solar pannels question

[landdweller]

I have found this in my area
have 12 solar panels and charge controllers. the panels hook up 3 to a controller. they produce 45 watts from 3 panels. they are 1 year old. the price is 400 for all 12 panels or 120 for a set of 3 panels
How can u tell if they are good and in working order? how can u tell if the charge controllers are any good? What does 45 watts equal to? Like what could I run off of 45 watts?

[rzrubek]

You'll get a much better response if you post this in "Alternative Energy" forum. Good luck.

[PD-Riverman]

Sounds like what you have found is 3 Harbor Freight 45 watt solar panel kits, you can catch them on sale for around $175 new. These kits are of the cheaper line solar panels, but the panels seem OK. The charge controllers do not hold up very good. The way to tell if the panels are working is to put them in full sun, hooked to a dc volt meter and see if they are putting ou close to 20 volts each. To see if the charge controller is working---with the panels in full sun hooked to the charge controller you should get a dc volt reading of 13 to 14 volts.

What you can run with 45 watt panel is not very much(think about a 40 watt lite bulb-thats about it). If you will hook the panel to a Good deep cycle battery and let it collect/charge the battery all day then at night you could have about 250 watts stored in the battery meaning hooked to a inverter if you hooked a 100 watt bulb(or tv that draws 100 watts) to it---about 2 1/2 hours of burn time. 25 watt bulb---10 hrs. A 1500 watt hair dryer---about 10 minutes.

I feel being they are used the $400 is a little high, you can buy new panels for less than $2 per watt if you will look around. 3 x 45 watts=135 watts x $2=$270 then buy a decent/good Charge Controller for around $100 you would come out better.

Originally Posted by landdweller

I have found this in my area
have 12 solar panels and charge controllers. the panels hook up 3 to a controller. they produce 45 watts from 3 panels. they are 1 year old. the price is 400 for all 12 panels or 120 for a set of 3 panels
How can u tell if they are good and in working order? how can u tell if the charge controllers are any good? What does 45 watts equal to? Like what could I run off of 45 watts?

[wy_white_wolf]

2 of these:

http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_pa...oducts_id=1495

and a morningstar controller:

http://sunelec.com/index.php?main_pa...roducts_id=430

will produce more with less hassle in setting up than the cheapy 15w panels. Yes I do see that you need to order 4 of those panels but one can always splitt the order with a friend or save them for when you want to expand. The controller is large enough to handle 3 of the panels. I wouldn't try it with 4 as you might hit a high-light condition that could overload the controller.

They are also new so you get the 25 year warrantee.

We have a few threads on this in the Alternative Energy forum.

WWW