SUNER POWER Waterproof 12W 12V Solar Battery Charger & Maintainer Pro, Built-in UltraSmart MPPT Charge Controller, 12 Volt Solar Panel Trickle Charging Kits for Car Automotive Boat Marine RV Trailer

I have a late model 5th gen 4Runner, purchased new. It isn't driven very often: after two years, it has amassed a whopping 3000 miles :) Great vehicle for me, but unfortunately, the telematics on this vehicle (SOS button, auto dial in the event of a serious crash, etc.) pre-dispose it to parasitic battery drain. This is a common problem for these vehicles if driven infrequently, a Toyota problem; my 15 yr old Ford P/U has similar telematic features but cranks without fail, even though it gets the same intermittent use. After replacing the battery twice on a virtually new car, I tried this solar charger. I've had it going on three months now. I leave it connected to the terminals and disconnect it quickly, using the quick disconnect lead included by the manufacturer. It stores easily in the seat pocket behind the driver seat. Compact, weatherproof and durable with nothing to switch on/off, it comes with an led indicator to show what it's doing once connected. Blinking green shows 'ready' and blinking red indicates current is flowing to the battery. Circuitry prevents over charging. As simple as that to use. I monitor the charging performance and battery state using an Ancel BM300 Bluetooth Battery Monitor ($35 on Amazon) which sends info to my cell phone at designated intervals or on demand. The battery is always topped off and ready to go. Problem solved. The Amazon listing shows suction cups that permit sticking the panel to a suitable surface while in use. I didn't receive suction cups with my charger (an omission, I believe) but that's not a problem. I affixed four coin-sized magnets to the reverse side which secures it to the hood or roof when in my driveway. If using it in a less secure location, I would keep it inside the vehicle, flat on the dash. The harness has a generous length, making routing to different spots simple. Would I purchase this again? Yes. 5 stars for simplicity, performance and ease of use.

I purchased this to charge my boat battery during the off season. I noticed the panel was charging and the light would turn green when fully charged. After several months the boat started and the battery was fully charged. This is a great product and worked as described.

I have had the solar charger hooked to my RV battery for 8 months, and it has been reliable in keeping the battery well charged thus far. I found it easy to install with clear instructions and several options provided for hook up. I recently had a question about the charger and thought it may not have been functioning properly (turns out it was). I sent an email to customer service, and it was responded to promptly. I was also reassured that the unit would be replaced immediately if there was indeed an issue in the future. Customer service is very important to me, and I found Suner Power's support to be outstanding.

So, I have the 12W/12V one. First, it comes with plenty of connection styles. So that is a plus. I have a battery on my utility trailer which runs the electric jack. I use this so I do not have to hook it to truck all the time. Love it. It charged the battery from dead dead and it now keeps it sustained. I did not permanently mount it so I can take it down easily Now the bad. The battery has the SAE connector for ease of connections. (to avoid reading the rest I will put a note here and tell you the connectors on the solar panel wires are reversed.. read on if you need an explanation)... As does this solar charger. So, there is no way to hook it up wrong. And the battery is hooked up correctly (red to positive/black to ground) . Having said that I hooked the solar panel (supplied with the panel) SAE connector and the LED light on the solar panel LED blinked weird. So I looked up the code on the Solar panel instructions and it says it was reverse polarity. Again, I can not hook it up wrong. So, I had to use the alligator clips (and reverse the clips on battery) to get it to charge. Works great now but I cannot use the SAE connectors as it is backwards. Weird. Minor inconvenience but it should be mentioned.

*** update*** one of my best purchases! Changed it from four stars to five because I had not had it very long. This thing is fantastic! I have an older 2000 4 Runner where if I don't have a stronger battery like an AMD or EFG the battery is dead in three days without driving. There's a constant known drain on these Toyota's. The stronger batteries last about three weeks before they start to slowly disintegrate in charging. After having to get a second EFG battery the mechanic down the street told me to get a solar charger. I read lots of reviews and this is the one that I decided on. I had my portable jumper with me today prepared for the battery to not be working because I literally have not driven it in at least three months! I thought no way!?? But yes, it started up like a perfect brand new battery. I brought the charger on my errands because I thought maybe when I stopped it will discharge but no, it started right up again! I love this thing! Remember if you're gonna let your car sit to have a full tank of gas for the Health of the tank*****I like that the size is not overly obtrusive, and it's got plenty of length in the cords which is a huge plus for me as it doesn't limit where and how I decide to connect the solar panel to my battery. That being said, I have an older 2000 Toyota 4Runner and it's one of the models that does not work with the cigarette lighter which my sister said to use. Her husband used to have a collection of cars including Ferraris and $400,000 Porsches etc. all on trickle chargers but unfortunately I tried that mode and it will only connect while the engine is running which defeats the purpose! The small clamps are covered in cheap plastic and just barely fit around my battery terminals but they seem to work and send a signal. The third option doesn't look like it goes with my traditional type of (EFB) battery even if I unscrew the bolts and put it underneath. I'm not sure so I'm going to have to ask my mechanic because the kind that could just attach to your terminals without clamps. I could leave on and just disconnect and connect at will. The photos show a different type of battery for that straight wire connection so it looks like I am stuck with the clamps. I bought a 4 pack of round Dyi...?(you can find it by searching rubber coated magnets ) that won't rust or hurt my car and actually attach strongly to car. I read a lot of reviews on a lot of different magnets and many of these magnets won't even stick to stainless steel. You can't really attach them to this all on their own so what I did was I glued two of the magnets that are the exact size of the suction cups and added them to one end/side of the back of the board. This magnetized the board very strongly to the top of my roof and I was able to put up an angle on my roof rack. (See pictures ) It's not going anywhere! I don't know if I would want to attach it to my window as I'm not a big believer in suction cups holding in extreme circumstances like the magnets would . I have every confidence that these magnets will work through my car cover when I put that on. I sure wish I could've used the cigarette lighter but cannot so don't expect it to necessarily work on your car or think that it's defective because it doesn't light up on your model. It's charging right now so I will get back in a week or two to see if it stays fully charged. I know some people are recommending that you buy a battery status contraption for another 40+ dollars that if you get Bluetooth and you stand within 30 feet of your car it will give you the status of your battery health. I don't know if I need to go to that extreme. It's for a car that I don't drive that often, either of them that often, so I always have to worry about the battery. I sure hope for the price that this last for a while and from some reviews it seems to kind of be hit or miss so check the status light fairly frequently.

I ordered my second Suner Power BC-12W-Pro in December because I was so satisfied with the first one. I've had it almost a year. It works flawlessly and after a few sunny days fully charged the battery then kept it fully charged. (a boat battery. Note: the battery was never fully discharged) I have tried other solar battery "maintainers" with no success. When the second BC-12W-Pro arrived it was determined that the cigar liter adapter was defective. I emailed Tech Support and John responded the next morning! They did not have a replacement in stock but he directed me to an equivalent replacement on Amazon that had a Next Day delivery (Prime). John and Suner Power refunded me $10 on my purchase which easily covered the cost of the replacement. Their product works great and their customer service is absolutely excellent. I am planning on buying a third

UPDATE: My initial review of this Suner Power BC-12W-Pro solar battery charger was one star, because it just sat there and did nothing and neither I nor Amazon could get any response from Suner. I suspect that Amazon didn’t really contact Suner, because once Suner saw my review they contacted me and have been VERY responsive, even on nights and weekends. Mason of Suner Power walked me through some very simple tests requiring nothing more than a digital voltmeter and some sunshine and explained where I had erred. His diligence, my patience, the tests, and my better understanding of how to use and what to expect from a small solar panel resolved every issue efficiently and gave me faith in the company and its products. The initial problem with the panel was that it refused to even detect any of four automotive batteries I hooked it directly to via Suner’s battery clamps. Their instructions didn’t make it clear that the panel must be in sunshine just to detect a battery. Once Mason explained that to me, the panel came alive in the sun as verified by its informative brightly blinking LED. The next problem was that the panel still couldn’t detect a fully charged battery, let alone a marginally charged one. The third and most frustrating problem was that I could not contact Suner Power. The support and technical email links on their website did not work and Amazon’s call to Suner on my behalf got no response in more than a week. When frustration morphed into anger, I ripped Suner Power a new one in a one-star review here. THAT got immediate, clear, very helpful, and ultimately very effective responses from Suner. That bumped my rating to two stars, but I still couldn’t get any … you know … CHARGING from my charger. Suner/Mason then very generously sent me a pre-tested replacement and has continued to work closely with me to perform simple, sensible performance tests on both the original and replacement panels. Still, many hours of comparison on multiple vehicles in various stages of charge in various lighting conditions produced negligible charging. I have graduate degrees in engineering including many courses in electronics. I’ve been an avid automotive DIYer for many decades. I've installed big rooftop solar systems on two RVs and fixed automotive electrical problems that left me stranded and subsequently stumped dealers and independent garages. Yet this time I was stumped. Where does that leave the average consumer? I finally found the “secret” to making the panels work: Hook them up and let them sit in blazing sun for half an hour. Only then did the voltage start to climb, ultimately to a reassuring 13V or so. Once that happened, I switched panels and the second one, the one that initially couldn’t detect a battery, quickly detected the battery and hit 13V. I anticipate that the Suner Power 12W panel will work even better on the small 18aH jet ski battery mine is intended for. At this point I suggested to Mason that adding comments addressing these three additional caveats in their otherwise thorough instructions might save him and his customers a lot of time and angst: 1. Even for a panel to simply detect a battery, the panel must be in sunshine. 2. A quick operational test is insufficient. It may take up to an hour for a panel to boost a fully operational but marginally charged automotive battery’s voltage to 13 volts, even in bright sunshine. 3. To contact Suner Power, customers must manually type [email protected] or [email protected] into an email address window. Clicking on those links on the Suner Power website does not work. My only remaining dilemma was how many stars Suner has earned at this point. Just 3, because even though the panel works fine now, an initial glitch and shortcomings in the instructions thwarted the anticipated no-brainer plug and play? Naah … maybe 4 because it now works due to my better understanding? OTOH, how about 5 because of Mason’s outstanding, and these days rare, support? Yeah, let’s do 5, and hope that Suner Power adds a couple of comments to their instructions. That’s a cheap and hopefully helpful fix.

The power is wired backwards. You can't measure the voltage open circuit but you can check with an amp-meter the power flowing from the panel. Glad I checked it before putting it to use. I did show a small current flow but in the wrong direction, it was discharging the battery. I could have cut the wires and reversed the leads to see how it performed but refused to do that and void the return or warranty if it did not work well. I sent it back and bought a more powerful panel at a much cheaper price. DO NOT BUY unless you're willing to cut and splice wires to make it work. IMPORTANT UPDATE::: After the above review and a one star rating, the vendor reached out to me to make things right. They supplied me with a new panel that works great. It was late in the day and had heavy overcast but I thought I would try it out anyway, not really expecting anything until I could try it in the next afternoon. I was surprised that even though it looked like it could rain at any minute the panel performed well under the stated conditions. This is the only panel I could find that had a built in MPPT controller built in. The MPPT is important to provide maximum charge under all lighting conditions. I believe that a panel without an MPPT controller would not have worked as well especially under the very adverse conditions that I tested this panel at.