Customer Reviews

Sunsei SE-400 Solar 6-Watt 120-Volt Charger

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This is NOT a 120 volt solar panel but a 12.0 volt panel, which will NOT charge a 12.0 volt battery (need 14.5 volts minimum to charge a 12vdc battery). Basically, well, it's pretty useless. at 6W / 12V it produces 1/2 amp of current which would take 230 hours of sunlight to charge a 115 Amp Hour deep cycle battery. At best, this *could* be used to keep your car's battery alive in long term parking at the airport with all the computer drain but even there a 1 AMP panel (12-15 watts) would be more ideal given the few hours of light during the winter and shielding from the glass windshield.

In all fairness, I never expected to charge a dead battery with this. I leave my boat parked in the desert and I leave this plugged in. Week after week, I go back to the boat and it the battery is fully charged. I was worried that without a trickle charger that I would be "stuck" constantly looking for a jump or have to carry another jumper battery. With the SE-400, this has not been the case. I did buy the small charge controller (probably not needed) as well as the mounting equipment. The mounting arrangement was overpriced for what it was, but it works very well and is probably the simplest way to go. If you're handy, you could easily make your own. (This should be a separate review.) If you are looking for a trickle charger, I think this is an excellent solution.

Well made and does the job just fine. It will work on almost any 12v battery. Naturally it does not replace what an electric battery charger can do and in the same amount of time, but as a trickle charger for car and boat batteries this is all you need (other than some sunshine). The only negative is that tese Sunsei solar panels are far more expensive than they need to be. They are made in China and a 6w panel of this quality should be 30-50% less than what the Sunsei brand demands. Coleman is pretty much the same product, all coming from ICP Solar in Canada, however the Coleman panels cost much less.

This puts out about 0.3-0.4 amps at about 15 volts. By the way "120-Volt Charger" must be a mistake; this is a 400 mA, 15 Volt, 6 Watt charger.

I find that it will keep the battery on my boat fully charged even when we don't run the engine for a few days. We don't run much on our sailboat - anchor light at night, lights in the cabin in the evening, and some simple electronics all the time, but this charger is more than sufficient to keep the battery topped off for these tasks.