LOL, I just bought a very similar solar panel that ;looks just like this and states that it will provide 250 watts of power. I paid $70 and it also came with a controller and some cables, OMG what a joke! I am so sending it back to the seller ASAP! Thanks Mark for making this video as well and have an awesome day too.
Hello! We have this same unit (ours is a 40A), but I can't get something to work and was wondering if you could provide insight. Everything is seemingly connected correctly. However on the main screen I don't see the solar panels that should show up on the right hand side and the battery is not being charged. Is there something I did wrong? Is it not functioning properly? Thanks
I have read the instructions and installed quite a few charge controllers and all of them said to connect your fully charged battery bank to the controller first, then connect the solar panels or you risk damaging the controller. But what do I know.
I think if the cable is to long, voltage would be lost. I was told every metre looses 1 volt. That's on low d c voltage, and amps. The gauge of cables also plays a factor, ie the resistance. Good idea to check out information on the tube. Thanks for your demonstration, good video, Paul.
The lower the amps (current, I) the lower the voltage drop (volts, V). So the fuller the battery, the less it will pull from the panel, the less voltage drop you'll get, so for keeping a battery floated it won't make a great difference, unless your cable is really thin and long and your battery is a long way from full and the panel is in full sunlight.
true test would be to connect a 10amp ammeter from one of the panel lines to the input of a 50watt 12v bulb as load for a minute or so (without any battery or controller connection) and see how many amps going through at full shiny day to see if its really capable of 50watts...
@@VMUKUMAR i bought a 100watt solar panel for almost 200USD few yrs ago...you can take a 10 amp ammeter and connect it directly for a few seconds to the panel in the hot sun to test short circuit current...it should be around at 3amps or so for 18v panel..do not connect longer than few seconds for you to read the meter because it it technically short circuit and it will heat up the panel
is the output negative not common to the battery negative then? - if so, then I think that ground common circuits will simply need their own fuse + optional ammeter in series with the positive rail... - I just ordered a 30 watter off ebay, - wondering if all those phat cables are provided..... (my battery grounds are universally common as well as all dc circuits....)
I want one to run a 12v heater for my small workshop. Buy have it connected to a 12v car battery all the time so I can even run the heater for a few hours in the evening.
@@PaulPaid 650 watts of panels. I need to upgrade inverter to pure sine wave and a bigger battery bank soon. I am not using all the power the panels are making.
This is not a 50 watts panel but, close to 25W ish, none of these panel are a 100% equal output but, this one will charge up a 12volt battery at 1.4 amps, that is not bad value if it works 12 hours a day for one battery.
you forgot the charge control mppt you have to have a fuse block at least a 60 or higher u should watch will browse tutorial as well and cables to go from mppt controller and i t hank it goes solar panel battery then charge controller then inverter butt i could be wrong will browse has great tutorials i am going to get me a back up inverter and a couple of solar panels for my amps and computer
Mark, Given I have two batteries on my campervan, one for the campers engine and the other a leisure battery. Which battery do you recommend I feed via the solar panel?
That depends on how it is set up and what you use it for. If the camper sits for months on end without running to charge the cranking battery, trickle charge it so the motor will turn over next time you hit the key. On the other hand, if you use the "leisure" battery more often, the more wattage available the better! But it needs to be charge controlled with a decent quality charge controller that has a load circuit capable of around 7.5 amps (12v fridges etc.). I have both for my set up that comprises of two deep cycle batteries at around 105ah (lead acid) connected in parallel for the "leisure" battery, 400w solar and 15 amp controller, this also charges via relay isolator directly from the alternator/cranking battery. One cranking battery 900cca 12v, with a 40watt solar trickle charger that has an inbuilt thermal overload switch. My setup is not ideal but copes sufficiently for a family of 4.5 camping for 2/3 nights in tropical Qld Australia. That includes running a big 12v refrigerator and fans, lights and charging devices. Occasionally powering a Bluetooth speaker or similar. The idea is to use the excess power from the solar and keep the batteries at a state of charge, batteries are century batteries that are all 5 years old. Regularly topped up with distilled water.
The controller limits what power output it has so a 20a will output more then a 10a so aslong as the panel and controler is in range and it wont over charge the controler your good google what you need but general rule of thumb i go with is 10a controler x 12v gives the maximum size solar panel it will handle obviously bigger panel is more power but the controler output limit is what goes to the battery. Hope that helps.
I would love to be able to charge my mobility scooter like this, on ebay i see Mobility Scooter Solar Panel Battery Charger 10w 10 watt 24v 24 volt +2.5m lead, they say you get a trickle of a charge would I be throwing my money away by getting one.
Did you connect the solar panel Before connecting the Battery? That is a big NO NO.... Also a lot of comments have no idea what they are talking about.
I have the same controller, same 18W panel. But even under the full sun for 4 hours, I still cannot raise the battery bar indicator. How long did you take to full charge your big battery??
What does a controller like that understands as "float charge"? Mine(model identical to yours) would start upping the voltage at the start of the charge(early morning, 6 AM), than, as it gets to 14.4v(midday), it will keep it there until the end of the day(6 PM), even if I don't discharge the battery during the night, and even as the battery is pulling less than 200mAh of current from the charger. Shouldn't the charger go to "float charge" and try to keep my battery stable, from 13.0v to 13.7v (adjustable), when it is no longer getting usable current from the charger? Isn't that the dictionary definition of "float charge"? Ps: My inverter only turns itself on at 6 PM, so it can't be blamed for any "current leak", all the power produced by the solar panel during the day hours has only the battery as its consumer.
@@oilpond Yeah, he doesn't understand it. And no, I haven't solved the problem. I even built a microcontrolled telemetry unit to measure voltages and currents and log it for months(in fact, it is logging even now, I have millions of rows of data I can go trough and analyze). Nothing came from it. Things are close to ideal conditions and even so, the charger wouldn't turn to float charge mode. I concluded that these cheap chinese charge controllers are just mere voltage regulators. On the web I came across other people having the same issue. It's PWM for sure as it relies on the technology to control voltage, but it is not a true charger. It's only capable of charge stages 1 and 2. Any decent 14.4v power supply plus a high current schottky diode will give you that. Lucky me I drain the battery during the night anyways so it's pretty much hungry for a charge during the day, as it drinks well from the charger as it provides the amps, otherwise I could have lost it to boiling a long time ago. I have a circuit in mind that can do true 3-stage charge of a lead acid battery. One day I'll commit it to a circuit board, right now I'm too busy for that.
You ALL WAYS connect the charge control to the batteries first that way the charge control unit will know what sort of batteries you are using you risk compromising the system if you do not
thank you for the video. i was thinking of buying this unit from aliexpress for my motorbike as a trickle charger. I am guessing that would work, right?
Thanks for the video. I've just bought a second hand 100W panel and am gathering up the other bits and pieces. You'd said you could run a laptop but I was thinking of even trying to plug my washing machine (on cold wash) into the inverter. It says online that would be about 250 watt hours so I'm guessing a medium deep cycle battery could do that. Would you agree that would be feasible once or twice as an experiment?
@@MrMeltedwellies just an ordinary one but if a 100ah battery at 12 v is 1200 watt hours and you can use half of it to protect the battery, then on paper, a 250 watt hour wash cycle would be fine, no?
hi all, i was wondering if anybody knows if i can keep battery connected at all the time and inverter so i can provide power 2 couple of internet routers 5w each i think, but i don 't know if the solar panel will kick in charging when battery is down or stop charging when is full
@@MrMeltedwellies does it?? 🤔🤔 I thought you had to manually adjust it....so that's reassuring to me One more question....would a single electric camping hob be ok to run off it plse? It's 750w with a UK plug Could I take the plug off and hook the wires up to + & -??
Do I need to buy an invertor aswell plse and what would you say is the biggest device or appliance I could use if using a 12v inverter to 4000w plse? I need to buy what's needed ASAP plse so ANY HELP TO A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS would be most appreciated 🙌🏽🙏🏼
@@twisted_sista_bmccleanmiss6048 The output can power something.. but honestly you'd be best to buy a pure sinewave inverter from Victron, make sure you got good clean output.
@@MrMeltedwellies I’m only worried about cooking my battery as I’m not sure does have a protection of overcharging , if you can advice me will be great as at the moment I have to start my car every day because if I let it sit for 2/3 days the battery goes flat , car was driven 2 months ago for last time :)
@@TheIskorpitx the 13.7 it showed when he pressed teh button was the cutoff voltage for the charge controller. it will stop the battery from charging at whatever its set at.
12.6 to 12.7 volt is a fully charged battery if you go over you can start to boil off the lead plates and the battery heats up, best to check you dont over charge the battery, also you can fry the solar box if you connect solar panel without a battery being fitted first.
Perhaps open circuit, but a lead acid battery really wants to be floated at 13.6v to charge properly, and ideally charged to ~14.5v every 6 months. A quick and rough solution would be to use diode/s to drop the voltage ~0.2-0.7v. Schottky diode/s will be a little more precise than say a 1n400x.
Hahahaha I run my fridge freezer off a 100wh marine battery. You don't seem to know much about systems but ys running fridge of inverter would kill battery much faster. My Qlpic9ol drews only 45w.
That control sucks. The power output has leaking power and will steady drain your battery completely and possibly ruin it. Test it with some led lights and watch it drain and not charge shit
We have used the ru-vid.comUgkxOTeIs0vv4_9B5hsmnLsk9r930uDQLu_Y for probably 30 hours with our camper and it’s been great! The noise level is really only noticeable when running the AC and other appliances like the microwave, hair dryer, or coffee pot. It’s not huge like other ones and it has wheels so even at 90lbs, I can move it!
@@antomanelven PWM controller cannot utilize full power of the PV because the current are tied between input and output. If the input is 18v 10A, and the output is set to 13.8v, the output will also has 10A, that's 76% efficiency. Meanwhile an MPPT controller always utilize buck converter, so their efficiency is theoritically 100% but from parasitic loss they'll ended up being in the high 90% efficiency, with the example above if the input has 18v 10A, the output at 13.8v will be 11.73A. With PWM controller, the higher the delta between PV voltage and output voltage, the higher the loss, that's not the case with MPPT until a certain point like at 10% pulse width when the buck converter itself is breaking down in efficiency. And I have not even talking about the PV MPP curve yet.
Mate, you got scammed, just do your research and admit it... 1 sqft panel, in ideal sunshine, @15% efficiency - being generous - will give you 15 Watts max..
Question from a newbie to how solar charging works...if I bought a bigger panel say 600w (same type from AliExpress) with a 100A controller would it charge a battery quicker or would it charge more batteries at the same rate? And would the controller be sufficient? Thank you.
