🔋 Enhanced Sunforce 50012 1.8-Watt Solar Battery Maintainer with Advanced SEO Review

I velcro attach this (suction cups fail after a short time) to my barn window to charge my garden tractor battery over the winter. Very low power so no controller is required making it very easy to use. Works perfectly and I would buy again if needed.

They modified the maintainer to remove the little blue indicator (that told you it was working or not). I miss it a lot as you can actually tell (without looking at a multimeter) that it actually still works. I've had a few of these and they're great, but without the light you're just taking a big risk if it works. I don't want to find out in a month it's failed if the car won't start.

I got up to 17 volts in the sunlight, very nice. Edit: I added a LM2596 buck module (small PCB, a few bucks) to the output, now when the Sunforce outputs at least 10.5V, the LM2596 outputs 14V. When the Sunforce is running on 17V the output is still 14V. This is controlled by a small potentiometer on the board. I don't think 14V will hurt the battery, but it's definitely enough to keep it charged. I made another one for my other car and one for a friend. It's good when it's very cold outside…

Bought a Sunforce 50012 1.8 watt solar maintenance unit for my pontoon. I put it in the sun to fully charge it and installed it directly on the battery. As the day progressed, my built-in digital voltmeter dropped a bit, so I decided to test the solar panel myself. I disconnected the accompanying device from the battery, placed it in the sun and connected it to the multimeter. As a result, it didn't work at all, except the blue light kept flashing. Maybe I have a bad panel or something, but I…

I used this small solar panel to test the corners of our large solar panel. I placed the meter on the ends and raised it up to the sun, watching the device to see what the best angle to charge is, how sensitive it is. All I could get was 1.76v, which is within the advertised specs. It was amazing to see how important angles are and as it is winter the angle of the sun is very low and the better you get the angle the more energy you produce. It was well packaged and appears to be real glass, I…

I have used one of these for the last 6 years to charge my garden tractor battery. If I assume the average garden tractor battery life is around 2-3 years. After installing this solar panel, my battery lasted over 5 years. After every winter I always had to lug my charger into the barn and charge the battery but with solar charger no longer necessary. The panels do not need direct sunlight, there is enough light to work! I would also recommend buying a regulator as this will prevent the panel…

Used it to charge a car battery (battery was on its last breath) and it worked great until we left the cabin light on and we "died" in the morning . So, through my fault, the solar panel doesn't charge the battery, especially in the evenings (for obvious reasons!). But did what was advertised, although (as mentioned by other reviews) you need to plug it into an "always on" cigarette lighter socket, not one that only gets power when the ignition is on. Anyway, we replaced the car battery and I…

Works well but nowhere near 125mA. At 90 degree illumination in full California sun without a single cloud in the sky I get 70mA. My car battery didn't go over 13.05 volts, but it's better than nothing. I'm often away for a few weeks (on business) and park my car outside - can't connect it to the charger. This little thing does its job. I would have bought a bit more if I knew this one didn't perform as well. FYI: 70mA is achievable when you're out of the car with the pointer pointing directly…