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The purpose of installing solar panels on my GEM was solely to charge my electronics battery. The panels will not effectively charge the main battery pack. Two Uni-solar FLX-11 flexible 11 watt solar panels were mounted to the roof and wired in parallel to produce approximately 1.6 amps of current to recharge my electronics battery that was mounted in the dash. The amount of current produced is small enough where a charging controller is not necessary. The panels do however keep my Auxiliary battery full charged at all times. If you're wondering why I don't charge my battery pack with solar panels, perhaps I can explain... If I strap on a 5 foot solar panel to the roof of my car that might at best produce 150W @ 80 degrees F. Figure it would take about 9kW to charge my GEM car. With these numbers, it would take 10 really sunny days to charge the car for just one day of driving. 9000 divided by (150 times 6 hours of sunlight) = 10 days. For powering my stereo, DVD player, alarm system and such, the panels do an excellent job. This way I don't loose range when I blast my stereo.
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