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List Price: $199.50
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Picked this up for pop-up camper and a week of dry camping in 90 degree heat at the beach. Our goal was to run two fans 8-10 hours/night and keep two iPhones charged for 5 nights, 4 days without any power source.
Product arrived as described. Controller appears to be very cheaply made, wires seem like they are undersized, and the controller unit was broken on delivery (transistor bouncing around in the box). I soldered the transistor back onto the board (night before departure, no time for a return) and it appeared to work. In full sun and aligned, the panel produced about 17.6 volts and 1.6 amps.
Started off with a new Group 27 Marine/RV deep cycle battery, fully charged. We had two days of sun and two of clouds (the last two). I set the panel on a chair next to our camper at about 45 degrees each day and did my best to keep it aligned with the sun, though most of the charging time it was not perfectly aligned. The last two days, in particular, it was very cloudy and not well aligned. I unhooked the battery from the camper completely each day so the controller was connected only to the battery completely unhooking and storing the panel/controller at night.
Result: 5 full nights of two fans running 8-10 hours (02 12 volt, 700mA fans), 2 iphones charging each night. By my imperfect math, the battery might have delivered 3 days of fans without any charging before being dead. So I take this to mean that the panel did the job.
PROS panel works as described, charging controller appears to have done what it was intended to. For basic uses such as the one above, the panel could keep you running for a long time (assuming it was really working at capacity). Relatively small and easy to store. I can't speak to longevity of either daily charging performance or the panel over time.
CONS charger is about as cheap as they come mine was broken. Panel has very sharp edges and limited mounting options. Cable turns out to be pretty short. Charger offers no information about power being generated or battery status.
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I bought this for my Aliner camper to keep the battery up. Seeing my camper is an aframe it's pretty easy to just lay it out over a bubble to collect the suns rays, although I think we may build a mount so we can redirect it in any direction rather than just two. Initially I set it up in my driveway in full south eastern sun and the battery under load recovered very fast. I also ran the battery low on purpose (less than 12v) and it recovered quickly to 13.6v. I noticed it was also charging on overcast days and even though I checked the voltage with a meter I can't remember how much, but it did the job. We also changed over our light bulbs inside the camper to leds and that has helped with the draw. We do a lot of dry camping. We just came back from our first dry trip with the panel, and a week of charging cell phones and psps, running lights, water pump and other little things the battery is at a full charge and the panel got very little direct sun on a wooded site. So this panel seems to fit our needs fine. We are not running heat yet and we aren't using a ton of power either. Most people go bigger but I didn't want to have to pack up a huge panel or worry about where to store it and the extra weight. This panel is small and very easy to deal with. We picked up a 2 pin plug from Radio Shack so we could disconnect from the battery without having to access it. I run the cord through the electrical cord port. It was packaged well and everything was there. I am very happy with this panel and recommend it to anyone that would like to keep up a 12v battery under light use. I'm also pretty pleased I can leave it set up at home and not have to plug into the house. I'll try to add some pictures soon. (PS. I don't really think the controller is needed for such a small panel, but it is nice to see the led lights letting you know if it's charging or sending power).
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I purchased this solar panel for charging a deep-cycle golf-cart battery that we use to charge cell phones, etc. at a no-electricity vacation site. It's worked just fine for the past couple of weeks. In bright sun I've measured it delivering 25 watts to a nearly fully charged battery.
The panel itself seems well made. The solar array is mounted in an aluminum frame with a good silicone seal. The frame has a pair of holes at each end, but as someone else noted, these holes are in a lip of the aluminum frame so they're somewhat tedious to work with. Drilling holes in the side of the frame is an option, but there are two channels in the extruded aluminum of the side that make using such holes difficult. So, mounting a handle on it for carrying took some careful planning. The panel delivers the most power when facing directly at the sun, but being 5 or 10 degrees off makes almost no difference. It charges somewhat on bright cloudy days, but perhaps only 20% of what you get from full sun.
Note: as delivered, this panel is not for novices:
the wires from the panel were reversed from how they should have been; the red wire with the positive label was actually the negative wire, and vice-versa for the black wire with the negative label
you should have a basic understanding of electrical circuits, and you should have a voltmeter and you should use it to check polarity before connecting things
the regulator box is very very cheaply made, with dainty alligator clips for the battery and tiny little philips screws for making connections
the English instructions for the regulator is of clarity not much :-)
the diagram for the regulator showed the solar panel connections reversed from what they should have been
that second mistake means, ironically, that if I had blindly followed the diagram, the reversal on the diagram would have countered the reversed wires from the panel and I would have been OK
Despite those issues, I'm very happy with the panel for my rustic usage. I've made a simple, portable stand for it, and a 40' cable. It keeps a deep-cycle battery in the cabin charged up. That battery is used by 12 people to charge cell/smart phones, a Kindle, and an iPad.
Consider getting the panel without the regulator Instapark® 30W Mono-crystalline Solar Panel and getting a high-quality regulator SunGuard SG-4 4.5 amp 12 volt Solar Charge Controller Regulator by Morningstar.
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The panel seems to work fine I have no means of measuring its effectiveness other than that it keeps the battery for my gate charged. It is a little challenging to mount. It does not include a mount, and the back of the panel only has four small holes in the "frame". There is not much clearance between the frame and the panel for fasteners.
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I was pleasantly surprised by this rig. As a complete newbie to solar, I expected the "solar charge controller" to deliver a regulated 12V whenever there was sufficient light; I was planning to hack up an unused UPS to store and deliver power. However, the controller has a direct battery hookup, with a pair of clip leads included. All you need is a small Phillips screwdriver to attach the solar panel and whatever 12V devices you want to use with it. I stuck the panel in a south-facing window... even I know that's not an optimum position, but for my needs it keeps a 12Ah battery topped up. I attached a cigarette lighter socket (aka auxiliary power) and a USB car charger, and use it to charge my Kindle, phone, and other mobile devices. It'll charge a full-size tablet, maybe a netbook, but not a full-sized laptop. I'm planning to put the battery and controller in a box so I can move it around for camping or other portable use.
BTW: always use a sealed lead-acid (SLA) battery for these systems unless you're always using it outside or have good ventilation. Car batteries and deep-discharge batteries vent hydrogen gas, which can explode under the wrong conditions.
What kept it from getting five stars: I'd like to have seen a little more care given to newbies. The 12-foot power cable exiting the solar panel ends in two bare, tinned wires. Perfect for attaching to the controller, but even in a north-facing garage in the evening, it produced enough power to make a pretty impressive spark when the wires hit the aluminum frame. Either cover the wires, or the panel itself (a flannel shirt is perfect), before messing with the panel itself. It would have been nice to include some suggestions for making a bracket to permanently mount the panel. (The aluminum frame comes with four holes pre-drilled in back; others could be drilled on the side but I'd like to know it was OK to do that.) You should trim all bare wires to 1/8" (3.5mm) before attaching them to the controller, to prevent shorts.
This makes a great little system to get your feet wet in solar power systems, and has enough capacity to do useful things. I'm already thinking about a larger system to run all my electronic gear though!
