I'm curious about adding a small solar panel (say from Harbor freight) to set on my privacy cover in the back of my Gen3? What would happen if I plugged it into the 12 volt system? If my car is sitting outside for a while, couple of weeks let's say, would the little charge from the solar panel trickle into the traction battery through the DC to DC system? Or what would it do?
If you plug the solar panel directly into your 12v battery and you have some type of battery minder in that circuit to ensure it doesn't overcharge or discharge/reverse charge the 12v it should be fine.
The DC/DC converter only works in one direction, so none of your solar power would end up in the traction battery. But it could keep the 12 volt battery nice and happy. I did essentially the same thing using the factory solar roof (which, otherwise, only ventilates the cabin) about three years ago, and haven't had any worries about coming back to a drained battery since.
@MSantos did a solar panel install in a Civic Hybrid, some years back. Might be some info: Guide: Installing a solar panel on the HCH-II (step-by-step) | CleanMPG
Amazon has some that have a maintenance controller. I suppose it would keep the solar panels from over charging. One such controller is an mppt (Newer tech) . Which is preferred as opposed to a the PWM (older tech) because it makes more from less photons. Or so I've read. I thought of just connecting a panel to the back roll up privacy cover and connect the leads from the mppt directly to the battery. And just leave it there.
The thread already linked above has details of other people's solutions also, and also contains this post with more links to other people's solutions.
