Want to Maintain the battery Using the Trunk 12v Plug

[Gray Ghost]

Just curious, most of the solar chargers are 5W max. Has anyone put a meter on a Battery Tender that's plugged in to see how many watts a Spyder needs to keep the battery charged? It may not be much, but does anyone know?

Since you only get charging during the day, the Spyder will use some battery power at night, so the charger has to play catchup every day. Can they do that? Keeping a lawnmower battery charged is a bit different than the Spyder with its electronics using some power.

Any charger you hook to your battery needs to have a controller so that it is not continuously charging. Deltran makes a 15W solar charger that also has the control circuitry like the 110V chargers have. http://www.batterytender.com/Solar/15-Watt-Solar-Tender-Charger-With-Built-in-Controller.html

If you have it hooked to that one the minimal amount of current that the ECM uses for housekeeping overnight will be put back in the next sunny day. Remember that a fully charged battery will last for a couple of weeks or so without a problem.

 

[IdahoMtnSpyder]

Solar might work so I'll check it out. Up north here, we live on the north side of a hill with tall trees all around, so from about Oct thru Mar on sunny days we don't get any sun on our property but I don't think a solar panel needs direct sun to function. Won't hurt to try. Thanks for all your input.

I think in your case you would be better off to remove the battery and bring it inside your house or shop and connect it to a battery maintainer. Your bike will survive the winter not being started and run. Solar panel efficiency will go to pot without direct sunlight. Even the cheapest setup from Harbor Freight will set you back well over a hundred bucks.