
Originally Posted by
pwillo
I bought a secondhand house roof panel for $20, added a cheap PWM controller that came as a freebie with another panel I bought and an assortment of wire and connecters. It only gets sun for a few hours a day and can be connected to the car for up to a week. Keeps it nicely topped up.
It works and for the price, very hard to beat. Its not the most efficient and is self regulating by the amount of daylight it gets; I keep the D4, a battery box and two large wet cell batteries charged just by swapping the Anderson plug to each battery. On the D4 it plugs into the Traxside rear access point. The regulator is always plugged into one battery or another.
I also have another secondhand house roof panel which is just wired into the Ctek solar access point on my camper and that is also working great. The solar panel attached to the roof of the camper does not get any sun where it is parked so it is just bypassed.
Both setups have been in use for almost 12 months now without a problem. Except for the D4, where LR accept 75% as fully charged, there is no high or extended discharge on the batteries so they are in a top up cycle for a few hours each day. I have never tried to measure the output of the regulator, but I did make sure that it was rated above the output of the solar panel.
Regards
Is the pwm rated for that voltage, most cheapies will only do 12/24V and 10a or so.
MY08 TDV6 SE D3- permagrin ooh yeah
2004 Jayco Freedom tin tent
1998 Triumph Daytona T595
1974 VW Kombi bus
1958 Holden FC special sedan
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