Solor charging for your Generator

[Hunter29]

Anyone use solor to keep your generator battery charged ?

 

[RNeumann]

Mine is close enough to the panel I just ran 120v to it. Plus I need an oil warmer. With that said I’ll give your post a bump...

 

[oosik]

I've used solar to keep my electric fence battery charged up. Worked great. Came as a complete unit. Battery, controller, small solar panel. Should be the same for a generator.

 

[TnAndy]

I use a 40w panel to keep the 12v battery on my sawmill charged.

 

[RalphVa]

Didn't work on mine. Put an outside Battery Tender on it. Been fine since.

Solar has worked fine for years on my fence charger. Recently (after about 17 years) replaced the little solar panel.

Ralph

 

[Jchonline]

Didn't work on mine. Put an outside Battery Tender on it. Been fine since.

Solar has worked fine for years on my fence charger. Recently (after about 17 years) replaced the little solar panel.

Ralph

This works, you would just loose the efficiency of the inverter, maybe 10-20%.

If you do it, you should have a monitor on the battery to cut off charging and just trickle once it is near full.

 

[reb]

I have one on mine. Uses a home-built regulator and a cheap collector. Seems to work well, after replacing the cheap HF solar collector with a better one.

 

[TnAndy]

I use a 40w panel to keep the 12v battery on my sawmill charged.

Photos:

 

[TractorGuy]

I have a 20watt, 24v panel on my diesel generator.

A 30 watt, 12v panel on my gate.

A 100 Watt, 12v panel on my field cameras.

A 10 watt, 12v panel glued on the hood of my backhoe.

A 10 watt, 12v panel on my lawn mower.

Another 30 watt, 12v panel for my tractor.

I have had problems keeping charge controllers working so all my panels are connected direct except the gate which had a built in controller.

You might say I'm a proponent of solar battery maintenance.

 

[Hunter29]

Thanks for the reply's..