Eco Parcel Shelf - Solar Charger / Charge Controller

[kyepan 291]

Right... a little update that will no doubt generate a few chuckles, i laughed myself actually.

 

The car has been sitting for a few weeks for other reasons, and when we came to start it the battery was flat, now we're not just talking 7v flat, which has happened many many times in the past with two previous batteries, and can be revived by my fancy desulphating battery charger. it was totally flat, 0.0v flat. Now, this i find odd because the previous batteries had been left for a month or more in a very flat state and still been 6-8v. Plus, the battery was still turning over very strongly last time i used the car. the battery was only a couple of years old, and had not been abused like the previous two.

 

Now either

a) The whole experiment has resulted in a complete failure and the panel did not charge the battery at all.

The panel and charge controller has sucked power out of the battery because I have not connected it properly.

 

firstly, i never actually checked the output of the panel,

secondly, i never checked the ouput of the charge controller

thirdly i never read the manual on the charge controller (which languishes in some darkened and unidentified corner of my soon to be moved house)

Fourthly, i snipped off the ends of the cable to the panel (which might have included the diode), even though the charge controller professes to have a diode.

Fifth, the charge controller is a cheap piece of ebay trash.

 

I need to investigate! and will return with some answers.

 

manual

 

 

reading the manual, it appears i may not have turned the charge controller on.. this i feel is a specifically strong facepalm moment. Especially as it may not be doing it's diode thing, resulting in uber discharging at night, i may also wire in a static diode..

 

J

Edited April 4, 2012 by kyepan

[Anthony 1,003]

You pillock

 

You're welcome to grab one of the spare batteries I've got here if you want, as if your one has discharged to 0v I'm not sure that it's going to fully recover again - I've three or four good ones here and I'll never use them all. Unless yours is still under warranty of course, as there's little doubt that it'll fail the test in its current state and you'll get a replacement...

 

With the battery replaced/charged, I'd disconnect the solar charger briefly and test to see what the ignition off current draw is, as really a few weeks shouldn't be a problem with a newish battery if there's just the normal few mA drain.

[kingboyk 2]

(Answering my own question) I went for an Alpine CDE-134BT in the end. I needed a 205 to ISO adapter, which I picked up on Amazon Marketplace for a nominal sum. Was an easy DIY job to fit it.

 

/hijack