Well This is a Video of the new Harbor freight Hundred watt solar Panel kit
This Just Released As far as I know the first Part of July or late June 2017
And I've Just Opened up the Box and Set everything out Nothing Is mounted Permanently or anything
In Fact it's not even Connected yet I'll do that next
Again This is the solar Panel Kit from Harbor freight that's rated at a Hundred watts
Brand New Mid 2017
And then we're Just out here in The Evening sun in The Backyard Get A shot at Both Sides of the Box here
And here are the Contents
Try not to Shade the
IteMs here but You have the solar Panel Controller
You've Got the Connector to hook to the Battery
Another Connector Down Here
that's - That's to go, Into the Proprietary Front Panel Connection on the for the solar Panel input to the Controller and
Then This Down Here is the Combiner
and then Harbor freight Continues to offer the lights With the Switch A
Nice Manual and that Mounting Hardware that you see There is to mount the Panel's Together
So something Else I thought People Would be interested in Is how Long are the Cables
So I've got a tape Measure
Rolled out Here and
The Tape Measure is you'll See There's two wires
next To it one of them is the combiner wire the main wire for the solar Panels and
Then The one on the right Side Is for the light
So I've got These you know They're not tight
But it Gives you an idea of the length
And i'd Say that Combiner Cable with with the
as I have it is Maybe 12 feet and
if you Look at the light Bulb
Comes Out here, well Past
13 Foot Mark so I'm going to Call This
15 feet Long it is actually quite, nice for that light Bulb 15 feet Long
Now Another Thing that might be Interesting here Is to see the Panel's Themselves a little bit Better if I pick a Panel of
You Can See that There is a metal bracket this metal bracket, allows you to stand it up
and
Then on the back of that you'll, also Notice a pigtail
Hmm I haven't measured this yet but Looks to be like Six feet Long for a power Cable and then Looks like They're Serialized
so
That was my serial Number There and The serial Numbers Match on all four Panels You get
Another Interesting Thing Is that each of These Panels has an Indicator for
solar Energy Coming in
So just Talking about what's new in This 100 watt solar Panel kit
Versus the Old One
Start With the Obvious the Old Ones Were 15 watts each so you had then you had Three
Of Them so it, was A 45 watt set
And i think that last set, was out for like a decade
So the other big Change so in Addition to Having Four Panels each Panel IS 25 watts each
so up from 15 To 25 each and They Added Another Panel
Then You Have the Controller
Controller Is A lot Different
It's quite Small
Now This one Is off right Now and i Can Show it Later on
but
The solar Input Here Is
Actually Plugged in Like That Then That Extension Cable I showed goes Into here so it plugs Into The front
But you do Have the Option to plug solar in Here
And the Battery Goes Here and Here's your Output in Addition There are These kind of Proprietary
Well it'S an Open Standard Dc Output Here and Those light Bulbs fit in Two of These
This Switch Up here Turns Light Bulbs on and off Turns off the Outputs
Then You Have your, usb power out I couldn't I didn't see the Amperage on that Maybe I'll look at the back Here and See
Now Nothing on the Back to Indicate the Amperage so that might be Another Test
So i've now Connected a Harbor freight 35 Amp hour Battery to the charge Controller
You Can See it's Reading twelve Point eight volts
That's a little Different than what I got with the Multimeter so i look at that in A second
These are the clamps that come with the kit I got to tell you These Clamps
Feel very Cheap They're very Thin Metal Now Maybe They'll Get The Job Done They Probably will
But They are Quite Cheap
I'Ll come Back With the Multimeter Hooked up
Okay, so I've Plugged in The Multimeter
Connected it to the Battery and you can See it's Reading Thirteen Point
Zero Eight Zero seven volts and
The Harbor Freight is Reading twelve Point eight volts
Maybe Not The end of the World Notice I don't have the solar Panel Connected or Anything Here
Okay, well Connect the solar Panel and See what, we get now I'm going to show you?
I don't know how, well the sun will Show here
Through The Clouds There
And it's a lady Later in The evening here in the summer so I'm not Convinced
We're Going to get much out of the Panel's so i may have to come back and do that Later
Am Wondering About the Discrepancy in The Voltage Reading Though
Not that far Off But We'll Take a look
Okay, Let's Plug the solar Panels in and I wanted to notice that the solar Panels
Are all Connected Together and
They go Through that Combiner the Combiner Is this Long longest Cable
and then a pigtail Gets adapted to it which gives you this Connector
Then This Connector Goes Into The solar input
Here
Now you Could, also plug your solar in Over Here
But that's how it Goes so notice Once I do that
Even With the sun Starting to kind of
Basically it's about to Set and it's going Through Clouds right Now in the Panel's aren't
Even Facing the sun the sun is over There
Now I'm going to go straight Down
The Panel's are Facing off of the sun so this Would be Where the Panel's are Facing?
No sun
okay But They're Still getting Enough to
Produce Some Some Power it's, over the pant the Battery
The Reading at the Battery Terminal was Thirteen Point Zero seven Now it's Thirteen Point Three Three
Clearly Charges Taking Place Now I need to Practice on These Menus to See
What each of Them mean but This Button Cycles Through the Menus?
I'm not sure There's a, menu that tells you the the Panel Output but I could be Wrong Maybe this is it
Maybe I'll need to plug a multimeter in There and See if that's it 14 4
Probably need to Read the manual so I don't want to Mislead Anybody about this but These are the Different Menus
This is back to where We were so now it's Three point one Thirteen Point One and
Thirteen Point Three nine
Okay so I have Plugged in The Multimeter?
Into The solar Panel Auxiliary solar Panel Port Here so you Can plug solar in This One Through the Connector They Provided
Or you if you Didn't Have that Connector you could plug that plug it in Here
So I have the leads for the multimeter Plugged in There so I believe These two are likely
Connected and
Again With That very overcast
730 Something p.m. Evening in July solar Panels Pointing the wrong Way
It's Reading Thirteen Point seven Five
volts Coming in
So i think I believe that
That's Pretty Impressive and That's What People have Said about These Panels
you
Know the
Mono Crystalline Panels Are Supposed to be much Better Than These
and i believe That
But Maybe if You're an Environment where you, don't get a lot of
Really Bright sun on the Panels but You want some Battery Charging to take place you could have that
With These Morrow I'll I'll get a, better Shot Facing Into the sun
Another Note I wanted to point out Is i tried to Make This an all Harbor freight event
We got the Harbor Freight Battery The Harbor freight Screwdriver?
There's The Harbor Freight Multimeter I was Reading it for the first Time
This was One of the free ones so you can't ask for much
I
Just Didn't quite Trust it so I used the
you know This other Multimeter I had you know, Maybe it's fine
And we're using the Harbor freight Battery?
35 Amp Hour Battery
So i think I'll leave the Panels out Overnight
and
Come Back in The Morning and I
Guess I'Ll Check and See you know if We have the sun Shinin on the Panel's what, We can do Charging Wise?
Pretty Happy with This This in July They, Had a Coupon they, always Have Coupons July 2017 and it was
$150 Just
A week prior I had Bought the 45 watt kit
For $100
And i would Say to get double the power Output with the modern Charge Controller a little more modern
Would Be, well Worth it?
I
Was Reading the manual Just a little more Closely and
When you Toggle the Display Button it toggles between These Menus Here
So that's what, We were Looking at those Menus Seemed to be cut off Points for for Various Charging Moods?
and it Looks Like the way to view the the Battery Voltage Is
to push the load Button
So i'm going to give that a try and See if That helps Give a true Reading of the Battery Voltage
Okay, so i'll plug the multimeter Back Into the Battery okay, so i'm Reading the Battery Voltage
and if I press the
Here We go the load Button?
That Arrow Appears next to light Bulb so that Would Turn These Ports on and off Probably, Usb - and Probably this one
But According to manual if I push it one More Time that Arrow went away and it's telling me My Battery Voltage Is 13 for
13 5
and the multimeter Says
13 7
Okay, so maybe a Discrepancy There if I find I did something wrong I will
Make an Update not that's not the end of the World Either
Ok, one More Thing I thought People Would be interested in Is this Page in the manual which just Gives you an Overview of what?
Comes With it
We'll Hold Still here?
You Can See you have the four solar Panels the Four in One Splitter
The Charge Controller
Two light bulbs Led I
Think They Used to be fluorescent Didn't they so that Would be Interesting now They're Led
You get the Screws in The Connection Brackets and the Dc J plug I believe that's what Plugs Into the Control
The Controller and The Wingnuts and There you can See it Pictorially
Here's That Mounting Hardware
So i think it said it has a six of These These Connect between each Panel
So you Can Actually Connect all the Panels to each other
Looks Like a nice Setup With Those wing nuts and
The Light Bulbs
All in All I'm happy with the Purchase
Hopefully I'll get This Installed on the Shed here in The Coming Days
and good Job by Harbor freight I
Hope this Can be Helpful to Somebody
