Tom Walker wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

-> TW> Typicaly they are capable in FULL Direct sun of putting out 250 
-> TW> to 500 MA.

-> That's not too bad.  For what kind of price,  though?

TW> Those 5 Watt(or less)are really cheep but again they DO NOT REALLY
TW> work al that well. The Price for a quality 10 to 15 Watt solar
TW> panel is about $150 to $200.

-> TW> That may or may not even keep up with the Internal Self Discharge 
-> TW> of a Lead Acid Battery.

-> It should delay things a bit,  I'd think.                 

TW> It could delay a Real Charge of the battery for a while. But it 
TW> also could delude you into thinking all was fine and one day you 
TW> wake up and find the battery needs replacing prematurely.

I guess it depends on what you're dealing with.  I don't drive my truck all
that often,  for example,  and yet it starts right up when I get in it. 
And I haven't started it up in a while,  which is why I'm thinking that
something like that would be nice to have.

-> TW> I have a little 1 Amp fully automatic unit designed for that 
-> TW> purpose I have connected to me Group 31 emergency battery for my
-> TW> Laptop/Ham Gear.

-> Most of the 1 amp units I've seen are only "automatic" in the sense
-> that they just don't have that much push to them,  compared to bigger
-> chargers.  They just taper off automatically as a battery gets a bit 
-> more charge in it.

TW> This one actualy has some sort of step in the Charging routine. 
TW> Monitoring Voltage and at a point cutting back the voltage set
TW> point. The circutry is fairly simple. And you can but 1 Amp battery
TW> Charger Kits for Lead Acid cells for those that like to tinker
TW> themsleves. As I recall "Ramsey" has one

I'll have to look,  I have some ads from them around here in magazines.

-> TW> You can also use a regular Automobile battery charger if it is 
-> TW> Full Automatic and has a 2 to 5 amp charging rate.

-> Yeah,  probably.  I have an assortment of different chargers 
-> around,  but am not real sure what I need to use on some of these 
-> gels I have around here.  At 33AH ratings,  some of them are going 
-> to take a nontrivial amount of charge without getting too upset 
-> about it,  but I'd rather not push them too hard,  if I can avoid it.

TW> That recmendation was ONLY for Automobile/RV sized batteries. 
TW> Either a 1 amp Charger Kit or a Good 1 amp commercal unit designed
TW> for Gell Cells is best for what you have in mind.

Well,  I'll work with that I have here...

Last thing I used was a little power supply that I built,  puts out a bit
over the voltage that you'd need but not real much in the way of amperage.

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