Solar Charger for 6 volt battery

[bob46320]

Can anyone recommend a solar charger for 6 volt lead acid batteries that we use on the Seven.  It would be good to have the battery on a continuous trickle during the winter months etc. It needs to be a panel which can be mounted outside of the garage as opposed to the ones that stick on your windscreen.
Bob

[Duncan Grimmond]

I use a 12v panel (from eBay £18.99) for keeping my Pembleton battery charged. Unfortunately it is not a "smart" one and runs when the sun shines. It must be possible to step it down to 6v or even rig up another 6v battery in series.
I believe Oxford make a smart charger but it is about £80.00 I believe.
For winter use it will be much less effective, what with the sun not shining that much...

[bob46320]

I have a 12 volt solar system with 12v controller which smart charges its 12v battery . It controls max / min voltages and as I understand things, voltage indicates battery state. BUT its 12 volt (it can be set for 24 v). However if you have 2 x 6 v batteries in series. they must be used in conjunction with each other. A simple step down of voltage wouldn't work as a trickle charger.

[Tiger]

12 volt / 1 amp solar panels are very cheap.
I wonder whether with such a low output it would be O.K. For 6v. .?
Regards
Tim

[Mark Dymond]

I beleive the cheaper solar chargers are just the panel and a diode so should work with any lead acid battery. They will settle on a voltage and current appropite to the power available. That's my understanding anyway. This only works with small panels where there is no possibility of overcharging.

[spannerman]

Buy a ubec off eBay they have a wide input voltage is 7.2 to 22.2 and a switch to pick 5v or 6v output, the output on the solar panel in wattage will not over charge battery as most of time will not have full output , this is how I charge my 6v bat with no problem's.