For many years I’ve ran an extension cord out to my enclosed trailer to power the trickle charger and keep the battery healthy. It’s a pain in the butt, so when I bought my open trailer, I decided to try a Solar Charger. There’s a lot of these on the market, and after doing some research, those that have a MPPT Charge Controller are the way to go to prevent overcharging the battery.
The setup I ended up choosing was a SUNER POWER 50W 12V Solar Panel Battery Trickle Charger that I found on Amazon. The initial idea was to mount it on the lid of the toolbox, but it was bigger than I initially thought, so I decided to make a mount that goes in the stake pockets. This allows a much more efficient angle on the panel, and I can move it around to orient it towards the sun depending on where I park the trailer.
As luck would have it, I had some scrap laying around to make a frame and stake pocket mount which works out pretty good.
To connect it to the battery, I got a SAE Bulkhead Connector and installed it in the toolbox. This makes the panel really easy to remove and store when using the trailer. How’s it work? I didn’t do any fancy data logging or anything like that, but I have checked the voltage over a few days both cloudy and full sun. In full sun, it fully tops the battery off, indicating 13.8 to 14 vdc on the tool box gauge, even on a cloudy rainy day, it was hovering around 13 volts. Looks ok.
I haven’t drained the battery much like when using the winch or whatever, so I’m not sure how long it will take to recharge the on board battery, but it looks very encouraging – and no more extension cords to drag around to keep the battery maintained! I’m very certain in the near future I’ll add one of these to my enclosed trailer as well.
Note: Some links in this post are affilate links, because why not. They are all products I bought, have used myself and will note if there is anything good or bad with the product.