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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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[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

With the voltage you’re running I don’t think it’s a concern.

Gross and uncomfortable though, I agree.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The copper is perfectly fine. It's just the color of the jackets. For a good 50cm, + is black and - is red. It's bad juju. What's the proper hoodoo for warding off the juju from incorrectly color coded power cables? Burning lavender? Changing the batteries in your smoke detectors?

I can confirm the Anker has reverse polarity protection on the DC input. It just didn't do anything when I plugged a panel in wrong by trying the connectors as-is out of the box. It didn't even bitch at me.

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 months ago

My father owned a Lotus, several, they came with random battery cables either both black or both red.

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

It's a 100W solar panel at 27V. I don't think it's going to blow up in your face.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Might let some smoke out of a fairly expensive battery bank if wired incorrectly though.

[–] 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.

[–] ashenone@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Throw some black and red electrical on each end to make it the correct color. Or use green tape if you really wana curse your wiring

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

I could buy or make the right adapters, or snip the powerpoles off of the panel wires and install the correct MC4 connectors, and then have fewer connectors in the system.