFatTim - 05-02-2014 02:43pm
Land Rover now has a dealer sold accessory "Battery Conditioner" available for Evoque. CJFP is right about the sockets - if your car has had the "stop/Start & BMS" software patch then the sockets get disabled as part of that "upgrade" - I used a Maplin £19.99 charger http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/solar-powered-12v-15w-battery-auto-trickle-charger-l58bf that plugged into any of the sockets and sat on the centre armrest when my car was laid up for up to 3 months at a stretch. After a period of rapidly flatting batteries a new type of battery was fitted to my last Evoque and that allowed the car to go 8 weeks between my brother taking it out for a 40 mile drives while I was overseas.
RE: Solar Battery Charger - Diane - 05-02-2014 05:02pm
(05-02-2014 02:43pm)XFullFatTim Wrote: Land Rover now has a dealer sold accessory "Battery Conditioner" available for Evoque. CJFP is right about the sockets - if your car has had the "stop/Start & BMS" software patch then the sockets get disabled as part of that "upgrade" - I used a Maplin £19.99 charger http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/solar-powered-12v-15w-battery-auto-trickle-charger-l58bf that plugged into any of the sockets and sat on the centre armrest when my car was laid up for up to 3 months at a stretch. After a period of rapidly flatting batteries a new type of battery was fitted to my last Evoque and that allowed the car to go 8 weeks between my brother taking it out for a 40 mile drives while I was overseas.
Thanks for that. I will find out about the "Conditioner" ... I would rather get a RR dealer to supply and fit something and then they are responsible!
What is your new, super battery?
RE: Solar Battery Charger - XFullFatTim - 06-02-2014 11:24am
I no longer have the car as I sold it last November when a replacement 2014MY was supposed to be delivered but I'm still waiting for that.................. unfortunately I cannot say what the battery was that was fitted but I recall something about it being a "glass filled" battery or something like that.