Solar car battery charger

[Jspec19]

Just curious if anyone has purchased a solar car battery charger that you can connect to the cigarette lighter. Various stores like Walmart, Lowe’s & Home Depot Amin others sell these. Wondering if they would actually charge the vehicles batteries and not just the auxiliary battery. These have been around for a long time.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Just curious if anyone has purchased a solar car battery charger that you can connect to the cigarette lighter. Various stores like Walmart, Lowe’s & Home Depot Amin others sell these. Wondering if they would actually charge the vehicles batteries and not just the auxiliary battery. These have been around for a long time.

Cars like the Leaf and Prius that turn the "lighter" socket off when the car is off cannot benefit from one of those solar chargers. The amount of power they provide is nowhere near enough to charge the traction battery anyway.

 

[Randy]

I use a 12" x 6" solar panel with an outboard controller to charge the 12v battery on an infrequently used ICE car parked on the street. It works well and helps to keep the 12v battery topped up pretty well. I have it plugged into the OBDII connector where there is permanent 12v power.

It only produces a few watts, so it won't do anything to charge the LEAFs main battery (even if the proper electrical connections were in place, which they aren't)...

 

[jjeff]

The SL model Leaf has something like that, it's on the little spoiler off the top of the hatch, it's only used to top off the 12v battery and hardly does that :|
It would take a very large solar cell array(like for a house) to really charge the large Leaf traction battery.

 

[smkettner]

Just curious if anyone has purchased a solar car battery charger that you can connect to the cigarette lighter. Various stores like Walmart, Lowe’s & Home Depot Amin others sell these. Wondering if they would actually charge the vehicles batteries and not just the auxiliary battery. These have been around for a long time.

No. The main battery will never charge from the cigar plug.

Put 3+ kW solar on the roof of your home and use the J1772 charging plug is the way to do a solar charging.

 

[LeftieBiker]

The SV model Leaf has something like that, it's on the little spoiler off the top of the hatch, it's only used to top off the 12v battery and hardly does that :|
It would take a very large solar cell array(like for a house) to really charge the large Leaf traction battery.

That would be Gen 1 and Gen 1.5 Leaf SL models, not SV or S. Those panels do some good if parked in full sun for hours daily, because they can charge the 12 volt battery with the car off.

As for charging or maintaining a Leaf 12 volt battery through the OBDII port...good luck. I wouldn't risk it, personally.

 

[cwerdna]

Regarding charging 12 volt via OBD2 port, I used to do that w/my 06 Prius w/a free VW solar panel: https://priuschat.com/threads/solar-chargers-vw-obd2-port-chargers-obd2-disconnect-reconnect-cycles.91212/#post-1298659.

I lived in apartments in the Seattle area before and I could only park outside and IIRC, only had one (outside) covered space but had 2 cars. I don't recall outlets and even if I got a spot in front of my unit, I wasn't really keen on running a cord and 12 volt charger out to my car w/the hood open for too long.

The panel itself was quite large (maybe at least 8.5 x 11" in size) and thus much larger than the tiny panel on the spoiler of Leaf SL's. It looked exactly like https://www.newbeetle.org/forums/market-place-archives/47423-fs-vw-solar-panels.html.

 

[LeftieBiker]

I'm not saying that charging via the OBDII port isn't possible. I'm saying that I wouldn't risk it with a Leaf. I'd hardwire the panel, with a diode, to the battery first.

 

[jjeff]

The SV model Leaf has something like that, it's on the little spoiler off the top of the hatch, it's only used to top off the 12v battery and hardly does that :|
It would take a very large solar cell array(like for a house) to really charge the large Leaf traction battery.

That would be Gen 1 and Gen 1.5 Leaf SL models, not SV or S. Those panels do some good if parked in full sun for hours daily, because they can charge the 12 volt battery with the car off.

As for charging or maintaining a Leaf 12 volt battery through the OBDII port...good luck. I wouldn't risk it, personally.

Don't know why I said SV, brain fart :lol: I corrected my post.
So they did away with it on the newest gen Leafs? didn't know that one.

 

[LeftieBiker]

So they did away with it on the newest gen Leafs? didn't know that one.

Yup. Story of my life: I'm forced to get an SL to get Around View, and don't even get the solar panel as a consolation prize.