What's a good 12v Solar Battery keeper?

tcvb

Looking to keep my Generator battery maintained,it does not have an alternator.It's an 8KW Generac unit.I installed in a shed outside with a transfer switch.But lately the battery has been going dead on it.Its a new system,would like to install a small solar battery charger on it and like some input?

Thank's

Tim

niel

Re: What's a good 12v Solar Battery keeper?

what is the voltage and ah capacity rating of the battery?

tcvb

Re: What's a good 12v Solar Battery keeper?

tcvb wrote: »

Looking to keep my Generator battery maintained,it does not have an alternator.It's an 8KW Generac unit.I installed in a shed outside with a transfer switch.But lately the battery has been going dead on it.Its a new system,would like to install a small solar battery charger on it and like some input?

Thank's

Tim

I ended up ordering this unit here:

VDC Electronics BatteryMINDer 12 Volt Solar Charging System with 5 Watt Panel and Desulfator, Model# SCC005

Will see how it does.

john p

Re: What's a good 12v Solar Battery keeper?

A kind hearted soft spoken sweet lady with a husky voice that will caress and clean your battery and the 5w solar panel and 3a charge controller every day.:p

bryanl

Re: What's a good 12v Solar Battery keeper?

I am very curious about the VDC BatteryMINDer thing. I have ordered one of their 15A controllers to see what it does on an RV battery. Those often get fried, even with good solar charge controllers, because of the idle time.

There are several issues that VDC appears to address. One is overcharging and the other is sulfation inhibition. Most battery maintainers simply use a float voltage and that can be difficult to get right and does not prevent electrolyte stratification or other sulfation stimulus.

GreenPowerManiac

Re: What's a good 12v Solar Battery keeper?

Tim,

That's a very good idea. I doubt there is anything that will charge the battery even when the system is running, like an alternator/regulator in a car. Any battery that has wires hooked up to something will draw minute amounts of power regardless of use until either the battery fails or if controlled, to a certain voltage cutoff disconnect one would hope.

Now my question would be: When the battery goes low or fails, say from a lack of Sunshine, will the Solar Battery Keeper overload trying to charge it and fail itself ? One battery that's low can be very demanding for current. Trying to charge a dead battery could cause it to heat up or worse, explode. I'd make a battery box for it if not come with one in the first place.

Now with the RV batteries frying, are they using SLA's, AGM's, Gels, or Deep Cycle Batts ? I had a friend that swore by the GEL Deep Cycle batteries in his RV. They just last and last, he said. One charge of about 20 batteries lasted his entire weekend trip to the racetrack. Now I own most of his Gels and can say they do hold up better under loads and life expectancy is double or more with PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) sulfation control. The problem is charging voltages are mostly recommended at 14.1v max.

Please let us know how it works.....