A couple of months ago i heard a myth about a man and his maverick from a guy at a car show.The story goes that he was driving his maverick to school one day when his car suddenly turned off.So he pulled over to see what was the problem.When he opened the hood he found out that the charge wire on his alternator had gotten disconnected so his battery was dead.He then fixed the wire,but was unable to start the car because of the dead battery. So he then tried to signal down a driver for help but was unable.On the second day he remembered ha had a class set of calculators in his back seat. So he took them apart and wired the solar panels to the cars battery and by sunset it had charged enough to get the car started. I know i'm forgetting some of the details, like he told me the place were it took place in, i cant remember if it was arizona or texas. I've also heard another version of the story but in that version he had a passenger and it was in a 69 camaro. my question is can you even get the solar panels in a calculator to charge a 12V battery?
I doubt any Maverick (or Comet) owner is smart enough to figure that out, let alone sitting on the side of the road
It would had started the next day after sitting all night with or without the small charge if the battery had a dead cell. A battery is not like a light bulb...it does have an in between good and bad
"IF" the charge wire had come a loose on the Maverick or any car then there is no short to continue draining the battery. "IF" the above scenario had happened, just letting the car sit till the next day alone would have likely allowed the battery to regenerate enough power on it's own to be able to restart itself without having to be recharged...as long as it started right away without much winding. So, I call
Or you could think of it this way... Only a Mav (or Com ) owner would think of trying something sooo rediculous.... What exactly was he drinking while sitting on the side of the road. On another note... Where are you guys getting these great cartoon images of your cars found in your sigs? I want one.
hey now!! i'm an electrical engineer... has for the plausibility... NO, not with only 2 and not with only 24 hrs (even with full sun).... those cells put out max 5 volts dc, probably only 3v. that means that you would need at least 3 cells to get a 12v charge. in addition, the current coming out of those is at most 300mA/hr, probably much less, ~200mA (.2 Amps) per hour. the capacity of a 12v lead acid to start a car is around 600 CCA. so with the minimum (3 in series) you would expect .3 amps charge per hour, best case. that results in 2000 hrs to charge the 600 Amps required, (could be less amps required to start engine, but doesn't matter much) to get it to charge in the 12 hrs of sun would require 510 3v cells (170 parallel sets of 3 in series) so that is why it is a 'myth':Handshake
Well, at least he doesn't think he is a "rocket scientist" Thanks for clearing that up. It is good to get REAL information to think about. And yes, Jamie did mine too.
