potter water
New member
5 watts will be spitting in the wind, even as a battery maintainer for battery banks the size we use on the CD's, but that doesn't get to your question. The other electronics you didn't buy likely will have a diode placed in the positive side to block any voltage coming from the "other direction" from damaging the solar cells when the engine is running. Without that diode protection, it is possible that a 13.5 charging voltage could damage the cell. Without the diode, you are virtually %100 guaranteed that you or another operator will fail to remember to flip the cell isolation switch. I'd spend the money on the manager hardware and while I was at it I'd bump up the cells to 12 watts worth or so.
