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I am going for a 4 day camping/fishing trip at the end of the month and I am running an eletric motor, sonar and lights off my battery. (deep cycle) I picked up a solar panel to charge my battery...My question is if anyone uses one knows approx how long do they take to charge a battery? (I know it depends on sunlight intensity) and can i charge the battery while I am using it?

Cheers,

lets say you got a 30 watt Panel at full sunlight you get 2.5 amps. If your battery is 50 Amp hours then it would take 20 hours of full sunlight to charge that battery if it was dead.

I hope this helps.. it will give you a good idea anyhow.

Mark

mlamothe wrote:lets say you got a 30 watt Panel at full sunlight you get 2.5 amps. If your battery is 50 Amp hours then it would take 20 hours of full sunlight to charge that battery if it was dead.

I hope this helps.. it will give you a good idea anyhow.

Mark

What if you were to connect the solar panel to the battery while you were using it??...would it prolong the amount of hrs of usage??

It doesn't have enough push to charge the battery to charge a deep cycle you have to push about 5amps at least and then float it down till its full and that sloar panel doesn't have enough push to over come battery static charge

Mike knows what he is talking about.

The guy next door at my house tried one of these panels when on vacation. Said it was all but useless for the deep cycle. Maybe he did not leave it connected long enough.

Last year he borrowed my extra deep cycle when he went, was much happier cause 2 was all he needed for his time he used the batt's. He has since just purchased a 2nd battery for himself.

He said it works well cause if they drive into a town to do something he looks for a place with a power outlet and plugs it in for a couple hours while eating etc. Sounds funny but I could see him asking a shop keeper or restaurant if he could plug in his battery while dinning. 2hrs may not be a full charge but at 20amps it will get some juice back in there.