Hiya all.

Have just spotted these solar power battery trickle charges on ebay as was wondering if anybody had used them? Do they work or is this just more snake oil?

I guess a link would help wouldn't it? d'OH!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Solar-Panel-Battery-saver-Trickle-Charger-12v_W0QQitemZ8011808836QQcategoryZ15329QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

I looked at these but decided that for £10 at macine mart the simple plug in the wall job was perfect.

I'm just as bad,a link might have helped more.
http://www.machinemart.co.uk/product.asp?p=010310012

Hi cpc do a similar one for about a tenner, link below

link

i have one, seem to be okay.

Ray

Just a note - this type of charger cannot stay on ALL the time like a solar powered one.

They are used to "top up"the battery - use it 1/month or so overnight to keep it in tip top condition.

The Machine Mart one is cheaper at Argos!

I've just fitted one this morning. It's a tidy little thing and hopefully it'll keep the battery up on my Omega as it sometimes sits for a week to ten days doing nothing.

Solar chargers that size can barely keep up with self discharge rate of a battery, I have a big A3 sized one that does not much better although theoretically rated for a 1-2 amp gharge. Electronic trickle chargers that plug in can usually recharge a partly discharged battery, very useful for cars that don't get used often or driven far.

Caber

Depends what you want and what you connect it to --

Solar panels need to be fairly big to do any good especially in a uk winter, in fact on a modern everyday car connecting one might actually make the battery discharge quicker because it might confuse one or more of the cars ECU and prevent the ecus going into sleep mode which will drain the battery in a couple of days.

With Plug-top trickle chargers you get what you pay for, The properly controlled "battery conditioners" that you can leave on safely 24/7 tend to be quite expensive. Even with one of these I would put it on a time switch so it chargd for only a few hours a week.