Dullsters

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Harbor Frieght Solar Panels b/w Sketchy Wiring (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 4 months ago by captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works to c/Dullsters@dullsters.net

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Not long ago I bought an Anker power station, a C2000. It's basically a 2.5 gallon bucket full of electricity. 2 kilowatt hour battery, a fairly beefy inverter that can put out 22A continuous and peaks at something like 33A so it can both run AND start my table saw.

It also has a solar power input, A DC jack on the side, with I believe an MPPT charger built-in. It came with a big weird flexible solar panel that is allegedly rated for 200 watts, I barely ever saw 80. I think it's built the same way as like a backpack solar panel, but it's 2 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Difficult to deal with.

Went to Harbor Freight, picked up a pair of 100 watt panels there. $119 each. More typical glass with aluminum frame rigid panel. These are working considerably better. The one thing: The panels have Anderson Powerpole connectors, I had to buy a separate cable set, and the Anderson to MC4 connector cable I bought at Harbor Freight is backwards. I guess it's designed to be a load-end and not a source-end cable?

I had to pull the Geordi Maneuver: Reverse the polarity.

What I did is cursed. I know it's cursed. On the adapter cables, I de-pinned the Anderson Powerpoles and swapped them left for right. So a red wire is going into a black connector. The color coding on the cable is backwards. You know that movie Defending Your Life, with Rip Torn? When I die and go to Judgement City, they're going to ask me about this. But it works.

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[–] ikidd@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 months ago

True. If I have to use black cable on positive leads I just put some red shrinkwrap on the positive end of the lead. I usually do black on the negative just to be consistent.