Picture of my first Solar-Charged Electric Car

[valterra]

This is the best I can do right now.  I am in "No Wind Turbine" country now, AKA "suburbia."

So, more solar projects to come.  Hopefully something like this one, only larger?

[gotwind2]

A Great start valterra.

I look forward to the updates, videos are cool also if you can :-)

Ben.

[dnix71]

I put a 35AH marine deep cycle battery on one like that for a friends' daughter and son.

They could both sit down together and spin the tires. All you need is lots of amps.

You could mount those HF panels overhead to make a Bimini top air foil.

[valterra]

Haha.  The funny (sad?) thing is that I'm using the HF panels because they are the only thing that I have that puts out LOW enough power not to destroy the battery.  It's a 12AH and my HF charger turned another, similar battery into a bubbling semi-sphere shaped stink bomb.

[dnix71]

The HF chargers cut off at 14.2 That's way too high for a sealed battery.

A marine trolling battery with removable caps to add water will last longer.

A trolling battery with screw caps shouldn't spill if you tie it down properly, but you could always box it in and pour some baking soda around it just to be safe.

[DamonHD]

Interesting: my new Morningstar MPPT seems to take my gel battery up to 14.2V in 'absorption' on default 'gel/sealed' settings...

Rgds

Damon

[ghurd]

Cool, but can it pull a trailer?  

G-

[dnix71]

At 14.2 you will electrolyze water. That's risks venting. 13.6 to 13.8 should be enough to float a battery that sees regular use.

The float voltage on my BZ MPPT drops way off based on temperature. It will stop in the low 13's on a summer day. The HF controller doesn't compensate based on temperature, which is also bad. In a cool climate, you can get away with that, but anywhere it gets hot, you'll really shorten battery life if you overcharge.

http://www.powerstream.com/SLA.htm has tables for flooded and sla batteries at 25C. How often you cycle the battery matters. If you have an sla that is used in a back-up power supply, then it will last many years if you keep the float in the low 13's to avoid water loss.

http://books.google.com/books?id=HNLXwAN4z8EC&pg=PA200&lpg=PA200&dq=float+voltage+versus
+temp&source=bl&ots=4JFcJ4SdIL&sig=XRI3C7YaaM6UV9JZFS6yKviedpU&hl=en&ei=MzPaSqvB
Cs2o8AbUw_22BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&
amp;q=&f=false

If that link is too long Google "float voltage versus temperature William Knight"

There is a chart at the link and scrolling to page 203 talks about thermal runaway of an sla caused by water loss from overcharging. That's what happened to Valterra -

"my HF charger turned another, similar battery into a bubbling semi-sphere shaped stink bomb."

[valterra]

With that much cargo room, it wouldn't require a trailer!

:-)

[DamonHD]

Well, the Morningstar MPPT is temp compensated and is very near the battery and temps have been ~18C, and the battery has been discharged to 50%DoD or worse recently, so I'll trust it to do the right thing for now!

Rgds

Damon