Solar Charger Aldi £13

[Johnmed]

Originally Posted by oldnick

are the wires that long ?

Ha ha.

[HPsauce]

Just need leads at each end: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC_Cross-Channel

[YorkshireBloke]

Originally Posted by HPsauce

As discussed elsewhere, that is vehicle-dependant.

Hi,

Also thanks from me for Aldi charger tip.

I want to charge from cigar lighter: would mine be live when ignition is off would anyone know?

Robert

[ainarssems]

Now this is more like what's needed with 13W instead of 2.4W on Aldi charger it should keep battery charged, and not a bad price of £19.98 at the moment.

http://www.ebuyer.com/675942-xenta-1...charger-e13wby

[ainarssems]

I have now received the charger linked in previous post and it is huge compared to Aldi charger. Put it in the car today with plenty of sunshine an did some measurements. In the car behind windscreen and not at the optimal angle I was getting 13.1V and 0.51A. Aldi charger was only managing 12.6V and 0.10-0.12A in the similar conditions when inside the car. This should be enough to keep battery charge in summer months.

[mattylondon]

I should have bought one for my dad as he only does short journeys. Is it worth £29.99 at today's price?

Is it resting on your interior mirror to keep the angle?

[Johnmed]

That thing is a beast. Good output too. I've yet to use the Aldi one I bought.

[ainarssems]

Originally Posted by mattylondon

I should have bought one for my dad as he only does short journeys. Is it worth £29.99 at today's price?

Is it resting on your interior mirror to keep the angle?

It's worth what you would be willing to pay, I would wait for discounted price again, with the autumn coming and sunshine diminishing I don't think they will sell many now so I would expect another price drop or something similar somewhere else.

It's not resting on the mirror, I would be afraid it would break mirror off especially since I replaced windscreen and glued on mirror myself. It is propped up by glass cleaning wipe tub which I had in glove box wedged in between solar panel and the dash bump over instrument cluster, if it makes sense.

[ainarssems]

I have not tested this one out of the car but with Aldi charger I was loosing about 30% in best case scenario in car compared to best case scenario out of the car and I could get that at better angle in the car than ebuyer charger.

I think what kind of winscreen you have could make big difference. My S8 came with heat reflective windscreen from factory but I replaced it with regular.
Number one reason for replacing it was lots of chips and scratches due to age. The reason for choosing regular one after 2 years of searching for a cheap one was that was what I finally found one at great price( £40 for brand new genuine Audi screen) and because TomTom or phone satnav was not getting any signal in the car with thermal windscreen. If you have heat reflecting windscreen I would expect it to heavily affect solar panel output behind it.

[ainarssems]

Originally Posted by Johnmed

That thing is a beast. Good output too. I've yet to use the Aldi one I bought.

I would not bother using Aldi charger, it makes very little difference, I was maybe getting 3 weeks instead of 2 in the summer before the need to put battery on charger if not used to prevent battery going too low.