hello hello thanks for tuning in today i wanted to take a look at the thunderbolt solar panel the new
one by harbor freight again as you know i've been testing it out and you can tell by how dirty it is
i've left it outside now for a couple weeks charging up some batteries i see all the comments
the thumbs up the thumbs down the views i appreciate it that lets me know when you
hit the thumbs up button or the thumbs down it doesn't bother me it lets me know that i'm
doing good or i'm doing bad when you subscribe i see it and when you comment i can react back
to a comment and say hey this is the information you're requesting or maybe i can do a video on it
and some people have expressed that they'd like to know if the panels can be connected together
or whatnot and what's inside of them so that's what we want to look at today exactly what's in
this new solar panel from harbor freight because testing phases show that it is going to produce
the power and the amperage actually more than it's rated for i was able to get out of it
and that was out of a cheap charge controller it wasn't the harbor freight charge controller
i've been through a few of those like i said in the past videos they just they're not working
out good for me so i got a cheap one from amazon and it's been working fine so on the back here
we can see that they got decent sized wire there it's probably if i had to guess
maybe 14 16 gauge i could be wrong somebody correct me in the comments
but i think it's 14 or 16 gauge and it's a standard sae connector
i'm sure you can clip it off and make anderson style connectors or whatever mc4s whatever the
solar guys use out there because i'm pretty new to this i'm not an expert at it but this back plate
here on the new panel and sorry for the glare on the flashlight but i could not see it it's
kind of dark in here it's by bx technologies it's ip65 rated and 1000 volts dc can come through this
junction box i assume so that answers the question can you put them together yeah you can probably
put them together so what's inside here and is it ip rated i don't know the little tabs here are
easy to release you just push on them and this whole back plate pops off
as you can see here we have a nice rubber gasket going all the way around it's held in
by little plastic lips and it it feels durable it's thick
inside here i think these are reversing diodes and they look like they're about 15 amp maybe
so that's supposed to block i believe parasitic load when the sun is not fully shining on these
panels they will actually consume a little bit of power hook to the batteries and
everything in the charge controllers so i believe these diodes stop it so
they look like they're 15 amp again if you're an electrician or
know anything about these electronics comment below let me know it's 15 sq045 it looks like
i looked them up and it seems like they're a decent quality at least they sell them on
amazon so there's two of them that's rated over what the panels put out in amperage
so if these are 15 amp or even 10 amp it's still over what the panel is rated so it's going to
block any current coming back out in theory they're connected on with standard phillips heads
on some type of bridges and you can see the silicone or sealant they use all around the
box and then that's what that o-ring and that ceiling gives its ip65 rating so
it's probably not fully waterproof because you high-pressure water can get through it
so if you wanted to add some more silicone back there i'm sure it would do better
if you're increasing your i guess your um solar farm or solar panels these cables may not be the
best ones to run if you're if you're getting up there in voltage so you take one of these
connectors off and we're gonna see exactly i guess what's under there and what's connected
all right so we have just a regular twist lock with some serrated teeth
and a rubber gasket so again that's what gives us a little bit of waterproof rating
for that so you can probably take these screws out this whole wiring harness assembly here on
both sides and get some mc4s and run thicker wires on it and that'll increase hopefully in
theory voltage coming in and out and able to hold more heat i guess or heat dissipation in the line
again i don't know but it looks like it's decently built for 100 bucks it's not bad
you can find slightly cheaper panels around if you shop but for the ease and being local in the store
to where you can go there and look at it it's right at that price point of a hundred dollars
a dollar a watt where it's it's performing well now the only thing left is longevity
how long will this thing produce power for who knows is it going to meet the 25 year
normal standard for the industry harbor freight gives 90 day warranty on these things
but as you can see there's not much electronics in them at all a couple reversing diodes and
some wire and really in that junction box and the front of the monocrystalline panel
is decent it's dirty but it's decent glass and the solders look good so i can assume that it's
going to keep pushing out its rated power because it's pushing out more than it's rated for now
so i hope this answers a lot of questions out there so in my opinion yes you can combine these
actual solar panels you're going to have to do something about the connection down here because
harbor freight did not go with them i guess the norm for solar mc-4s so you can probably just
like i said unscrew these and run a custom set and this box states on here bx technology says that
it's ip65 dc volts a thousand so i don't know if that's what these are rated for
who knows but the box says 1000 volts so maybe i'll grab another panel or two i'm definitely
going to combine this with the older panels for sure hopefully i don't blow anything up
but i will keep you guys updated on that and then i'll do like an amperage test on the
inverter from harbor freight so i got a lot of harbor freight parts
to go with the solar system to see if it really is going to be a budget option for people out there
so i really hope this helps you guys again give a thumbs up if you like it
if you didn't like it give it a thumbs down let me know why in the comments
and hopefully i can make good content for everybody in the future i appreciate it