Solar baterry bank.

[Bravo25]

I was thinking of trying to assemble several 12 volt batteries in parallel (perhaps 2 or 4) and conecting a plug to recharge lights such as the Stinger, Pelican, or SL20xp. I was wondering if a fairly inexpensive solar panel could be built to keep these 12 volts topped off. They may only be used to charge the lights every few days so this would allow time for the solar panels to bring the baterry bank back up full charge.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?

 

[Doug Owen]

[ QUOTE ]
Bravo25 said:
I was thinking of trying to assemble several 12 volt batteries in parallel (perhaps 2 or 4) and conecting a plug to recharge lights such as the Stinger, Pelican, or SL20xp. I was wondering if a fairly inexpensive solar panel could be built to keep these 12 volts topped off. They may only be used to charge the lights every few days so this would allow time for the solar panels to bring the baterry bank back up full charge.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sure can, I suggest you at least look at Silicon Solar. Good stuff.

Doug Owen

 

[Brock]

If all your going to use it for is charging those lights I would suggest a single battery about 100ah (amp hour) in size. The easiest way to go from there is to get a panel that is about 1/20 of the battery capacity or about 3-5 amps. That would be about a 60w-100w panel. Then just connect them together and your good to go.

If you want to upgrade I would suggest a charge controller, and more panels, then a larger or more batteries if the charging need increase or you add load to the batteries.

 

[Josey]

One large battery, as Brock said, is probably the best for what you want. Make sure that it's a deep-cycle battery. I'd use a small charge controller, like a BZ Products or Morningstar, that can handle 8 amps. Those are cheap. Once a battery is completely full, a 75-watt solar panel can ramp up battery voltage quickly. You could run the battery dry and damage it.

High quality solar panels in the 64-100-watt range will cost $275 to $500.