Solar batter "tender"...

[george graves]

Any experience with something like this. I know it would take a solar cell about the size of a car to "charge" a car battery in any decent amount of time.

But the space in between the rear speakers is wasted, and I was thinking a small solar cell would "cool" if nothing else.

Anyone running one? I assume that even with our key "off" that the car is using a far amount of juice? 50mA? 100mA? 500mA?

[DaveSmed]

50mA is usually the accepted limit for key off draw. Any more, and you encounter dead batteries.

VW used to (and prob still does) ship stuff over here with exactly that- a small solar cell placed on the dash to keep the battery from dieing during shipping. Dealers used to be the ones that removed them, couldn't tell you what they do with them either. Might be worth a look.

[delfin]

Yeah my ex gf had one of those in her '04 bug. I think it just ran into the cig lighter and sent a little juice back in there. I don't know though.

[UNHCLL]

I pose the following questions:

1) If you're car is sitting that long, where you'd need a tender, wouldn't it be inside the garage, or under a cover? Thus negating the solar tender?
2) If you need it for short "storage" stints of just a few days/week... then why not resolve the issue that is drawing down the battery?

-Chris

[delfin]

I think it was for if your battery were to totally die on a sunny day you might get enough juice in an hour or so for a start up.

[europeanplates]

VW used to have these on all of there cars upon shipping overseas. Should be an easy Ebay find.

Thanks,

Tyler