Harbor Freight 100W Solar Kit. Full Review - Day 1 - YouTube

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