scoobyster

Hi All

My MY95 is off the road at my mum's house at the minute (see my dislocated shoulder thread ) and the battery goes flat within a few weeks which confuses and sets off the alarm (using its backup batt) at 2am, naturally.

It may be a couple of months before the car is driven again so I want to trickle charge the battery to stop this happening. The car is in a car port with a roof but open sides and is out of easy reach of the mains so I'm wondering if I could use a solar charger. I could put the panel outside the car port so it could get direct sunlight if needs be. Any recommendation of charger? Will a £15 ebay one do? Is ~1.5W (in daylight!) too much for constant use?

Also I think is the battery knackered given that it's losing charge within a month? It's a 3 year old Lucas, what should I replace it with?

Cheers,

Ben

darms

iTrader: (5)

I've got one of these fitted on my rear shelf



Will take a pic later today of it installled (sprayed black)

scoobyster

Looks good darms, where did you get it? It's bigger than others I've seen, must be 5W or so..?

Do you think it's bad for a battery to be trickle charged constantly/daily? I'm going to use one on my car in the short term but after that will use it for my mum's classic car which gets used 10 times a year if it's lucky!

minted_aye

you can get one that pugs into the cigar lighter, might make it easier to use

scoobyster

Yep most come with cig lighter plug and sometimes also croc clips. Is the cig lighter wired to a permanent live though? IIRC it only works with the ignition on but my car is 100 miles away so I can't check, anyone know?

darms

iTrader: (5)

Got mine from Maplins mate :-)

Chelspeed

Standard wiring has ciggy lighter only connected with the ignition on.

Same with most cars so always makes me laugh seeing cars parked, locked up (with keys out naturally) with these sat on the dash!!! Muppets!

Easy job on a scoobie to rewire the ciggy lighter to a permanent unswitched live from the hazard light switch.