List Price: $79.90
Sale Price: $51.90
Today's Bonus: 35% Off
I mostly agree with the previous review except for one thing the battery issue. I bought the best deep-cycle marine battery ($70 at WalMart) and I am pleased with the results. I drained the battery intentionally and this little 15W panel fully charged it in 4 days (I'm in So Cal). I have a patio room that has my boom-box and a 4 strings of white holiday lights (non-LED) that run off the battery with an inverter. I also charge all my small electronic devices from it. Most days the battery is full as the sun sets. And I have become very conscious to turn off the music and lights when I leave the room to conserve power.
I built a box that houses the battery and mounted the charge controller and inverter on the outside. I am going to add a 2nd panel soon and change the holiday lights to the LED ones (brighter and lower power). Then I'll charge my laptop and power tool batteries from it overnight and keep adding other devices to it and when I need to I'll add another panel and/or another battery.
I consider this a fun experiment that is easy to expand upon and one that has proved to me that solar is the future.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
I bought this solar panel to keep my gate openers' 2 12v 7amp-hour batteries charged. I have the mighty mule two-leaf gate opener (from home depot, FM402) and the instructions say you need at least 10 watts of solar to maintain the batteries. Well Mighty Mule's $130 solar panel only generates 5 watts, so you supposedly need two of them to do the job. Keep in mind these specs are rated for dozens (75+) of gate cycles a day.. At my place, the gate cycles 10 times a day MAX (usually more like 4-6) so I really didnt need that much wattage. ANYWAYS I ran the gates on batteries alone (I installed the second optional battery) for a couple of weeks, 10+ cycles per day (lots of adjusting, and testing) and it ran fine. Voltage dropped from 12.5v to 11.5v after approximately 2 weeks which is when I received the solar panel. I installed it and after one sunny day (san diego), the batteries were topped off, back up at 12.5v. So I am pretty confident that the system is going to be reliable even thru winter and low-sun months. The solar panel is well made, and sturdy. For the money, I dont think you can find a better product. Based on the power output, the very SMALL size of the panel, and the LOW price, I dont think you can do any better. I would not hesitate to buy another one, in fact I plan on experimenting with solar for some more projects around my place in the near future. The mighty mule electronics have "solar" inputs built into the board, so there was no need for a charging controller or any kind of regulator. The panel seemed to put out about 20v (meter connected directly to the panel) so keep in mind you cannot just connect it right to a battery.Best Deals for Instapark® NEW All Black 15W Mono-crystalline Solar Panel
I finally got around to comparing this panel to a Sunforce 15 watt. The Instapark is constructed with a nice aluminium frame, produced 4.5 time more power in a test I did in North NJ, at 9:45 am in clear conditions on 4/10/2013. 200ma versus 45ma.I would not waste my money on the charge controller though, these on/off varieties are typically not suitable for most applications.
No comments:
Post a Comment