Some Advice Please Guys & Gals, with this COVID19 and we cant drive
- Thread starter Nick7602
- Start date
Ha ha I must admit before I bought my car I insisted on the dealer letting me take it to my garage (60s apartment block size single garage) as I wasn't sure it would fit in! It does - just - with a piece of carpet stuck to the wall where the door is, as I can't get out without touching the door against the wall! Luckily I am quite slim build but if I wasn't I'd probably have a problem [:-]
I think I had best stay off the cakes just in case!! [
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I think I had best stay off the cakes just in case!! [
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That's the problem with having all that scaffolding in the back Dave - no way of crawling out via the rear hatch.!
Caroline, I have a similar problem with my late 50's single garage. I can just about get the car in with the mirrors deployed (no electric function on my 987.2) and then squeeze my 5'10" 10-stone frame out through the gap between door and wall. Easier to get in than extricate myself!
Jeff
Caroline, I have a similar problem with my late 50's single garage. I can just about get the car in with the mirrors deployed (no electric function on my 987.2) and then squeeze my 5'10" 10-stone frame out through the gap between door and wall. Easier to get in than extricate myself!
Jeff
Another quick update, I put the panel back inside the car fairly early this evening and it was still charging when I did so, then went out for my allowed "daily exercise". When I got back the light level had fallen enough for the panel to stop charging, but in monitor mode the LEDs are now showing green only, so I am now very confident the charger is working well if I leave the panel outside the car all day.
To be fair it has taken quite a lot longer than I expected to charge the battery back up to full - I had naively assumed I would only need to leave the car out one or two days a week to charge it up and then be able to put it back in the garage for a couple of weeks in between. Given how sunny it has been the fact that it has taken about a week to get to this stage has surprised me a bit but then again I guess 20W isn't really a lot of power and I am guessing the Cayman battery is a pretty high power one. So to keep it conditioned it means I'll probably have to leave the car out permanently or semi-permanently whilst the lockdown remains in place (extended for another 3 weeks today). Once driving restrictions loosen up a bit and I can take it for longer runs, it will go back in the garage though, I just hate seeing it literally sitting there collecting dust and debris :-(
To be fair it has taken quite a lot longer than I expected to charge the battery back up to full - I had naively assumed I would only need to leave the car out one or two days a week to charge it up and then be able to put it back in the garage for a couple of weeks in between. Given how sunny it has been the fact that it has taken about a week to get to this stage has surprised me a bit but then again I guess 20W isn't really a lot of power and I am guessing the Cayman battery is a pretty high power one. So to keep it conditioned it means I'll probably have to leave the car out permanently or semi-permanently whilst the lockdown remains in place (extended for another 3 weeks today). Once driving restrictions loosen up a bit and I can take it for longer runs, it will go back in the garage though, I just hate seeing it literally sitting there collecting dust and debris :-(
Caroline,
According to the spec for your 20W solar charger the max average charging current is 1.66A. Assuming you have an 80Ah battery (it may even be 100Ah for stop-start on your car?), even if it's half-charged to start with it would take 24-hours [40/1.66] of sunlight to charge fully in ideal conditions (100% charging efficiency), so even that could take three or even four days under real circumstances.
Don't forget that the battery doesn't have to be fully charged all the time. If the battery's in good condition, once fully charged you should still be able to leave it for a couple of weeks and still have sufficient cranking amps to start the car.
Jeff
According to the spec for your 20W solar charger the max average charging current is 1.66A. Assuming you have an 80Ah battery (it may even be 100Ah for stop-start on your car?), even if it's half-charged to start with it would take 24-hours [40/1.66] of sunlight to charge fully in ideal conditions (100% charging efficiency), so even that could take three or even four days under real circumstances.
Don't forget that the battery doesn't have to be fully charged all the time. If the battery's in good condition, once fully charged you should still be able to leave it for a couple of weeks and still have sufficient cranking amps to start the car.
Jeff
Thanks Jeff - to be fair I haven't looked in detail at the tech specs so I was just going on guesswork but it's good to know that it's normal/expected for it to take a few days to charge. I've got the panel out currently but with rain forecast this afternoon and tomorrow I'm probably going to put it back inside the car at lunch time for a couple of days. I think the panel is supposed to be weatherproof but I just feel happier with it inside and covered when it's wet. I will be interesting to see whether it still maintains the charge like that or whether the monitor LEDs go back to amber or amber/red after a couple of days with the panel inside the car only.
At least if it does rain the dust will all get washed off the car! []
At least if it does rain the dust will all get washed off the car! [
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Interesting looking at the solar charging and problems with connecting, I use a trickle charger I bought from Aldi which has been modified to plug into the lighter socket and have used it on both my 987.1S and the 987.2S with reliable results, it was left last year for over a month while I toured New Zealand on a motorbike and has been plugged in for the last five weeks.
I'm not sure which models of Cayman the previous writers have but to check if the socket is live with ignition off, use the lighter, if it pops up after a few seconds then it is live and protected in the case of the 987's by a 10A fuse adequate for trickle charging and the way that the Porsche Charger ( A rebadged CTEK unit ) is recommended to be used as it has a plug fitted.
Voltage under charge should be greater than the voltage of the battery, I don't know why but it's the way they get a charge into them whatever current they are getting.
I'm not sure which models of Cayman the previous writers have but to check if the socket is live with ignition off, use the lighter, if it pops up after a few seconds then it is live and protected in the case of the 987's by a 10A fuse adequate for trickle charging and the way that the Porsche Charger ( A rebadged CTEK unit ) is recommended to be used as it has a plug fitted.
Voltage under charge should be greater than the voltage of the battery, I don't know why but it's the way they get a charge into them whatever current they are getting.
OK, well it took 3 days but my old mains powered Optimate III has managed to charge my battery back up to full. Not bad for a 15+ year old motorcycle battery conditioner!
I've just plugged my solar panel setup back in with the panel inside the car on the dashboard in front of the steering wheel. I'm going to leave it like that now and hope that the panel can at least reduce the battery drain but hopefully it can keep it topped up now. We'll see how it goes this week!
I've just plugged my solar panel setup back in with the panel inside the car on the dashboard in front of the steering wheel. I'm going to leave it like that now and hope that the panel can at least reduce the battery drain but hopefully it can keep it topped up now. We'll see how it goes this week!
Hi Twinfan, I have managed to convince myself (not particularly scientifically I hasten to add!) that the panel needs to be outside the car to maintain the charge. For about a day and a half in the last few days it was raining, so I left the panel inside the car during the day, and when I came to check it on Saturday evening the monitor showed it had gone back to amber. So yesterday and today with the return of the sunshine the panel has been back out and the monitor now shows green again overnight. Obviously I haven't tried leaving it inside when it is a sunny day, but it seems pretty clear to me that when it's dull or raining you can't leave the panel inside the car and expect there to be enough current to keep the battery charged against the draw from the alarm etc.
I think if you want to maintain charge in all weathers with the panel inside the glass it's likely you really need the next size up (40W), even if the panel is in an ideal placement i.e. south facing and unshaded.
I'm going to continue with more of the same i.e. put the panel out in the sun or when it's dry but dull, and just have to hope we don't get too many rainy days between now and the end of the lockdown! []
I think if you want to maintain charge in all weathers with the panel inside the glass it's likely you really need the next size up (40W), even if the panel is in an ideal placement i.e. south facing and unshaded.
I'm going to continue with more of the same i.e. put the panel out in the sun or when it's dry but dull, and just have to hope we don't get too many rainy days between now and the end of the lockdown! [
]
Thanks for the info Caroline. My car is South facing and has had the panel inside the car for 3 days now. I checked it last night and I'm still getting the "double flash green" indicator which means the battery is still fully charged. The true test will be in a week or so as I would have expected some drain by then, so I'll see how it goes.
While researching solar panels before I bought mine, there were plenty of comments across the internet that the cheaper 10-12w panels (which are not weather proof) were maintaining batteries so I'm personally not sure they have to be outside to work properly. What I think they do need is a full battery to start with, they need to be hooked up 24/7 to scavenge every last bit of light and that they're not really able to charge a low battery. They're definitely more for maintenance. So they may suit my needs/use more than yours?
While researching solar panels before I bought mine, there were plenty of comments across the internet that the cheaper 10-12w panels (which are not weather proof) were maintaining batteries so I'm personally not sure they have to be outside to work properly. What I think they do need is a full battery to start with, they need to be hooked up 24/7 to scavenge every last bit of light and that they're not really able to charge a low battery. They're definitely more for maintenance. So they may suit my needs/use more than yours?
Twinfan said:
Thanks Twinfan that's interesting. It might just be because it was dull/raining as well as the panel being inside, although as my car is East facing I don't think 100% of the panel gets the light when it's inside as it is balanced on the steering wheel and the back of the seat so the shadow of the roof covers part of it at times. It has however, when the panel has been out, charged the battery fully (it was originally on red in monitor mode), so I think it is capable of doing that, but in my situation it has to be outside the car.
I might leave the panel inside the car over the next few days, which are forecast to be sunny here, as an experiment to see if it maintains the battery at green.
However (much as I hate my beloved car being out in all weathers [
]) I think I will leave it out until we are able to drive more than just locally again, at least to ensure the battery is fully topped up when I do start it again.
Unfortunately that means it would be facing due East as that's the way my parking space faces, and that's sub-optimal according to the manual even if it were outside the glass. I did try using the suction cups to try to stick the panel to the inside of the South facing window but unfortunately I couldn't close the door with it like that and the only other option is what I do now i.e. balance the panel almost horizontally on the steering wheel and the back of the seat which means it's partly shaded by the roof at some times of the day.
I guess the other option is to try to jerry-rig some sort of harness for the panel inside the car so it can sit closer to the window but as it's not much of an inconvenience to go out and put the panel on the roof in the morning and back inside at night I haven't tried that yet! (translation = I've been too lazy to bother! [])
I guess the other option is to try to jerry-rig some sort of harness for the panel inside the car so it can sit closer to the window but as it's not much of an inconvenience to go out and put the panel on the roof in the morning and back inside at night I haven't tried that yet! (translation = I've been too lazy to bother! [
])
I collected my daughter’s Fiat 500 to clean and check over as she has been isolated for 7 weeks now. I connected a CTEK charger to her car’s 45Ahr battery and it has taken 48 hours to get to full charge and it is a relatively new battery. I wonder whether even with mains charging it just takes a while to charge and one just has to be patient?
AndrewCS
Active member
Not used for 7 weeks and that time to full is the `norm` in my experience. I recently left the Cayman (80Ahr) for five weeks, on return it took the same 48 hours to go from half to full charge.
My older model C-TEK XS800 has a charge rate 0.8A, took a week to recover a dead flat battery - was well pleased with that.
My older model C-TEK XS800 has a charge rate 0.8A, took a week to recover a dead flat battery - was well pleased with that.
Interestingly this evening the monitor mode is showing the LED flashing green twice before pausing, checking the manual this is actually an additional level of charge that I hadn't realised was available, which means the battery is 100% charged for a standard battery and between 90 and 100% charged for a high performance one (which I assume the Cayman battery is). Green with single flash actually isn't completely charged, so it has taken about 10 days with the panel mostly outside in full sunshine to get from red/amber consistently at night to green double flash and fully charged tonight. However whilst it has been a lot slower progress than I had expected, it does show that the charge is definitely going into the battery, so I'm basically happy []
Hadn't realised that even some of the mains chargers took a long time to charge, I am guessing then that this is deliberate, i.e. maybe a very fast charge rate might damage the battery?
]Hadn't realised that even some of the mains chargers took a long time to charge, I am guessing then that this is deliberate, i.e. maybe a very fast charge rate might damage the battery?
Thanks Twinfan, I'm finding similar, i.e. overnight it is double flashing, although I have still been putting the panel out whenever the weather has allowed (it has been inside the car a couple of times this week due to heavy rain all or most of the day).
Interestingly I've noticed that it is always in "maintain" mode (green LED) when it first starts charging in the morning, but seems to go into "charge" (yellow LED) mode by the late afternoon/early evening. However either way when the sun has gone down it is still always showing as a double-flashing green LED in the monitor mode, so I am also assuming it's working and keeping the charge maintained now.
I am wondering whether this is what Optimate mains chargers also do when they are maintaining the battery, i.e. is there some sort of daily maintain/charge cycle they work to anyway?
Interestingly I've noticed that it is always in "maintain" mode (green LED) when it first starts charging in the morning, but seems to go into "charge" (yellow LED) mode by the late afternoon/early evening. However either way when the sun has gone down it is still always showing as a double-flashing green LED in the monitor mode, so I am also assuming it's working and keeping the charge maintained now.
I am wondering whether this is what Optimate mains chargers also do when they are maintaining the battery, i.e. is there some sort of daily maintain/charge cycle they work to anyway?
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