Harbor Freight 45 Watt Solar Kit

I've wanted one of these forever, and got a coupon the other day via email where they're offering it for $149.99.

http://www.harborfreight.com/solar-panel-kit-45-watt-68751.html

I thought I'd see if anyone else here was using one and what they're doing with it.

We got some property (16 acres) with a pole barn and we won't get around to running electric in the barn for a while. I figured this can be used to have a couple lights and charge batteries and such.

I expect I'll want to get a good charge controller to go along with it, to properly charge the batteries and shut off loads when batteries get too low.

Who's got it? How do you like it? What are you using it for?

Thanks,
Clem

Ooops...I just realized the coupon expired yesterday. No matter...another one will come along eventually.

I'm still interested in discussion on the topic!

I'm interested as well, mainly as a charger for my trailer battery (12v deep cycle). Planning to add some interior lighting and would like to keep the battery charged. I already am working on a small engine running an alternator as well.

haha maybe i need to add this to the roof of my truck instead of actually finding the source of that mysterious battery drain.

We have a four Trojan deep cycle (the tall ones) 6 volt batteries, wired for 12 volts, 2500 watt or 5000 watt inverter depending on how you wire it, a Morningstar controller (don't remember the model, but a simple type) and a mixture of 12 volt lights and 120 volt lights and outlets.

We can make it 10 days during the week of Thanksgiving in the Northern part of Wisconsin (read: not very much light), without turning on a generator. We will usually still use some LP Humphrey Lights but will have the inverter on when we have the 120v radio on. By night time, its common to catch the news with the small lcd tv, or the packer game with the directv box. (Yes we have satellite but no running water)

RossD...are you saying you run this off the Harbor Freight 45w array? Or are you using other panels? I'm interested.

Oh...or are you saying the batteries and generator are your system (no solar).

Thanks,
Clem

failboat wrote: haha maybe i need to add this to the roof of my truck instead of actually finding the source of that mysterious battery drain.

I installed this after I found my aftermarket remote start liked to suck my battery dry after about a week of not driving my car.

The panel resides on the parcel self in the rear window, and I wired it into my sub amplifier's power & ground cables.

I thought after reading the reviews I might need a better charge controller or perhaps a diode, but I've had it installed as-is for over a year with no issues, and the car has been parked up to 3 weeks at a time with the remote start/keyless entry locked and LED warning blinking away, starts right up.

• Lee

Funny this came up, as I too was thinking about trying one today.

I'm sorry. l read more into your post and got excited.

We have two 140 watt panels.The generator is for when we have big loads or using electrical motors larger than a Vacuum cleaner.

I want to add a 12 Volt radio for music because during daylight hours we don't use the lights much and running a big inverter for music probably waste more energy than it delivers to the stereo.

The truck and RV isles at stores like Fleet Farm are going to be Xmas when you start looking at 12 volt lighting.

My dad found an excel worksheet to calculate the loads and help size components.

lf you spend more time away than at your remote land those panels could charge a big battery bank, think old fork truck batteries. 12 volt lights, radio, and a small 12 volt air compressor and you wouldn't need an inverter.

Use LP. for any extra light on heat needed.

Perhaps a "This is on sale here", or a "Coupon is available for that", (in this place) thread is in order...

Only for stuff relevant to GRM.. No need to post Captain Crunch on sale, unless your LeMons theme is a Miata filled to the brim with Captain Crunch and Milk while driving.

As far as solar goes...if you see a great sale/coupon, post it here.

And Zambonis and Cap'n Crunch. Everything else needs a different thread.

RossD wrote: I'm sorry. l read more into your post and got excited. We have two 140 watt panels.The generator is for when we have big loads or using electrical motors larger than a Vacuum cleaner. I want to add a 12 Volt radio for music because during daylight hours we don't use the lights much and running a big inverter for music probably waste more energy than it delivers to the stereo. The truck and RV isles at stores like Fleet Farm are going to be Xmas when you start looking at 12 volt lighting. My dad found an excel worksheet to calculate the loads and help size components. lf you spend more time away than at your remote land those panels could charge a big battery bank, think old fork truck batteries. 12 volt lights, radio, and a small 12 volt air compressor and you wouldn't need an inverter. Use LP. for any extra light on heat needed.

Cool info...thanks!

I'm sure the battery will be a huge expenditure...but I can just start with car batteries.

Yes, a car stereo and some speakers will be a nice addition to the barn/shed. I hadn't thought of a 12V compressor...I like that idea. Does anybody make a good one, though?

I do think I have an oem one from an old Subaru my friend gave me when he swapped his to coil springs. That could be pretty cool.

The minitruck guys were running Viair compressors and not really having issues with them. Of course, the duty cycle is a wee bit different there.

My suggestion for a battery from a fork truck is an attempt to find a used large battery cheaply. Semi trucks have large batteries too.

Good air compressors will be for ARB air lockers on trucks,. What about semi trucks, how do they produce air? Belt driven? Those are my first thoughts on 12v air. I've used my dad's ARB compressor to get me big truck tires filled up. We gave the compressor a little wait for duty cycle's sake.

The good news is that there is already underground electric run to the shop/barn site. I just need to run it from the transformer to the shop and wire the shop. The bad news is that I'm not going to get to that project for a while.

So...I can put in a semi-permanent system with relatively light loading and be just fine. Mostly I just envision lights. A radio would be nice...anything else, I'll consider it as I go.

I get a ton of sunlight and this thread has me interested in maybe setting up a solar panel, but most of the terms being thrown around are going over my head.

Time to hit Google and learn some stuff.

Heck...ask here, we'll all get educated.

The coupon came to my email inbox again today.

$149.99 coupon...plus the coupon to take an "extra 20% off any item over $100."

Score.

Well...I was about to go buy one of these kits. Then I started looking around and it appears you can get more wattage for less money with something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/100W-Watts-100-Watt-UL-Solar-Panel-Off-Grid-12-Volt-12V-RV-Boat-Off-Grid-/251349242706?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a85951352 (Because the link wont be good forever: this is a polycrystalline 100 watt panel for $130).

It doesn't come with any accessories, but I figure the HF accessories are probably pretty cheesy anyway.

So...now I'm thinking in that direction.

Yeah, that's the conclusion my dad and I come to, the kits aren't a very good deal, usually.

We have a controller very similar, if not the same, to this one: http://www.wholesalesolar.com/products.folder/controller-folder/tristar-45.html The LCD display doesn't come with the $140 version, though. We don't have one either.

If you browse around on that website that I linked to, you will see some panels that have $1 per watt, but they usually are more than a 100 watts. There's one made in china for $240 and 250 watts. I've never used this website before, so ....

Never did get around to googling this, but I did see some small panels with trickle chargers on them for car batteries and the like. Are they worth it?