military Humvee solar

[telwyn]

Our local gas station had a caravan of military police Humvees there this weekend. My 4 year old son and I were admiring the trucks when I noticed this solar cell hard wired through the hood of the Humvee. I assume it's to keep the battery charged.

Anyone familiar with this and have any recommendations as to how closely you could replicate this on your own? What would I need to do?

Thanks!

 

[Robthebrit]

Most small panels like the one shown have the controller built in so all you need to do is mount it and connect to your battery. If you need more power than a basic trickle charge then in theory you can mount as many of these panels as you like. In practice if you want multiple panels its best to get basic panels and a single charge controller.

Rob

 

[teotwaki]

New VWs come into the country with one of those plugged into either the OBD-II connector or the cig lighter. They are for sale on EBay all of the time

 

[overlander]

Our local gas station had a caravan of military police Humvees there this weekend. My 4 year old son and I were admiring the trucks when I noticed this solar cell hard wired through the hood of the Humvee. I assume it's to keep the battery charged.

Anyone familiar with this and have any recommendations as to how closely you could replicate this on your own? What would I need to do?

Thanks!

That little panel looks way too small to keep a 24 volt dual battery system charged. I'm in the military, and my guess is that if anything needs to keep charged on that vehicle, it is the HUB battery on the SYNGAR radio stack. The HUB is a back up battery that maintains the digital frequency encryptions in the radio if the power is cut. If you lose it, it is a PITA to get it back in out in the field. Should I find myself back places of newsworthy focus anytime in the near future, I'll keep a watch out for those. DoD is constantly exerimenting with new gadgets over in the sandbox.

 

[eugene]

with that small size I'd bet its a battery maintainer, not a charger. Basically it keeps up with the self discharge of the battery but won't charge one if its been drained.

 

[Lynn]

I'm with Overlander, that's awful small for the vehicle battery, and probably for some electronics installed on or in the vehicle. Matter of fact, it looks like half-vast R&D throw-together rather than mil-spec production stuff.

 

[OS-Aussie]

Looks about the size of a solar phone charger

 

[dennisuello]

ICP makes the ones from VWs and I believe those are not weatherproof.

http://www.solarcharger.com/s.nl/it.A/id.64/.f?sc=2&category=113

 

[Luke]

I'm over in Afghanistan at the moment and I've never seen those little solar panels before. If I ever see one I'll check it out and let you all know.

 

[762X39]

solar panel on Humvees

The panel could be for one of those battery de-sulphators, I remember seeing the literature and you could plug it in or order it with a small panel to run it if the vehicle is stored outside.

 

[ntsqd]

Solargizer are the de-sulphurization products that I recall.

 

[telwyn]

thanks for all the great feedback and ideas. As I reading these, I also talked to a buddy of mine from high school that runs an internet retailer specializing in waterpoorf gear, altimeters, compasses and more recently solar.

He suggested if I'm looking for a battery charger to go with either:

http://www.thesolarpowerstore.com/solaris6.html (flexible, more durable off road, will keep working even if you had a bullet through a panel, but takes up more space)

Or:

www.thesolarpowerstore.com/se400.html (rigid, smaller, could get damaged, waterproof if you seal edge with silicone)

He also has an interesting chart www.thesolarpowerstore.com/power.html that shows how many hours of actual sunlight it takes for different wattage solar panels to charge your item. Pretty enlightening (no pun intended).

I'll keep chewing on this, but thought you guys might like these ideas also.

 

[pevrs114]

That little panel looks way too small to keep a 24 volt dual battery system charged. I'm in the military, and my guess is that if anything needs to keep charged on that vehicle, it is the HUB battery on the SYNGAR radio stack. The HUB is a back up battery that maintains the digital frequency encryptions in the radio if the power is cut. If you lose it, it is a PITA to get it back in out in the field. Should I find myself back places of newsworthy focus anytime in the near future, I'll keep a watch out for those. DoD is constantly exerimenting with new gadgets over in the sandbox.

Those aren't new at all... They've been on tons of CUCV's, and some older HMMWV's. The HUB battery is definitely a logical thought, but I've seen them on M1008 CUCV pickups, which I don't know if you can mount a SINCGARS in. I figured they were maintenance chargers.

My brother gave me three of the VW/Audi OBDII charging panels (he works in the auto industry). I haven't had a chance yet to play with it... I would like to modify it to charge another way than the OBDII port, because a Scangauge is in the future plans.

 

[crazyjane]

solargizer

They are in fact a battery maintainer. I used to put them on our HMMWV's but they have sort of fell out of fashion. The wires break often and missions sometimes take priority of maintenance except what's required. Military Batteries don't seem to last too long(the 6TL ones anyway) if they don't get regular use. Sometimes the vehicles will only get looked at during the once a week command maintenance and sit the rest of the time. Until the unit does some kind of training. The vehicles that get used everyday do much better on batteries but that's pretty much the rule for all vehicles. Use them or they go down hill fast. They send an electrical pulse to keep the plates clean. You can hear when they run, the more sun the more they hum.

 

[Curtis in Texas]

I have one of those mounted above the front bumper on my pickup at work.
I use it to keep the main 12v battery charged over the weekend. I have a lot of radio and modum power draw on the truck that run 24 hrs 7 days a week.
We could never keep the batteries charged over a weekend before. What a pain in the rear. So I got with the head mechaninc and requested a solar charger to keep the battery topped off. We came up with one about that same size in the picture.
Now everyone in my yard has one.
I park facing the south over the weekends so it's just enough for the job.
They won't let us turn the GPS trackers and radio modums off for security reasons. Seems they want to know if the trucks get moved without permission.

Anyway, all the trucks in the yard have them now and all the panels are mounted facing the south when parked at the yard.

Sure is nice not to have to jump start my truck EVERY Monday morning.

I get a lot of odd stares when stopped in a parking lots.
I tell them it's all the solar panel I need for charging my electric truck. I tell them the goverrnment has all thsi cool technology, but doesn't want anyone to know they could be driving free electric powered 3/4 ton pickups with such a small solar panel! If word got out, all the Oil Companies would be out of buisness! :ar15:
Some folks will believe me for about 30 seconds, until they figure out I'm joking.

Curtis