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turtle
Lord of the Rant.
Formerly turtle2472
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Upstate South Carolina
 
2022-11-08, 16:12

Here I thought I knew something about solar and I don't even know what kind of battery my van has. It is something like this one.

This is "flooded lead/acid" right? the reason I'm asking is I need to up my van charging game with solar because we use this beast so infrequently that the battery is dying over time. So I went and bought a charger that I can just plug into the cigarette lighter socket. This worked well until it boiled out almost all of the fluid in the battery.

The solar panel I'm using is the previous model of this one. (It actually is the 10W one in this set.) You put it on the dash and plug it in. It supposedly has over-charge protection but that is clearly not the case. The panel puts out ~20VDC (open circuit) which is too much to power a cigarette lighter charger for an iPhone.

What I'm looking for is an actual charge controller that I can wire into the van permanently and have the solar panel go through it. Then I know the battery shouldn't be boiled over and I don't have to worry about unplugging the solar panel when I start the van up.

So what charge controller should I be looking for? I found two from Renogy that look like they might work. The Voyager and the Wanderer.

I would wire the controller to the fuse block in the cabin (under the dash) and ensure there is an inline fuse for extra safety.

Louis L'Amour, “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.”
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Last edited by turtle : 2022-11-08 at 16:30.
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