Here’s video from Sunsei.
…and another from TechWebTV.
Random: could this be used to slowly charge the new Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid (or even the Nissan Leaf)? Both cars have an electric power source (although the Volt does have a gas-powered generator as well in order to extend its range); the Volt also uses a normal home plug (as far as I know), which I assume these panels also use. I’ve been wondering why in the world neither manufacturer has given solar panels as an option for its respective vehicle, but I’m wondering if these would do the trick. I live in a condo (i.e., no garage to plug in), so it seems like a daisy-chained setup with these would have potential (pun intended).
Thoughts?
Probably not. At 18 watts output it would take a very long time to charge a golf cart, let alone an electric car.
Amazon carries the same product, but says it’s out of stock w/ no restocking date. Is this product in stock for Woot?
This is perfect for camping (or boating, but I’m a camper).
If you have an RV or trailer, and camp at a place without hook-ups, like National Parks, you can use this to keep your rig juiced up indefinitely (just for lights and stuff – you won’t be able to run A/C and microwave).
Sometimes I go tent camping for longer than ice will hold out in the cooler. So I bring along a mini-fridge, a power inverter, a deep-cycle battery, and the solar charger.
My ‘system’ is not really cost effective as a new purchase, but it works for me because I’ve collected these items separately over the years. I got the solar charger on the last woot.
i attached to my shed and a battery to light my whole back yard and gazebo. works like a charm, zero maintenance. just hooked it up to a fuse and a Night Watchman photocell $30.00. LED Lights come on automatically, stay on from dusk to dawn.
I just bought another one to daisy chain them together. Panel goes for 179.00 controller 79.00 elsewhere. Can’t beat this price!!!
you forgot the Controller
Yes, you could, but it would be VERY VERY slow.
The numbers run out like this:
This panel charges at 18W, 1 hour in the sun gives 18Wh of energy, 1000 sunny hours gives 18KWh of energy.
The Chevy Volt has a 16KWh battery => to fully charge from zero it would take 889 hrs of optimal sunny weather. 74–12hr days.
The Nissan Leaf has a 90KWh battery => 5000hrs for a full charge.
This is why solar panels are mostly used for trickle charging limited use batteries or low current applications—they just don’t put out much juice.
On the other hand, my BT-50 cell phone battery is 3.4Wh----this panel should charge that in about 12 minutes.
I did some quick calculations based on a 6hr charge day at 18w max output. That’s pretty optimistic considering the Northeast sun where I’m at. The numbers are not encouraging.
It would take ** 12 years ** for the panel to pay for itself, taking in considering my $.15/kwh utils. Honestly, I’m sure by then solar panels would be MUCH cheaper. I’ll pass.
p.s. You’ll have to trust my math.
just thought i would point out that this isn’t 18 inches
it’s almost 40 inches
My friends father used one of these as a steppingstone towards building a full sized array of solar paneling. figured out what the practical limits were with his 18 watt panel, expanded to a 45 watt rig with a couple old marine batteries hooked up to that, and uses the power to run a low power auxiliary heater in his porch for the winter… Currently, he’s moving forward to some full sized home panels to the tune of 800 watts (assuming we can find a pallet of them for a decent price so we can install them here as well)
Initial outlay is not cheap for a full solar setup, and this single panel would hardly run your house, but if you consider the fact that while you’re waiting for a solar system to pay for itself, you’re not paying anywhere near as much for your electric utilities (might even spin your meter backwards, assuming you contact your power co-op to get one that does that) it seems like money well spent now, before inflation, and fossil fuel prices drive electrical prices up.
I’m looking into buying a home soon, and I’m in discussions with the bank to tack an additional $10K on top of my mortgage loan to install solar panels as soon as I move in. Plan would then be to tack any monetary savings from my electric and gas bills onto my mortgage payments, and get that thing paying down a little faster
but I digress… This panel, as has been pointed out, is good for trickle charging a parked car, recharging cellphones, powering a small inverter for a laptop, etc.
Unfortunately, 18 watts is far too little for powering even a little netbook from an inverter… the solar panel is really only good for charging 12v batteries, and that’s about it. Of course you could then use that all-day charge on your 12v battery to power whatever you want (like a laptop), but it would only last less than an hour… laptops use anywhere from 35 to 90 watts (netbooks less so, between 15 to 30, but with efficiency loss in the inverter, the panel would never power the lightest netbook even in full sunlight).
Even with that said, it’s extremely useful for anyone with any 12v batteries… those lead-acid batteries HATE HATE HATE sitting discharged, and the solar charger is kind of a “go-anywhere” way to make sure they all stay good. So that’s kind of a nice thing, still…
I’m in for two. I have $30k of real solar panels on the roof of my house that output 6,400 Watts and backfeed the grid. I got two of these to mount on the shed in the yard. I plan on putting a deep cycle battery inside the shed and hooking up some LED lights. I did some math and with about 30’ of LED rope lights and a fairly large deep cycle battery, the lights should run for about 900 hours. Since it is never dark here in NJ for more than about 16 hours at a time, this should be more than sufficient. I’ll have to see what other 12V tchotchkes I can find that I can hook up out there (took battery chargers, LED motion lights for the outside of the shed, small pump for irrigation well, etc.)
I assume you also know that there is a 30% tax credit available to install solar panels. I would imagine that you could actually get that tax credit on this panel haha.
This thing is Great!
I connected one of these to my big 12 volt lantern, and now I have free light from 6:30 am until 7:00 pm!
How would I go about using this to power some outdoor patio lights?
How much sun does this need to get a charge?
Well, you’d need a 12 volt battery to store the charge. Then you’d have to get some 12V patio lights. If you get 120V lights, you’d need to also get an inverter.