ALLPOWERS 18V 12V 5W Portable Solar Panel Car Boat Power Solar Panel Battery Charger Maintainer for Automotive Motorcycle Tractor Boat RV Batteries

I was a bit skeptical of these after reading so other reviews, so I did a bit of testing. Hopefully my results will be helpful. My situation is that I am retired, have 2 vehicles and don't have a need to drive much. But it seemed like every time the weather turned bad, the 4WDs battery was dead, and every time it turned nice the rag-top was dead. Not only a pain to drag out a charger, but it's really bad for batteries to sit there dead. So I decided to get one of these and, if it worked out well, get a second so I didn't have to swap it between cars. After a couple months use and a bit of testing, here's what I can tell you: 1) Don't expect this to charge a dead battery. Not designed to, and won't. What it will do is offset the natural loss in the battery and the minimal drain that the vehicle may have when off due to such things as the computer, security system, etc. There is an isolation diode contained within the solar panel to prevent back-feed drain regardless of whether the lighter or clip-on cable is used. 2) The Red LED on the lighter plug is your friend, if you know how to use it. a) Connect lighter plug to solar panel, but do not plug into lighter socket. Aim panel towards sun and observe that LED lights, then aim away from sun and it goes out. This proves that the panel is generating electricity. b) Disconnect lighter plug from solar panel and plug into lighter socket, with ignition off. Verify that LED lights. This proves that socket is live with key off. c) Connect lighter cord to panel, and install panel either on the dash, windshield or (my preference) on the passenger's visor which can be rotated to catch the best sun based on how you park. Protect the panel from the elements; this is not an outdoor panel. 3) Do NOT disconnect when driving, just rotate so it does not impede your visibility. The isolation diode will protect the panel and vehicle from each other regardless of whether the car is running or not. Frequently plugging and unplugging the lighter socket increases the chances of a bad connection inside the socket. If you must disconnect, do so at the panel end instead, and make sure the LED is on before reconnecting. If it ever seems as though it has failed, repeat the tests in step 2 above. If you do the above, I think you'll find this does what you need it to, and does it well. Hopefully this fills in the gaps in the manual, as well.

I have an '01 Tacoma V6 that is driven maybe once every month or so. It's parked outside, so I needed something solar to keep it charged. I was a bit skeptical at first, but this little panel has kept the battery fully topped up. Cranks right up without skipping a beat. Very impressed, and just can't beat the price! Update: after over 2 years, the solar panel itself starting coming apart at the seams and basically disintegrated with tons of little fibers all over the place (still worked though!). This is with minimal movement; the truck sits parked and is rarely driven, so this was definitely because of sun damage. I tried a few different chargers, but ended up coming back to this one. A viable LED function is what a lot of the other replacements were missing, and it was always guess work to determine if the battery was actually receiving a charge. This one has an LED at the plug location that will only light if the connection is properly secured AND the panel is receiving light.

The panel puts out the rated power. However, I have several vehicles, none of which have an active cigarette lighter plug when the ignition switch is not left in the accessory position. So, while leaving the car for a prolonged period in an unsecured area, I'm supposed to leave the key in the ignition? Therefore I use the short cord with the clips to attach directly to the battery. The charger worked well then, but the cord is way too short. My suggestion to Allpowers is: (1) Provide a longer cord to attach directly to the battery for those many customers who need to do that. The cord-to-cord connectors they use, would work perfectly to disconnect the panel and its longer cord from the short cord left attached to the battery. Do not use a cigarette plug or connector anywhere. (2) If a cigarette lighter plug is still to be provided, delete the problematic LED light, altogether. (3) Change the panel housing from fabric to plastic and make the unit waterproof, in case one forgets to disconnect and bring the panel in when it rains. Otherwise the panel puts out even more power than another I have used for years.

Great product works as advertised. I have a Dodge Durango that doesn't get used to often and every now and then I usually start the car to charge the battery, but somehow forgot over the holidays and it drain down to nothing. So before I charge my battery and the traditional sense in plugging it into an actual car battery charger, I decided to get this solar maintainer and see what it does from an absolutely dead battery. I let a charge for one day, and later that night when I put the key in the ignition I did get a beep and then the battery died again. So after that I let a charge for two days, put the key and I heard the beep because the door was open, and it actually beeped A bunch of more times, but when I tried to actually start the car, of course it didn't start and I know that shouldn't happen at all. After that I let it charge for five days, and pretty much the same thing happen when I let it charge for two days. If anyone knows something about this please send a message or add a comment to this, the alligator clips that clip on the positive and negative are very thin metal, I wonder if I cut those off, strip the wires, then wrap the bare wire on the battery terminals if I would get a better connection and that would help or is it just simply the fact that 5 W is nothing compared to an actual car battery? ****update 7/31/15**** So honestly, it barely works with just one. You notice it, but it's not Tremendous! So I actually bought 2, 1 each for two cars. I went ahead and connect both of them together at the same time to one car. I didn't think anything of it, and didn't use/ turn on my 02 Durango for two months straight. Needed to move it the other day, when I started it up, BAZINGA WHAM BAM there it goes! She turned on so powerful I couldn't believe it. It's like as if I just installed a brand new battery. YES, it's true. I just bought two more for my other car ;)

Unit drains the battery, DO NOT PURCHASE. Had unit connected for over a week and my RV would not start on a battery that was only a year old and no starting issues prior. Had to jump from my 4x4 to get it to start.going to attempt to return UPDATE 10/27/15 Email correspondence from seller Dear friend, Sorry to bother you. I see you left a 1 star review to our product. I know there must be something make you unsatisfied, I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Would you please let us know more, so that I can help you solve the problem in time nd reduce your loss. This item is a battery maintainer, not a primary charging resource, and the current is really small, so it really needs time and sunlight, but please let me know whether your RV is BELOW 12V? Our item can only charge battery below 12V, as we said in the description and manual, please let me know. Please don't worry, if it's about the quality problem, we will undertake the responsibilities Your satisfaction is our highest priority, if you are satisfied with our service, could you please help us remove or amend the review, it means a lot for us, we will be appreciated for your kind help, thanks. Look forward to your reply soon Sincerely seller And the REPLY Dear Seller, You noticed the 1 star but not the matching comments to the 1 star? You list this item as a charger maintainer for Automobile Motorcycle Tractor Boat Batteries at 18V 5W, I connected this item using the lighter adaptor had the green light on the lighter adaptor to keep my 12 volt RV Battery in top condition while storing it for the winter. 10 days after I parked the RV I went to the unit and it RV would no longer turn over. The battery was less than a year old in the unit and I have not had an issue like this. Prior to me moving the unit to the winter parking area the RV sat for a month without being started and started without issue. So the issue with my MAIN battery seems to be your charger/maintainer which discharged my system. There is nothing in my RV to drain my MAIN battery as I remove the radio which is the only item that had a zombie draw on it. I have already started the process to return the unit to Amazon as the unit is NOT what is listed in the description.

This solar panel comes with alligator clips for direct connection to a battery or a plug with a LED pilot light that can be used in a always on power point inside the passenger compartment of a vehicle. The provided plug for a 12 volt power point can be worse than useless because the LED in the plug is wired in such a way that it will use power from the battery in the dark or any time the light levels are to low for the solar panel to provide power. The provided alligator clips don't have this LED power drain problem and this solar panel will do a much better job maintaining a battery if you use them instead of the male plug. WARNING! I don't recommend trying the fix below yourself, these 12 volt plugs can swarm and if you don't get the springs and wire back together exactly right it will short out and can blow fuses or possibly start a FIRE! in your vehicle. Instead take the solar panel to a local Radio Shack and have their techs replace the entire male plug with one they sell that has no LED. I wanted to mount this solar panel on the passenger side sun visor of a small truck and keep it plugged into one of the vehicles always on power points, but when I tried this the solar panel would not maintain the battery. In fact the battery seemed to be worse off with this solar panel plugged into the power point. I finally traced the problem down to the always on LED in the provided male plug, the long winter nights and regularly heavy cloud cover was allowing the LED to drain more power than the solar panel was providing. I'm a hobby technician so it was the work of 15 minutes to pull the provided plug off the solar panel disassemble it remove the diode and then reassemble it and test it with a multimeter. . Once I removed the LED this the solar panel has maintained the small truck's battery even with long winter nights and several days of heavy cloud cover. I really like the straps that lets me slide this solar panel on the sunny side of the sun visor and for that I gave the product 3 stars, but the male plug with the direct to battery LED effectively cripples any attempt to use this with a always on power point inside a vehicle.

This solar charger solved my problem of battery drain over time. I use it in my 2005 Pathfinder which only gets driven 2 to 4 times a month. Prior to plugging this charger up I almost always had to jump start the Pathfinder due to battery drain over time. Now I just plug up the solar charger and the battery stays topped off as if brand new and fires up great every time. Easy to use; just plug into the power port and place on the front dashboard. Don't worry about direct sun because this solar charger works great facing any direction. Great investment and solved the hassles of battery drain on a seldom driven vehicle.

I had a truck break down at work over winter and due to location/weather/vacation plans was only able to bring tools and parts to troubleshoot once every few weeks. It would crank but not start, and most of the steps involved extended cranking while doing testing. I bought this and kept it in the back window (south facing) in order to try to keep the battery from going dead before it got fixed. I finally found the bad part and got it running again. Having this charger, there was never any sign that the battery was getting worn down, despite 5 or 6 different sessions of extended cranking across nearly 3 months (so it had to have been slowly recharging the battery in the meantime). I have an older vehicle with the always on cig lighter sockets, and I found it a little odd that even at night with no sun the red LED on the cig lighter adapter was brightly lit. I believe it would even stay lit with the panel disconnected. It had to be getting power from the socket via the battery, which in theory was draining some of the battery when the panel was not charging, but as long as you get decent sun the net charge should obviously dwarf that LED small draw.