User Error/Need help with Goal Zero Yeti 1400 and Solar Panels

[HeadRusch1]

Thank You for taking a minute to read this, I could use some straightening out.

I've had a Goal Zero Yeti 1400 since they were new and I added the MPPT charging adapter when it was made available, I've also had 4 100w AllPowers brand flat, flexible panels that are as old as the Yeti (4 years?), but have never been used. The Yeti has been used but it was always re-charged via AC.

With the storms that came through the east coast this past week, I finally had to break out the panels. I had them pre-connected via 2-to-1 MC4 connectors so I could run 3 of them as a single 300w to the MPPT adapters' Anderson connector, and the other one as a single 100w panel via one of the 8mm charge ports either on the MPPT one (not sure if it would over-load it) or via the original integrated charge controller on the front of the unit, left side.

The problem is when I went to plug them into the Yeti via the MC4 to 8mm and MC4 to APP connector cables, I froze: The Goal Zero cables had male connectors on the + lead and female connectors on the - lead. But....so did my solar panels.....so in order to connect the + feed of the panel to the + portion of the cable.....I needed to connect male to male. Or female to Female in the case of the negative side. Obviously that was not happening.

I had no power to research this and I was afraid of frying the fairly expensive Yeti........so I'm here, looking for the answer. My solar panels have + and - cables labeled and the + all have male connectors with the red gasket, while the - cables all have the female MC4 connector.

Am I over-thinking this or do I have 4 solar panels with the wrong MC4 adapters on them? I looked and nobody makes a Male to Male or female to female adapter/extension cable, not sure if this is user error or what have you.

I did buy an inexpensive MC4 crimping kit and a set of extension cables that I figured I might just cut the ends off one side and make a male to male and female to female set of cables and that would allow me to match my - to - and + to +. But....am I just not thinking about this correctly and its all right just the way it is?

Help appreciated. Thank You.

 

[Bob142]

Welcome to the forum! I think I know what you're saying here, but some pics would help so I don't misinterpret things.

My solar panels have + and - cables labeled and the + all have male connectors with the red gasket, while the - cables all have the female MC4 connector.

So they look like this?*:

(Pic from Amazon)

The Goal Zero cables had male connectors on the + lead and female connectors on the - lead

I take this to mean that you purchased the GZ 98015 MC4 to 8mm adapter cable and the GZ 98014 MC4 to APP adapter cable. Are those cables labeled? What makes you think they are wired the way you state?

Powerwerx sells compatible cables where they conveniently use red/black bonded zip cord to help us see the polarity (MC4 to 8mm 98015 compatible cable and MC4 to APP 98014 compatible cable). Here's a screenshot from Powerwerx that to me shows your setup will work fine if the solar panel output is what I have listed above:



All of my solar panels have the MC4 connector polarity I've shown above and I use both MC4 to 8mm and MC4 to APP adapter cables with the polarity shown in the Powerwerx photo successfully with several Goal Zero and Jackery portable powerstations.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if I have any of the details of your setup wrong and we can figure it out with some clarification.

_________________________________

*Something interesting that I learned from @Supervstech a while ago: The MC4 connectors where the plastic housing looks like a male fitting are actually the female connector electrically speaking. You have to look at the inner metal connector parts to see that's the case. What I've found is that most of listings for adapter cables on sites like Amazon and eBay refer to male and female based on the plastic housing, perpetuating the incorrect terminology.

 

[HeadRusch1]

Thank You for the reply, you are correct, I have purchased the 2 GZ cables you link to above.

If I look on the Goal Zero Cables themselves, on the actual MC4 connectors attached to those GZ cables as in the pics you link to above, they have Positive "+" markings on the Male MC4 Connector...and a Negative "-" marking on the Female MC4 Connector.

That's where I got nervous.

Because my brain is saying "You need to connect the Positive output of the Solar Panels to the Positive (+) input on the GZ cable, and the same for the negative." .......but the GZ Positive MC4 connector is male...and the solar panel's Positive MC4 connector is male..........

And that is where I froze.

I'll try to snap a pic later if this isn't making sense.

Thanks again.

 

[Bob142]

If I look on the Goal Zero Cables themselves, on the actual MC4 connectors attached to those GZ cables as in the pics you link to above, they have Positive "+" markings on the Male MC4 Connector...and a Negative "-" marking on the Female MC4 Connector.

Now I know what you're saying. They look like this...


IDK why they make them with + and - stamped on them. I have just been ignoring that and checking polarity on everything to make sure it's correct. Color coded wiring helps too. Going back to your statement about the the panels having polarity labeled, you mean they have labels other than what is stamped on the MC4 housings, right? If so, I stand by my assertion that you're going to be fine. You can always double check polarity with a meter before you make any final connections.

 

[HeadRusch1]

Exactly that what you show above. I think I've been reading too much into this and should have just connected the panel.......but better safe than sorry, I'll also look for + or - with my multimeter before plugging them in.

 

[Supervstech]

Now I know what you're saying. They look like this...
View attachment 19484

IDK why they make them with + and - stamped on them. I have just been ignoring that and checking polarity on everything to make sure it's correct. Color coded wiring helps too. Going back to your statement about the the panels having polarity labeled, you mean they have labels other than what is stamped on the MC4 housings, right? If so, I stand by my assertion that you're going to be fine. You can always double check polarity with a meter before you make any final connections.

just for FYI, nothing to do with this conversation...
the + marked connector in the pic above is in fact female... the one marked - is male...
why they design them this way is beyond me... but it’s true.

Think of them as if they are hyenas...

 

[Bob142]

just for FYI, nothing to do with this conversation...
the + marked connector in the pic above is in fact female... the one marked - is male...
why they design them this way is beyond me... but it’s true.

Think of them as if they are hyenas...

Actually totally on topic: I credited you with teaching me that at the bottom of post #2.

 

[HeadRusch1]

Ah, well live and learn I guess. Still glad I erred on the side of caution, sounds like they were ready to go all along.

 

[HeadRusch1]

Epilogue: Today I managed to connect it all up and was...somewhat disappointed to find...that my 4x100 watt panels (the thin flexible kind, 3 years old and never used before) were only producing about 60w each. I had 3 in parallel and one stand-alone. I ran the 3 in parallel into the MPPT and the single one into the 8mm standard charge port on the Yeti, peak sun gave me about 230 or so watts. Pretty disappointing.

This weekend I'll check each with the MultiMeter to make sure I don't have a dud in the bunch, although I imagine with 3 panels connected via Y's and some extension charge cables I'm losing those extra watts perhaps, I was hoping to see 80w x 4.

Most of the time the panels were lying flat on my patio and not angled towards the sun, but they were always in direct sunlight and not hitting shade, I tried angling them via furniture but that didn't seem to change much according to the goal zero input screen.

Think I'd see better returns with 2 aluminum-framed panels rather than these 4 flexible ones? I assume they make 200w panels....ideally I'd like to be able to charge my GZ at a rate better than 230 or so watts because that won't keep up with my fridge drawing on this thing during emergencies.
Just curious.

Thanks again for the help with all the replies.

 

[Bob142]

Epilogue: Today I managed to connect it all up and was...somewhat disappointed to find...that my 4x100 watt panels (the thin flexible kind, 3 years old and never used before) were only producing about 60w each. I had 3 in parallel and one stand-alone. I ran the 3 in parallel into the MPPT and the single one into the 8mm standard charge port on the Yeti, peak sun gave me about 230 or so watts. Pretty disappointing.

This weekend I'll check each with the MultiMeter to make sure I don't have a dud in the bunch, although I imagine with 3 panels connected via Y's and some extension charge cables I'm losing those extra watts perhaps, I was hoping to see 80w x 4.

Most of the time the panels were lying flat on my patio and not angled towards the sun, but they were always in direct sunlight and not hitting shade, I tried angling them via furniture but that didn't seem to change much according to the goal zero input screen.

Think I'd see better returns with 2 aluminum-framed panels rather than these 4 flexible ones? I assume they make 200w panels....ideally I'd like to be able to charge my GZ at a rate better than 230 or so watts because that won't keep up with my fridge drawing on this thing during emergencies.
Just curious.

Thanks again for the help with all the replies.

What was the state of charge on the Yeti when you ran the solar panel test? If it was close to full it'll pull in less power. Better to either discharge it some or put a decent load on it while charging to force it to pull the max out of the panels.

 

[HeadRusch1]

I had about 71% on it when the panels were connected earlier today, I was not pulling a load out of the unit while it was charging. I can run it down again and see how much it can pull when it's closer to empty.

I'm assuming running the 3x100w panels into the MPPT via 2 sets of Y connectors + the 30ft length of extension cable to a Goal Zero Anderson adapter, and then running the last 100w panel into the standard charge port on the Yeti is still probably the smart move? I noticed when switching the cables around moving from the 8mm standard charge port to the MPPT port didn't really see a big jump in charging........in other words if I was getting 60w on the 8mm standard charge adapter, I was seeing about 60w on the MPPT adapter.....I didn't stare at it for 10 minutes but I gave it a few minutes and glanced at the display now and again, the MPPT didn't seem to be giving me much additional, but I noticed if I plugged the Anderson and the 8mm into the MPPT charger the fan spooled up, I'm wondering if I was over-volting at that point.......

If I run AC into the standard port I charge at about 64, 65w. If I move the cable to charge into the MPPT port via AC I get 74, 76 watt charge rate, for whatever that is worth.

Thank You.

 

[Bob142]

71% is probably low enough. Sounds like a fair test.

What extension cable are you using? You could be getting absolutely killed by putting three panels in parallel and then combining them into the GZ 30 foot extension cable which is a puny 16 AWG cable (I hope that's not what you have). The big problem with Goal Zero stuff is they keep the charge controller input at low voltages. You can't exceed 22V even with the MPPT so you can't take advantage of putting panels in series to increase the voltage and keep the amps lower (parallel keeps volts the same and amps are additive).

Check out what happens when I punch in some numbers to a voltage drop calculator for that GZ cable and three panels in parallel. I don't know your panel specs but if I just say the Vmp is about 18V and the Imp is about 5.5A per panel you get a massive voltage drop (22%!). That's a whole lot of power lost. You typically shoot for 3% voltage drop or less:



Even 12 AWG cable results in an almost 9% voltage drop over 30 feet. Try your panels without any extension cable. You should see better results.

To get your three parallel panels 30 feet from the Yeti with a voltage drop of about 3.5%, you can buy these and plug them into your GZ MC4 to APP adapter:

8 AWG 8 Gauge Pair Black + Red Solar Panel Cable Wire with Solar Connectors | eBay

One Pair (1 piece black cable + 1 piece red cable) of UL Listed 8 AWG Solar Extension Cable with Solar Connectors. 8 AWG Solar Cable Technical Specifications Wire Thickness: 8 AWG. Made in the USA solar cable.

www.ebay.com

 

[BiduleOhm]

just for FYI, nothing to do with this conversation...
the + marked connector in the pic above is in fact female... the one marked - is male...
why they design them this way is beyond me... but it’s true.

Think of them as if they are hyenas...

That's because in connectors world the pins are what determine if they are male or female, not the housing.