4w Solar Trickle Charger

[Gazza1]

Morning all,
I have a 110amp/hr Leisure battery in our van. We have an alarm (with its own battery) and we are haveing a mover fitted in a couple weeks.
Question is, is a 4w solar charger enough to keep the battery topped up? Having read loads of posts I'm totally confused by all the calculations and figures quoted. We always use electric hook up, so all the Solar charger is needed for, is keeping the battery topped up, but will it?
Its a bit of an impulse, on offer buy to be honest.
Your help and advice is much appreciated.
Cheers

 

[Gazza1]

I meant to say the solar charger will only be used while the van is in storage! When it won't be connected to mains

Thanks

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Gazza,
To be honest a 4W panel on 110Ah battery is not going to make a lot of difference. It will just about maintain a fully charged battery provided absolutely nothing else is using any power (Alarm system for example), so for a storage solution it might just about keep the battery topped up.

But I doubt it will be able to make any practical impression if you want it to recharge a depleted battery.

 

[Parksy]

Any solar panel will produce some charging capacity but I don't think that a 4 watt solar panel would be of much use for trickle charging your leisure battery and keeping it topped up.
This is because a panel advertised as '4 watts' really meant 4 watts peak output which in this country would rarely be acheived, especially if the panel was inside the caravan behind a window.
A 4 watt solar panel would be ok for charging a mobile phone or laptop computer, my advice would be to look for a panel with an output of between 10 - 15 watts.

 

[Sproket]

Hi Gazza
Have a look on here @ post #9