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Thread: New Battery + Solar Charger

  1. #11
    Nickname: "Rally" MirageRally's Avatar
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    Nice job Loren!


    Interests: Rallying/Drifting/Cars/Motorcycles

  2. #12
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    Another cool experiment Loren! Thanks for sharing! Look forward to an update tomorrow!

    Not to be a smart ass about bringing up the weather, but I hope you have lots of sunshine tomorrow!

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    Loren (12-02-2020),MirageRally (12-02-2020)

  4. #13
    Still Plays With Cars Loren's Avatar
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    Sunrise was around 7am. Went out to check the car around 1:30pm. So, at most, around 6-7 hours of good sunlight since yesterday afternoon.

    The meter read 12.5V, that's good! Very definitely charging.

    Will it start? Allllllmost. It cranked over a few times before falling flat, but didn't start. (and was still at 12.1V after my attempt to start, so definitely out of the 9V basement)

    I'm going to let it continue charging until tomorrow and see what happens. If it doesn't get enough juice to charge by then, I'm just going to call it a bad battery. (which I already knew it was)

    I think this solar rig will do a good job of keeping a good battery well-charged, but reviving a dead battery is a lot to ask of it.

    If you think about it, a max 1.3A solar charger is probably putting out an average of closer to somewhere around 0.8-1.0A depending on the angle of the sun and cloud cover. So, 7 hours absolute best case would be no more than 5-6 Amp Hours added to the battery. Granted, it's only an 8.6AH battery, but still... accounting for losses in the system and the poor state of the battery... it could/should probably take this setup 12-16 hours to bring this battery to full charge. (if it's even capable of getting there)

    And so, we wait.
    Simplify and add lightness.

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    MirageRally (12-02-2020)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Loren View Post
    Sunrise was around 7am. Went out to check the car around 1:30pm. So, at most, around 6-7 hours of good sunlight since yesterday afternoon.

    The meter read 12.5V, that's good! Very definitely charging.

    Will it start? Allllllmost. It cranked over a few times before falling flat, but didn't start. (and was still at 12.1V after my attempt to start, so definitely out of the 9V basement)

    I'm going to let it continue charging until tomorrow and see what happens. If it doesn't get enough juice to charge by then, I'm just going to call it a bad battery. (which I already knew it was)

    I think this solar rig will do a good job of keeping a good battery well-charged, but reviving a dead battery is a lot to ask of it.

    If you think about it, a max 1.3A solar charger is probably putting out an average of closer to somewhere around 0.8-1.0A depending on the angle of the sun and cloud cover. So, 7 hours absolute best case would be no more than 5-6 Amp Hours added to the battery. Granted, it's only an 8.6AH battery, but still... accounting for losses in the system and the poor state of the battery... it could/should probably take this setup 12-16 hours to bring this battery to full charge. (if it's even capable of getting there)

    And so, we wait.
    Even an electric battery charger isn't going to revive a battery that is dead, & like you said it may be a dead battery that needs to be replaced.

    I agree that your solar rig may do a nice job of maintaining a good battery, especially if your Mirage sits for a period of time. That's provided it's parked outside in the sun & not in a garage!

    Solar charging/maintaining may extend the life of your next battery. That would take some time to test, but it would be a good thing to know.

    I sold my motorcycle a couple years ago, but I currently have two ATVs & one UTV with those types of batteries. The lifespan of some ATV/UTV battery brands has been disappointing. I've starting using a couple trickle chargers, & I think it's making a difference. My hope is that I get an extra year or two out of a battery. Your solar rig may do the same for you?

    Thanks for the update!

  7. #15
    Still Plays With Cars Loren's Avatar
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    Well, crap.

    I left the key in the car last night. I realized that in the evening, and was too lazy to go retrieve it. (quiet, safe neighborhood, nothing in the car worth stealing) But, it turns out not only was the key in the car, but I left the ignition on. Battery is stone cold dead. And the charger won't do anything with it at this point because it's got a low-voltage shut-off somewhere around 9 volts.

    No time to mess with it right now. I'll plan on just putting in the new battery tomorrow.
    Simplify and add lightness.

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    You should discontinue doing things that you don't intend to do. You're welcome!

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        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2020 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 42.4 mpg (US) ... 18.0 km/L ... 5.6 L/100 km ... 50.9 mpg (Imp)


  9. #17
    Still Plays With Cars Loren's Avatar
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    I had the best of intentions. Stuff happens.

    I'd have kept trying with this battery, but I'm pretty sure that running it stone cold dead after running it down to 9V more than once... it's not likely to recover. Time to move on to the next phase. Fresh battery to go with the charging setup. This was the plan all along.
    Simplify and add lightness.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Loren View Post
    I had the best of intentions. Stuff happens.

    I'd have kept trying with this battery, but I'm pretty sure that running it stone cold dead after running it down to 9V more than once... it's not likely to recover. Time to move on to the next phase. Fresh battery to go with the charging setup. This was the plan all along.
    If you don't use your Mirage every day, I will be interested in how well the solar rig keeps your battery fully charged after a period of no use.

    The old battery may have been a lost cause anyways. I do forgetful stuff like that all time. I would give you an example of that, but I can't remember one!

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    Fummins (12-04-2020)

  12. #19
    Year ago I killed the batteries in my 97 dodge diesel. Listening to the radio all night while camping in February. Batteries weren't stone dead, I shut it down when the amp started cutting out, but the truck wouldn't turn over at all. The next morning I hooked up a solar panel that was a little bigger than a license plate on the one battery and went quading for the day. Came back and it charged it up enough to start. Yay for crappy solar panel! Then I broke it on accident.
    Mirage videos:

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        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage SE wussie cvt edition. 1.2 automatic: 37.7 mpg (US) ... 16.0 km/L ... 6.2 L/100 km ... 45.3 mpg (Imp)


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    Loren (12-04-2020)

  14. #20
    Still Plays With Cars Loren's Avatar
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    Got the new battery installed. It's a 30AH rather than the minimalist 8.6AH. Still not as big as the factory battery, which is closer to 50AH.

    Made a quick run to the grocery store in mid-afternoon traffic. Since I now have a good battery, I let the engine stay off at stop lights rather than bump-starting while slowing down and letting it idle. Netted about 56 mpg for that little trip. Not bad at all!

    I'll be monitoring the voltage and keeping an eye on things.

    Initial observations:

    Old battery removed: 2.8V

    New battery that's been on the shelf for 2-3 weeks: 12.8V

    In the car:

    Charging voltage with the engine running: 14.2V

    Engine off: about 12.8V bleeding down to 12.5V after 3-5 minutes stopped with the HVAC fan running, no other accessories.

    When I got home: 12.5V

    It's cloudy today, so I didn't see any difference in static voltage between the solar charger being plugged in or not.

    Will be interesting to see if the solar rig gets it back up to 12.8... or maybe even 13ish while resting?

    And I'll start experimenting with letting the voltage get down as low as 12.0 doing coast-downs and such. Eventually, I'll probably let that get down to 11.5 or 11.8V. If I'm on a serious hypermiling run... maybe 11.3.

    We'll see how it goes, but I'm betting with a healthy battery with as much capacity as this one has, it should still readily start the car with even 11.5V.


    Simplify and add lightness.

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