SCA Solar battery maintainance charger 4W

[Mr_GT]

Hi everyone, my gtp hasnt been getting much use lately, and i had to jump start it today,just wondering if any had any experience with these solar maint. Chargers from SCA?
Do you have to disconnect the battery when you hook this thing up?

[Blue Dog]

Don't have any experience with the SCA chargers, however if you're in the market for a quality battery charger, the CTEK chargers are excellent.
Especially if you have a vehicle that isn't driven very often, as you can leave them connected indefinitely.

[Mr_GT]

Thanks bluedog....are the Ctek solar power?

[Jacko*]

Originally Posted by Blue Dog

Don't have any experience with the SCA chargers, however if you're in the market for a quality battery charger, the CTEK chargers are excellent.
Especially if you have a vehicle that isn't driven very often, as you can leave them connected indefinitely.

I agree CTEC are the way to go, I have had my Monaro off the road for the last 3 years, after the first 12 months the original battery was dead due to lack of use & the not so smart battery charger that boiled the **** out of the battery. So I got a new battery & a $99 CTEC smart charger & haven't had any issues since. It maintains the battery buy monitoring voltage & only charging when necessary. Overall they are well worth the money.

[Blue Dog]

No, not solar power.
I will guarantee they are better than the SCA products.
They are available in a variety of amperage outputs to suit various applications.

[Yellow_Festiva]

Originally Posted by Mr_GT

Hi everyone, my gtp hasnt been getting much use lately, and i had to jump start it today,just wondering if any had any experience with these solar maint. Chargers from SCA?
Do you have to disconnect the battery when you hook this thing up?

Don't think you need to disconnect the battery.

Just run the leads to the battery and put the panel somewhere that gets sun.

[Tassie f100]

Originally Posted by Mr_GT

Hi everyone, my gtp hasnt been getting much use lately, and i had to jump start it today,just wondering if any had any experience with these solar maint. Chargers from SCA?
Do you have to disconnect the battery when you hook this thing up?

Problem with the Supercrap solar charger is it only trickles in 4 watt which is less than 1/3 amp.1/3 amp is probably less than the memory in your radio needs.Better off with a 4-5 amp 240 v if you have power handy.You would need about an 80 w solar panel to trickle in 5 amps because of loss through regulators

[X-AHH]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

Problem with the Supercrap solar charger is it only trickles in 4 watt which is less than 1/3 amp.1/3 amp is probably less than the memory in your radio needs.Better off with a 4-5 amp 240 v if you have power handy.You would need about an 80 w solar panel to trickle in 5 amps because of loss through regulators

Totally agree with Tassie.

Why not spend your money on a 3 or 4 stage 240V charger that can keep your battery fully charged and if you need it to, charge a flat battery overnight.

There are many value for money options on ebay if you take a look.

Mine cost around $35 from memory. It's not a Ctek but does the same job for half the cost.

[baboon]

Originally Posted by Tassie f100

Problem with the Supercrap solar charger is it only trickles in 4 watt which is less than 1/3 amp.1/3 amp is probably less than the memory in your radio needs.Better off with a 4-5 amp 240 v if you have power handy.You would need about an 80 w solar panel to trickle in 5 amps because of loss through regulators

If the car is stationary and not moved for a while, I've read that the cars current draw is only 20-40mA.... So 333mA should be enough to keep the battery charged...

[RANGEREST]

baboon beat me to it, I should have read to the end

[mike_nofx]

I'm guessing he leaves the car outside hence wanting the solar charger, so I'm also guessing he probably doesn't want extension leads running from his house out to his car??

[Mr_GT]

Originally Posted by mike_nofx

I'm guessing he leaves the car outside hence wanting the solar charger, so I'm also guessing he probably doesn't want extension leads running from his house out to his car??

This is true, that's the reason i want solar.. thanks for all the replies, been a great help.

[X-AHH]

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I thought you were after the best bang for your buck
I never even considered you wanted to be independent of the mains power

If solar is the best fit for your circumstances, perhaps consider a larger solar panel, say around 20 Watts with a voltage regulator. This will be better during the winter months when sunlight isn't available for as many hours per day or if you get a few days of rain or cloud cover. There will be more power produced by the larger panel when solar conditions aren't ideal.

[Sox]

Originally Posted by xahh

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I thought you were after the best bang for your buck
I never even considered you wanted to be independent of the mains power

If solar is the best fit for your circumstances, perhaps consider a larger solar panel, say around 20 Watts with a voltage regulator. This will be better during the winter months when sunlight isn't available for as many hours per day or if you get a few days of rain or cloud cover. There will be more power produced by the larger panel when solar conditions aren't ideal.

There's no need, the panel he's looking at will keep his battery fully charged indefinitely.

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by Sox

There's no need, the panel he's looking at will keep his battery fully charged indefinitely.

Thanks for what is now my new solution for my boat. I never had an issue when I had the time to take it out every other sunday, when I lost the free time I started it for an hour every 2 weeks...2 turned to 6 and then it turned in to when I remembered. Now it's got to the point the 2 730cca batteries aren't my friend, so a few weeks in the sun should bring back double redundancy reliability. The batteries are only 18 months old..

[Mr_GT]

Originally Posted by Sox

There's no need, the panel he's looking at will keep his battery fully charged indefinitely.

Just to make sure, i dont need to disconnect battery terminals when i hook this thing up?

[X-AHH]

Originally Posted by Sox

There's no need, the panel he's looking at will keep his battery fully charged indefinitely.

Ok, please explain how a 4W solar panel is going to do that and prevent sulphation of the battery through all weather conditions ? The solar panel size should be matched to the battery size. The small panel he is referring to would be just ok on a bright sunny day but would barely have any benefit on a cloudy one. It's probably better suited to a ride on mower/motor bike size of battery than the type in his gtp.

Quote from the SCA website in relation to this product "Great for charging infrequently used 12v batteries in vehicles such as ride on lawn mowers"

In my humble opinion, an unregulated voltage source is not a professional way to charge your batteries under any circumstances.

[Sox]

The solar charger works great, I have a few.

[The Yeti]

I have a SCA one sitting permanently on the dash of my old diesel Triton farm ute as it doesn't get much use and I constantly had to jump start it when I needed it, since I fitted it I haven't had an issue.

I liked it that much I have one on my ride on as well (the panels under the eves on the external wall of the shed and I fitted an anderson plug to it and the mower) I have done the same with my mums ride on, and have found it makes life so much easier after the winter when they don't get used a lot

[CFOUR]

i have got a sca solar charger on my ride on mower, it works

[carwant.com.au]

What about just disconnecting the battery and re-connecting when you drive it? Especially if it's only once a month or once every couple of months. Besides re-adjusting the clock, is there any reason why this wont work?

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by carwant.com.au

What about just disconnecting the battery and re-connecting when you drive it? Especially if it's only once a month or once every couple of months. Besides re-adjusting the clock, is there any reason why this wont work?

They have internal battery drain and they still slowly go flat, we get the odd car to monitor current draw issues on through the workshop, they pull about 0.02A constantly when everything is off and its sitting.

[olfella]

I forgot to mention in my post that if your ciggy lighter/power plug is active or could be made active with the ignition off, then you could place the panel on your dash and plug it in. Saves a lot of hassle.

[Itsme]

SCA products, you have to be a brave person purchasing & using that cheap nasty Chinese crap!!!

[olfella]

Originally Posted by trublu

SCA products, you have to be a brave person purchasing & using that cheap nasty Chinese crap!!!

Do you have an alternative that can be used?

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by olfella

Do you have an alternative that can be used?

Any other brand will be fine except for SCA, I have had two SCA battery chargers given to me as gifts over the last few years which both failed prematurely, both were pulled apart to be checked & honestly I'm surprised they were given the C tick approval to be sold in this country as the electronics circuitry construction is substandard in my opinion.

Fortunately those Intelligent chargers are no longer stocked, I wonder why?

This has made me bias on SCA electrical products

Cheers.

[nstg8a]

Originally Posted by trublu

Any other brand will be fine except for SCA, I have had two SCA battery chargers given to me as gifts over the last few years which both failed prematurely, both were pulled apart to be checked & honestly I'm surprised they were given the C tick approval to be sold in this country as the electronics circuitry construction is substandard in my opinion.

Fortunately those Intelligent chargers are no longer stocked, I wonder why?

This has made me bias on SCA electrical products

Cheers.

You get stories like that on virtually any brand.

Conversely I have a sca smart charger that's done me fine for the last 4-5 years, kept my bike battery charged without killing it, kays charged numerous car batteries over the years, only issue I've had with it was the face decal falling off a while back.

While generally you get what you pay for, not everything that's cheap is utter rubbish.

[X-AHH]

The fact that online you can buy a 5 Watt equivalent (made in China) for half the price makes it an expensive retail product.

To all those who have bought it, you could have got something similar or better for less money but if you are happy with that outcome, good for you.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/172320048143

Add a few feet of cable and a couple of alligator clips and you have a better product for under $15.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by nstg8a

You get stories like that on virtually any brand.

Conversely I have a sca smart charger that's done me fine for the last 4-5 years, kept my bike battery charged without killing it, kays charged numerous car batteries over the years, only issue I've had with it was the face decal falling off a while back.

While generally you get what you pay for, not everything that's cheap is utter rubbish.

I acknowledge any product can fail but my comment was on the quality of the product itself, SCA is inferior compared to other brands, if you happy with yours then so be it but I would rather buy a better quality product.

OBTW I know a lot of Chinese electronics can be good & there is also a lot of cheap inferior ones too.

In my last 40 years of working in the electrical industry I've seen lot of incidents involving inferior products, if your happy to connect up crap to your precious pride & joy then go for it.

[nstg8a]

Originally Posted by trublu

SCA products, you have to be a brave person purchasing & using that cheap nasty Chinese crap!!!

You mean as opposed to virtually every other brand of solar gear that's built in China?