Customer Reviews

Coleman CL-100 72000 1.5-Watt 15-Volt Solar Panel Battery Trickle Charger

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

This product was purchased to maintain the charge on a battery in a vehicle that is seldom driven. It works fine. Please note that it is not designed to charge a battery that is low, only maintain the charge. If you need a charger, consider a model that produces more power (watts). The unit is fairly small and has an LED to indicate it is producing power. I would buy it again.

I almost didn't buy this because of the 1-star reviews -- but then I noticed those reviewers were just ignorant. (Uninformed Amazon reviewers?!, gosh what a shock...). I used a fuse tap to install an always-on 12V cigarette lighter adapter in my SUV for this panel. The low voltage trickle is enough to keep my battery topped off indefinitely, even after 2 and 3 weeks of just sitting in the driveway (whereas my battery would sometimes be almost dead after sitting for a week). Almost bought the 5-watt unit for twice as much, but this is half the size and turned out to work just fine.

Regardless of what the Amazon listing says (and I asked them to change it over a month ago and still haven't) this product is NOT weatherproof. When you open the package the literature about the product specifically states that it is "not for use outdoors". You have to pay more to get a weatherproof model.

I bought this unit for my daughter. She drives about twice a month and for not more than 4 miles or so. About every six months her battery would go dead and she would have to getit recharged. She parks out side with the car facing north so with this unit mounted on the rear shelf it gets the sunshine most of the day and keeps her battery charged. Keep in mind that this unit produces enough amperage to keep the battery charged but so little it would take almost forever to charge a dead battery if at all. It does an excellent job for what it was designed for.The term trickle charger is a misnomer. A better term would be a battery charge maintainer. Maximum output is 1/10th of an amp.

I hard wired this into my vehicle,velcroed it to my dash. Works great! Had a problem ,too many accessories and not enough driving. Now battery is always freshly topped off.

I purchased one of these in the hope it could trickle-charge a car battery over a few days. It won't. It produces such a small current in full sunlight that it can only maintain the existing charge of a battery. If you have a flat battery and you leave this plugged in for a few days, you'll still have a flat battery.

I'm buying another one for a little car because it works so well in my truck. I know it's not a charger, but, the range on my key mounted remote starter increased after a couple days of installing the maintainer. I was skeptical, but, this thing rocks. My lights are brighter, and I'm really happy with this purchase. Even if you drive all the time (like I do), I don't see why you wouldn't have one of these on every car you own. This thing is great.

Biggest waste of cash I ever made.
I set it up in the windshield of my 2007 Mazda 3, whenever I took the key out the car would make an angry alert noise until I unplugged the charger from the lighter. Then after about 3 day of this it just stopped working. Not sure if it shorted out or what, maybe I got a defective model, or maybe it's just not compatible with a 2007 Mazda3...whatever the reason, this piece of crap stopped working after only a couple of days, I feel ripped off.

Having a degree in electrical engineering, i was skeptical how well these would work. There should be a component called a diode in it to prevent the circuit from draining the battery when there isn't enough sun to charge it.

Either that circuit doesn't work or there isn't one. My battery would die about 3 days faster anytime i had this trickle "charger" installed.

Don't waste your money on these.

Installed this on a river radio I built and it works great for keeping my Marine battery charged all day....