r1559
New Member
First post! Hello everyone! I absolutely love Will's YouTube videos and have learned so much from them! But for my first post, it is quite humble, nothing to do with huge banks of LiPo batteries, fancy vanlife stuff, or whole-house solar systems. Just rinky-dink 5 watt panels.
I would like to ask for advice. I have a car in long-term storage that I won't be able to attend to for 12+ months. The car will likely be covered. I will have disconnected its 12V battery from the vehicle's charging system of course, and since rodents can be an issue, I would instead like to utilize the battery to run an ultrasonic rodent repeller that claims a 0.1 watt draw: MouseBlocker Classic (link).
One option I see is Battery Tender's 5 Watt suction cup solar panel charger (link). It's $50 and that gets you the panel with mounting options, built-in charge controller and of course a 'smart' DC/DC charger. It claims a nominal output voltage of 12Vdc, and a maximum output current of 270mAdc which, at 12 volts would be 3.24 watts. (They allege other varients exist such as a $134 10-watt version and a $149 17W version but these seem to be 'out of stock' / vaporware). Even with 70% of maximum output, that would be a little over 2 watts, which may be enough power for my application. The built-in charge controller's charging profile is not selectable and has some hand-wavy "consistent with the optimum charging recommendations of major lead-acid battery manufacturers". The price seems good here, but the panel and charge controller would not be able to be repurposed for other unrelated projects in the future, which I don't like.
Battery Tender also has "BT Solar Jr" for $27. You bring your own solar panel to this party, 5 to 45 watts of input, max input voltage spec'd at 32 volts / 3 amps. If this actually works well, I might prefer this approach. I don't know much about the solar panel market, to know if it's cost effective to find 10-40 watt compact panels for this purpose. But this seems a bit more suited for my application, because I can supply my own conductors and I can use the solar panels for other projects in the future.
What would you all suggest? Thank you so much for your help!
Goals: Supply the car battery with enough charge from solar, that it can run the rodent repeller continuously for 12+ months. Keep the battery topped off and in a healthy state for 12+ months.
Location: Carson City, Nevada -- high desert, can drop to 20 degrees F in the winter but generally does not stay below freezing, some snow that melts quickly, hot in the summer, ridiculous amounts of sunlight. Can be quite windy. Very little humidity.
Battery: Just normal sealed lead-acid 12v car batteries. No AGM, no LiPo.
Mounting & Logistics: Solar panel will need to be movable and not too large, and will set on the roof of car, or possibly on the dash drawing sunlight through the windshield. Total conductor run might be about 12 feet, that's enough to go from the car roof, down near the ground and under the car cover, and then back up and under hood where the charge controller to the battery (and rodent repeller) will live.
Budget: I actually have 4 cars in storage. And they are nowhere near eachother in the storage lot. So I will have to buy 4x the charge controllers and solar panels. So I'd like to go for a more budget friendly solution, than if I just had a single instance.
I would like to ask for advice. I have a car in long-term storage that I won't be able to attend to for 12+ months. The car will likely be covered. I will have disconnected its 12V battery from the vehicle's charging system of course, and since rodents can be an issue, I would instead like to utilize the battery to run an ultrasonic rodent repeller that claims a 0.1 watt draw: MouseBlocker Classic (link).
One option I see is Battery Tender's 5 Watt suction cup solar panel charger (link). It's $50 and that gets you the panel with mounting options, built-in charge controller and of course a 'smart' DC/DC charger. It claims a nominal output voltage of 12Vdc, and a maximum output current of 270mAdc which, at 12 volts would be 3.24 watts. (They allege other varients exist such as a $134 10-watt version and a $149 17W version but these seem to be 'out of stock' / vaporware). Even with 70% of maximum output, that would be a little over 2 watts, which may be enough power for my application. The built-in charge controller's charging profile is not selectable and has some hand-wavy "consistent with the optimum charging recommendations of major lead-acid battery manufacturers". The price seems good here, but the panel and charge controller would not be able to be repurposed for other unrelated projects in the future, which I don't like.
Battery Tender also has "BT Solar Jr" for $27. You bring your own solar panel to this party, 5 to 45 watts of input, max input voltage spec'd at 32 volts / 3 amps. If this actually works well, I might prefer this approach. I don't know much about the solar panel market, to know if it's cost effective to find 10-40 watt compact panels for this purpose. But this seems a bit more suited for my application, because I can supply my own conductors and I can use the solar panels for other projects in the future.
What would you all suggest? Thank you so much for your help!
Goals: Supply the car battery with enough charge from solar, that it can run the rodent repeller continuously for 12+ months. Keep the battery topped off and in a healthy state for 12+ months.
Location: Carson City, Nevada -- high desert, can drop to 20 degrees F in the winter but generally does not stay below freezing, some snow that melts quickly, hot in the summer, ridiculous amounts of sunlight. Can be quite windy. Very little humidity.
Battery: Just normal sealed lead-acid 12v car batteries. No AGM, no LiPo.
Mounting & Logistics: Solar panel will need to be movable and not too large, and will set on the roof of car, or possibly on the dash drawing sunlight through the windshield. Total conductor run might be about 12 feet, that's enough to go from the car roof, down near the ground and under the car cover, and then back up and under hood where the charge controller to the battery (and rodent repeller) will live.
Budget: I actually have 4 cars in storage. And they are nowhere near eachother in the storage lot. So I will have to buy 4x the charge controllers and solar panels. So I'd like to go for a more budget friendly solution, than if I just had a single instance.
