Solar Charging Panel Mounted on a Cobra Glider Trailer
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In late 2005 I installed a large (64W) solar panel on the Cobra trailer for my DG-303 glider and it has worked great. I get asked about the solar panels, so I thought I’d save some information here about it, largely stuff that has been posted in the past to private newsgroups. I’m going to be installing a similar set up on my ASH-26E trailer, but I may play with different charge controllers (more on that in future).
My DG-303 has dual 12 amp hour batteries. I have two sets of two batteries, so I can always have a set charging while the others are in use. I wanted to also be able to leave all four batteries in the trailer hooked up to the solar panel when the glider is not in use. With my glider the batteries need to be removed from the glider for disassembly so it made sense to just make a mount for four batteries in the trailer rather than charge some in the fuselage of the glider parked in the trailer.
I wanted a significant amount of solar power available; something like enough to fully charge a fairly well used pair of batteries on a good sunny day. This meant a large panel with charge controllers, a place to mount four batteries and one or more solar charge controllers depending on the charging scheme. All up costs for this project was around $600 – it could be done for less without some of the over engineering in my set up.
