KennethS
TJ Enthusiast
You'll want something at least 100w or so or the largest foldable you are willing to carry around.
The panel you had should have gotten at least and amp or two in full sun. I'm guessing it was a 30 or 40w panel? Definitely sounds like it was defective at 0.2A
Id buy a general purpose "12v panel" and a dc dc charger for the battery. The panel will put out around 18v and be useful for other projects too.
This was many years ago and its use was for while the Jeep sat in the driveway. The alarm drew enough current to run the battery down over a 2-3 week period. Since then I bought a motorcycle trickle charger / maintainer with a long cord and hard-wired a 2-conductor flat plug from the battery to the grille so it can be easily connected / disconnected (and will auto-disconnect if the Jeep is backed out without disconnecting first. That came in handy a few times).
Ya know, now that I think about it, the above low battery while sitting for 2-3 weeks happened when the Optima battery was in the Jeep and I haven't had any issues with the replacement Interstate battery. I haven't connected the trickle charger since some time last year and the battery has never given me any problems.