For those quick enough to grab the mammoth fridge/freezer on catch there’s a deal I also found which is a bargain solar mat.It’s going for between $245-$600 elsewhere.For those tightarses not wanting to hook up a second batttery this combined with a 12v extra cig socket wire https://www.4wdsupacentre.com.au/adventure-kings-12v-fridge-…
looks like a cheap workaround. I’m sure the purists will disagree.
Here’s a guys solar/1 battery setup
https://youtu.be/GBRpaFW-Zyc
120w roman folding one is much easier to pack in the car. Whack it on your windscreen and charge your battery, while keeping some heat out of your car.
I was reading apparently they don’t like sitting on hot surfaces so maybe better on the ground.
That one looks good too but would be bulkier.
I am one of lucky ones 🤣
Why do I think they would cancel order
can this charge usb 5v 2A devices? anyone knows. thx
No, the controller doesn't have any USB outputs.
thx
Grabbed one cheers OP
This or the 160w one for $119?
Depends on what you plan on running. Rule of thumb is to get 20% more than what you require.
Love this idea, thanks OP. Still trying to choose which one, the 120 or the 160.
The 160w has a different type of laminate, ETFE. Pretty sure the likes of redarc use this type of laminate.
Thanks for the heads up on this, made it an easier decision to pull the trigger on the 160w.
Yes thanks I just cancelled and grabbed the 160w as well.
How do you cancel an order?
These lose all power when even one panel has any shade on it. Might be ok for your use case, but beware.
Anyone tested the actual wattage?
Brought it out under full sun today to test it against the 170w caravan panel of the same brand. My battery setup is still full so didn't pull too much load out of them. The old panel pull out about 110w under full sun due to cheap chinese inverter and this panel yielded about 100w so pretty high conversion rate. At some point this kit can yield 110w so I think it will not have much trouble reaching the stated power with something like a Victron controller. The cells are high quality sunpower cell and you can tell from the look and feel. And power output is quite consistent will non-optimal angle between panels so don't have to stress out too much about them lying in perfectly parralel plane.
The kit comes with the well built Roman PWM controller, inbuilt anderson plugs and decent anderson extension cord. The controller supports lead acid and LiFePO4, LiTO too which is rare for the type. Haven't set all parameter but apparently it's capable to tell you voltage, current and Ah charged which are very handy and won't be available with cheap controller usually sold with the kit.
Overall for the price it is a steal for a very quality kit.
Just got the 160w with the upsized cashback 15% very good price hope it can get to 8-9A in sunny conditions
tech ingredients youtube channel lately been explaining and covering talks about solar panels. Think the guy builds jet engines and boats and all kinda stuff as a hobby. He has DIY videos on how to build worlds 2nd best speakers DIY dirt cheap. you basically get a plank or board of certain materials of certain sizes shapes and thickness and you hang from ceiling or whatever by like fishing lines easy as and you glue a thruster exciter speaker driver that turns any surface you stick it to into a speaker. in this way you could build them into ceiling panels or hidden enclosures or whatever need very little space or paint them or decorate them too dirt cheap easy to do any idiot could manage.
Anyway his solar panels talk i saw lately explained the best most expensive solar panels government solar panels use that chinas mega cities that invested 50billion into solar a couple years ago .. well they use this umm light condenser type of cell but it can take a thousand times the suns light so they use very expensive precise camera lenses and tracking mirrors to focus and control the light to a pin point on them and have expensive cooling systems. But if you get a panel of those longest lasting highest efficiency ones its super expensive accessories for lens and tracking motorized mirrors and the panel itself cost way more! but you can find a budget panel which lined with far less of the actual cells like a 1080p off brand TV vs like a high quality 4k or 8k samsung NEO QLED/micro or mini LED for example cheap and portable meant for caravans.. and it folds up to be about backpack portable size. You can instead of the expensive lens system simply take the one no lenses or mirrors rated for 100watts off amazon or whatever thats one of the "best price points for panel type and number of cells portability and so on" which out of the box where he is in the snowy cold 'fall' season only got about 32 watts in late afternoon in was it new england? canada or something? so he then just buys cheap mirror polished aluminium panels whacks them on either side by drilling a couple holes in? makes a folding enclosure for them and then he's 4x efficiency or whatever no expensive lenses or whatever. and can just plug into a caravan or what not.
Good stuff.I might wack a couple of these on it and see how it goes.
https://www.campmornington.com.au/mirror-aluminum-composite-…
I bought the 160W Kit and this label was attached to it.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/dDY1x8KwFuaHY5NT9
I had it translated and the 2nd line states 'Product Disqualified'. 1st column, 2nd row translates to 'Supply' to which the manufacturer has written 127W where as the product should be 160W.
Does anyone have this label/problem too? I've already lodged a request with Catch
maybe yours failed the batch, I'm very happy with my 120w kit, performance close to theoretical limit.
The 160W version is garbage.
Between three friends, we bought five units. We tested their performance as follows;
Performance as follows;
Panel 1: 110W
Panel 2: 107W
Panel 3: 90W
Panel 4: 87W
Panel 5: 86W
For curiosity we also tested a 5 year old 160W Aldi fixed glass panel which had an output of 145W.
If all five performed at the 110W mark, we would be reasonably happy. However, three out of five being close to half the advertised output is just shonky as.
How about this one: https://www.catch.com.au/product/companion-primus-120w-porta…
which one better?