Solar Trickle Charger for C5??

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hamster99
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Solar Trickle Charger for C5??

Post by hamster99 »

Just returned from week in Cornwall to find my C5 completely dead. Not even enough juice to operate the door locks, although alarm went off when opened manually with key...!!! Battery is fairly new and have had this sort of issue on previous C5 too when left for more than a few days. Guess it's all those electrical self monitoring gizmos and systems.

Anyway, back to the post topic.......to prevent this in future I want to hook up a solar charger to trickle charge the battery and just keep everything ticking over when leaving it on the drive so grateful for any advice or recommendations in what others use or know what works. Ideally I would like something I can connect permanently or, at worst plug into the permanent live 12v socket in the rear of the centre console.

Cheers

Rob
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Re: Solar Trickle Charger for C5??

Post by Stickyfinger »

If you have double glazed windows and tints, then the "wired" ones will struggle, a windscreen one is your only real option, mine just goes on with clips to the battery and the wires into the cabin via the door seals.

That is too much of a drain however, there is a problem that needs finding.
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Re: Solar Trickle Charger for C5??

Post by wheeler »

Yep if the battery has gone that flat in a week there is something wrong, you should be able to leave the car for 3-4 weeks & come back & start it off the key. A solar panel is not the answer here. Need to start by checking the current draw from the battery, should only be around 0.05A once the BSI shuts down (around 3 minutes after locking the car). If that's ok test the battery, just because it is fairly new doesent mean it's not failed.
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Re: Solar Trickle Charger for C5??

Post by KP »

Did you set the suspension to low as well as its always best to do that when parking a hydro car up for any period of time that isn't just overnight or a few hours?
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