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Old 11-04-2014, 06:33 PM   #29 (permalink)
Ecky
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: New Zealand
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ND Miata - '15 Mazda MX-5 Special Package
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I have a much smaller panel installed in my Insight, and I feel it's next to useless. Behind very slightly tinted glass it's almost never putting out enough voltage to charge the battery, and it's not waterproof. If I put one on the outside it would ruin the excellent aerodynamics and probably hurt more than it helps. I'm planning to install a small battery maintainer which I'll run in the evenings off grid power, to help with short trips, and a solar panel wouldn't help with night drives anyway, which most of my longer trips involve. It doesn't begin to charge the battery until it drops below ~12.5v, which means there's probably a very large amount of unused capacity.

In my case, grid charging the 12v and, when it's time for a replacement, a larger battery, would probably net the most improvement.
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