Solar Powered 6 Volt Battery Charger

Anyone have any good suggestions for a 6 volt solar powered automatic battery charger. My tractor is stored away for a power source and it does not get run long enough each week to keep the batteries fully charged.

Thanks,

Doug

That sounds more like a tired battery or a low output charging system that requires service.

Hi: It takes a lot of solar panel area to get the kind of energy to charge a 12 volt battery ( WATTS).The comment is also vallid about the battery being old/weak and not holding a charge for several weeks See comment above.When I store my tractors for two or more months without running them I will usually need a jumper battery (battery power pac)@ about $50.& can be used for other 12v applications etc. For a remote reliable 12 volt power supply I would suggest HARBOR FREIGHT"S 3 panel item #68751 45 watt solar panels but the $189.99 cost is alot, but can be used for lighting rario"s motion lights etc. Also consider a battery disconnect to avoid the gradual power leakage that occurs with older wiring.

You said batteries, if it has 2 6 volts in series they use a 12 volt solar panel, which are readily available many places. If you have a 6 volt system then there are 6 volt solar chargers available for game cameras, as most of them are 6 volt. Just google it!

I keep 10-2 1/2 gallon gas cans full in the garage and label the cans with the date. I use the oldest first when I run my lawn mower, wood splitter, or ATV. If the gas sits there for to long, it goes in my truck or RV and I get new gas.

I do the same at my cabin in the Adirondacks. We have a 1960 gas driven generator with a four-cylinder water-cooled Continental gas engine. 17 KW output. We keep six, 5 gallon cans of gasoline there and rotate them once a year. We dump the old gas in our van or car - and refill the cans. Never had any issues with bad gas but I DO use Stabil.

By the way. I've got a 1979 Datsun 280ZX that I took off the road when my last child was born 9 years ago. It sat for 7 years with the original tank of gasoline in it. I thought for sure that gas would of turned to varnish. I wanted to drain it but I could not fish a siphon down the filler neck. When that tank of gas hit the 7 year mark - I stuck a battery in the car and it fired right up! I was amazed. I'm not sure if I should credit Stabil or the weird German half-pulse fuel injection systems (Jet-Tronic). After it ran and I figured it was NOT yet a lost cause - I jacked the Z up in air and removed the tank filler neck. I then drained it and that gas was dark brown and looked something awful.

Sorry -that post made NO sense at all. That's what happens with an error in "copy and pasting."

About solar. I've got several solar panels on farm tractors, dozers, and one diesel snow plow truck. A 10 to 15 watt panel is the ideal size and no controller needed. I use a pair of 15 watt, 12 volt panels on my Allis Chalmers HD6 (in series) since it has a 24 volt system.

Best bet is to find a solar panel already wired to charge under a load at 6-8 volts and around 10-15 watts. In a pinch you can take a 12 volt panel and rewire it to work as a six. A panel is just a sheet with a bunch of 2 volt cells wired series and/or parallel.

jdemaris. We missed seeing you at the NY Expo in July.

I liked your last post! We have had many of the solar path lights go bad, usually the battery. I have thought of saving the solar panels and wiring them together, 4 of them should charge a 6 volt battery.

Most of the game feeders used to be 6 volt powered, I found 2 6v solar chargers in just a couple minutes at bass pr o web site priced 30 to 40 bucks. HTH