[hawk2100n]

Originally Posted by California98Civic

The kencove manual shows that their controller can be programed for three stage charging according to the type of battery, sealed, gel, etc... That's interesting. Even though it's not programmable, probably the Sunforce controller does some form of three stage charging too, correct?

Do you really think I'll only get a third of the rated output from a solar panel on the roof of my car? I mean, it would depend on time of day, right? In the winter, weaker output all day, but in the summer, there should be several hours of high sunlight. Parking the car at work all day would probably fully recharge a lightly discharged battery, no?

1/2 to 1/3 of rated output on the solar panel is about right. You are fighting physics with it mounted to the roof, seeing that the roof is slightly curved and not normal to the sun's rays. The output of the panel can be mapped as a the cosine of the angle of the panel to the sun's rays. 0 deg is head on and full output with it moving towards 0 current as you tilt it away. A lot of time the sun wouldn't get higher than 45 degrees which is .707.

Can you charge the battery with less than 6 amps? Would a trickle charge hurt it? If no then go for it!