Metalophile
Analytical Chemist
I must be really old because I bought the earlier version of the Harbor Freight panels maybe about 14 years ago. They do have metal frames, but I only have 3 of them, and together they were advertised as 15 watts apiece for a total of 45 watts. I used them for a couple of years just to keep my 12v deep cycle lead acid battery topped off in case of emergency or power outage. For that purpose they worked. However, just yesterday I bought 4 x 260 Watt polycrystalline panels which were used - 4 years old apparently from a solar farm that didn't make it. $100 apiece. Now, those are some real panels I can play with!
I do still have those older Harbor Freight panels. A couple of months ago I dusted one of them off and installed an Anderson Powerpole connector on it so I could actually use it. I hooked it to a DC-DC buck converter and set the converter to 14 volts and trickle charged my wife's 2nd car's battery that she doesn't drive much. It still trickle charged the battery at 12.6 volts and 0.7 amps in not quite full sun, so at least it is still useful for something. And if someone steals it off my driveway, no big loss. I also have a DC converter board with USB sockets, and I want to convert one of the other panels to a phone charger or to charge a phone power bank. I'm trying to think of another application for these. Maybe mount them on my kid's swing set, put a ~20AH lead acid battery and a cheap harbor freight plastic ammo box, and use it to run LED landscape lighting at night?
I do still have those older Harbor Freight panels. A couple of months ago I dusted one of them off and installed an Anderson Powerpole connector on it so I could actually use it. I hooked it to a DC-DC buck converter and set the converter to 14 volts and trickle charged my wife's 2nd car's battery that she doesn't drive much. It still trickle charged the battery at 12.6 volts and 0.7 amps in not quite full sun, so at least it is still useful for something. And if someone steals it off my driveway, no big loss. I also have a DC converter board with USB sockets, and I want to convert one of the other panels to a phone charger or to charge a phone power bank. I'm trying to think of another application for these. Maybe mount them on my kid's swing set, put a ~20AH lead acid battery and a cheap harbor freight plastic ammo box, and use it to run LED landscape lighting at night?