A solar trickle charger can be a very useful piece of kit for anyone who needs to rely on a battery that isn’t used all the time. Example of this are leisure vehicles like motorbikes, boats or cars. People also use them for motor homes or cottages. What a trickle charger is is a simple solar panel which feeds a constant slow ‘trickle’ of charge into a battery, thus preventing it from losing its charge over time.
This is a common problem with a lot of lead-acid batteries, which are the most commonly used type in motor vehicles. The issue is inherent to the chemical nature of the battery itself, and can create as much as a two-percent drain per day, depending on your battery. A solar trickle charger attached to your battery can help ensure that when you return to use it, the battery and the device attached to it is not going to let you down. A charger is a good low-cost way to ensure that your battery is always topped up, and will work as long as they have a decent regular exposure to sunlight.
They are durable- a solar cell has no moving parts, and isn’t likely to stop working, unless they’re left exposed to some pretty severe environmental conditions. Obviously, some chargers are better suited to external conditions than others, but if you shop around you’ll be able to find something pretty robust. This is useful if you’re considering using a trickle charger for an outdoors application, such as maintaining the charge on the burglar alarm on a building like a garage or outhouse. You can install your charger on the building’s roof and leave it safe in the knowledge that it’ll just keep on ticking over with no connection to the mains necessary.
Another good point of a trickle charger is that it won’t overcharge your battery, which is a risk if you are connecting it to mains power. A battery which is overcharged will, over time, lose some of its capacity, which will hasten the day when you have to replace it. Now, nothing lasts forever, but take it from me, it’s a real pain having to replace an overcharged battery- there is NEVER a good time for that to happen!
It’s also especially useful to have a source of energy available if you’re on a camping trip, or anywhere that’ll take you away from civilisation, or other cars, for any extended period of time. They’re a simple tool to use and they can save you hours of frustration, and the fact that they’re solar powered means that you don’t need any access to an external power source to know that they will work!
