Trickle charging in a garage with no power

[mouseymousey]

Hi everyone

I've been googling this for the last couple of hours and haven't come up with a solution.

Has anyone here found a way of trickle charging their batteries when the car is in a garage that doesn't have any power? Solar charging is also out due to the location of the garage.

I was hoping to find some sort of portable battery powered trickle charger that I could take inside and recharge once a week or so.

Any ideas?

[350Matt]

You could hoick in a lorry battery and use that wired in paraell with your one whilst its in the garage, the probelm with any battery power device is that it'd have to be a higher power than the car battery ( which is pretty powerful).

Are you sure you can't get a solar panel to it?

[Daston]

I have a small solar panel on mine cost £30 from ebay produces 11v. Its designed for boats and caravans but havent had a battery problem since

[mouseymousey]

Thanks for the replies.

Any idea how much sun do these panels actually have to see?

The garage is in a pretty sheltered area with another car parked in front of the garage door. It's also in a shared block so I'd be a little worried about it getting nicked, although if they're cheap enough I suppose it's worth a try.

[dhf]

DemonTweeks sell them about £30 01978664466 talk to them

[ruaricoles]

mouseymousey said:

The garage is in a pretty sheltered area with another car parked in front of the garage door. It's also in a shared block so I'd be a little worried about it getting nicked, although if they're cheap enough I suppose it's worth a try.

Could you hide a solar panel on the roof? (Anywhere on a flat roof or the rear side of a pitched roof would be out of sight from in front of the garage?)

Or just go and drive it more often

Ruari

[mouseymousey]

dhf said:

DemonTweeks sell them about £30 01978664466 talk to them

Thanks, will do.

ruaricoles said:

mouseymousey said:

The garage is in a pretty sheltered area with another car parked in front of the garage door. It's also in a shared block so I'd be a little worried about it getting nicked, although if they're cheap enough I suppose it's worth a try.

Could you hide a solar panel on the roof? (Anywhere on a flat roof or the rear side of a pitched roof would be out of sight from in front of the garage?)

Or just go and drive it more often

Ruari

Don't really fancy drilling a hole in the roof for the cable though. And I'm driving it at least once a week at the moment, and have done since a new battery was fitted in June. I'm thinking I might have a drain on the battery somewhere.

[bigdods]

Maplins do a solar panel suitable for car batteries, IIRC I paid about £50 for mine. It just needs daylight to work and puts out about 0.5A in full sunlight, but even in normal daylight it puts out enough to keep things topped up.

Dont bother with the small ones you get in halfords etc they put out less milliamps in the shade than the battery drains by so it will go flat.

[stimshady]

fit a battery isolator switch and if you're going to leave it for more than 2 weeks, just turn it off. saves the need to trickle.

[dhf]

Great minds think alike,you beat me to it.Demon Tweeks again.good security too.

[hiltonig]

maplin do a 12v wind turbine if thats anygood ?

[miniman]

Daston said:

I have a small solar panel on mine cost £30 from ebay produces 11v. Its designed for boats and caravans but havent had a battery problem since

Conversely, the one I had was ste. It barely generated enough juice to power its own LED. If you get one, get a reasonably large one.

[tubbystu]

I have a Sealey Road Start, that admittedly I did get for a song on e-bay. 1600 amp crank, so it'll start the tiv from dead flat on the first spin anyhow.



I have fitted an invertor to it, via the handy cigar socket, so it has 240v supply and the trickle charger runs off that.

Also good for the 12v compressor to fill the tyres too.

Sorted.

[mouseymousey]

tubbystu said:

I have a Sealey Road Start, that admittedly I did get for a song on e-bay. 1600 amp crank, so it'll start the tiv from dead flat on the first spin anyhow.



I have fitted an invertor to it, via the handy cigar socket, so it has 240v supply and the trickle charger runs off that.

Also good for the 12v compressor to fill the tyres too.

Sorted.

Aha, this is interesting because I already have something like that.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is an invertor?

EDIT: OK, I figured out what an inverter is

How long does your battery pack power the trickle charger for?

Edited by mouseymousey on Tuesday 8th September 21:34

[tubbystu]

mouseymousey said:

tubbystu said:

I have a Sealey Road Start, that admittedly I did get for a song on e-bay. 1600 amp crank, so it'll start the tiv from dead flat on the first spin anyhow.



I have fitted an invertor to it, via the handy cigar socket, so it has 240v supply and the trickle charger runs off that.

Also good for the 12v compressor to fill the tyres too.

Sorted.

Aha, this is interesting because I already have something like that.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is an invertor?

Sorry, should be inverter......

Anyway, it converts DC to AC

http://www.transtools.co.uk/store/prod_1363/corded...

Get one that is big enough too.

[mouseymousey]

tubbystu said:

Sorry, should be inverter......

Anyway, it converts DC to AC

http://www.transtools.co.uk/store/prod_1363/corded...

Get one that is big enough too.

Brilliant, thanks for your help. One last thing, do you know roughly how long your battery pack powers the charger for? At least a week I hope?

[mikeinsheffield]

Alternative idea - get a deep discharge camping battery from a camping store (e.g. Go Outdoors); attach a 12v to 24v converter, then attach the trickle charger. Only thing is, you need to then keep an eye on the camping battery, then keep charging it up - it will probably only have enough charge to run the trickle charge for about a day or so, then you need to charge the camping battery back up at home from the mains (using the same charger that you do for the TIV....). BUT this should be enough to keep some life in the TIV battery.

Means a bit more swapping about, BUT also means you don't have anything external to the garage if you are worried about scrotes nicking stuff......

[Hoover.]

dont drill hole in roof...... get an extension cable and just fix through gap in door n frame (minimal drilling req).

if not iosolator will guaratee battery... not sure on insurance though.

[tubbystu]

mouseymousey said:

tubbystu said:

Sorry, should be inverter......

Anyway, it converts DC to AC

http://www.transtools.co.uk/store/prod_1363/corded...

Get one that is big enough too.

Brilliant, thanks for your help. One last thing, do you know roughly how long your battery pack powers the charger for? At least a week I hope?

I've left it for three weeks and its not run out of charge - car battery is now a good 'un and would probably do that on its own TBH. The road start I use regularly to run radio, compressor, vacuum cleaner and power tools etc (not all at once) to give it some sort of regular discharge/recharge cycle in the summer.

I got the road start when I had a battery in the tiv that was towards the end of its life. Now I have a newish battery it would probably do a fortnight plus and still start without external help. With the road start and trickle charger I know I can leave it for 3 weeks if required.

Should it all go wrong, you only have to charge the road start overnight and you can hard jump the tiv and get going, though I acknowledge this is not the best way to treat the battery - hence the trickle option.

I work away a lot and I like the security blanket the road start gives. If I leave either car in an airport carpark for more than a week or so the road start is in the boot fully charged, so if battery has died whilst I've been away I can jump it without external help and get home.

[XTR2Turbo]

Cheapest and easiest is a solar panel on the roof. No need to drill a hole in the roof just guide the cable across the roof and down the wall. Buy atleast a 20Watt panel.

This place is good

http://www.sunshinesolar.co.uk/


Buy a 24v battery (or two small 12v batteries in series) and a charge regulator (about £20) as used with solar panels.

The charge regulator monitors the battery in your car and will trickle charge into it as required.

Take the 24v battery home and charge it up every couple of months or so.

Alternatively fit a gel battery such as Odysey or RedTop and fit to car with a remote battery isolator. Gel batteries hold their charge for about 6 months

Edited by XTR2Turbo on Wednesday 9th September 00:12