120 watt Mono Crystalline Solar Panel Blowing Charge Controller

[Sunking]

Post #3

Ian my educated guess is you connected the either the battery or the panel reverse polarity.

I dug out my 'probe and tone' and tested the continuity of the negative and positive of the so called 'idiot proof' connections of a solar panel cable kit which I purchased from Maplins and it turns out that part of the connecting extension cable has been manufactured reverse polarity by mistake Argghhhh!!!!!

Thanks to all who have helped with this thread.

You are welcome.

[inetdog]

I dug out my 'probe and tone' and tested the continuity of the negative and positive of the so called 'idiot proof' connections of a solar panel cable kit which I purchased from Maplins and it turns out that part of the connecting extension cable has been manufactured reverse polarity by mistake

IMHO from personal experience, you can make things idiot-proof, and sometimes you can even make them engineer-proof, but you can never make them physicist-proof.

[PNjunction]

.. I dug out my 'probe and tone' and tested the continuity of the negative and positive of the so called 'idiot proof' connections of a solar panel cable kit which I purchased from Maplins and it turns out that part of the connecting extension cable has been manufactured reverse polarity by mistake Argghhhh!!!!!..

Yes! Glad you found it. I went through the same thing a few years ago with a Sunforce / Harbor Freight single-panel kit. Sure, when used on it's own, the quick-disconnects were in the proper polarity. Later, I lost the jumper clips, and replaced them with one from a charger that had the same quick-disconnect design. POOF!

Turns out the charger jumper had the more universally accepted polarity wiring. Lesson for me: when going cheap, especially when mixing different vendor's wiring, doublecheck the real polarity first.

[Ian Holl]

Reverse Polarity

Yes! Glad you found it. I went through the same thing a few years ago with a Sunforce / Harbor Freight single-panel kit. Sure, when used on it's own, the quick-disconnects were in the proper polarity. Later, I lost the jumper clips, and replaced them with one from a charger that had the same quick-disconnect design. POOF!

Turns out the charger jumper had the more universally accepted polarity wiring. Lesson for me: when going cheap, especially when mixing different vendor's wiring, doublecheck the real polarity first.

All of my quick connections were bought as one kit. However, last night I connected the kit's 5 meter extension cable and that too checked out to be reverse polarity The whole kit is flawed because the manufacturer's clips puts a positive to a negative and a negative to a positive. The only way this will work is if the kit's extension cable is connected up with 3 parts as that way it will right itself. Although it's designed to only by connected twice as the extention only has one quick connection end. The other end are bare wires. In order to get the kit's crocodile clips in the right polarity is to cut off the quick connections because as soon as you connect the quick connect it reverses the polarity, as does the kit's male and female cigarette sockets.

As no part of the kit has a cable with 2 quick connects on each end I cannot correct the polarity, so I'll just have to relabel the the positives and negatives to opposite unless I go out and buy an extension with 2 quick connect ends. I'm off to Maplins now to complain to to see if they'll cough up an extension as their dodgy kit's cost me money and time :@


Cheers Ian

[Ian Holl]

*** Update ***

Well, I went to Maplins today and complained about their Solar Kit being flawed with the reverse polarity. The shop assistant and I tried a double ended extension lead to see if it corrected the polarity, although it never. After a bit of head scratching another shop assistant claimed the Solar Kit was for one of their solar panels. I argued that the quick connection doesn't plug into a charge controller. I refered to the Maplin's catalogue and found the Solar Kit and pointed out that there's no mention of it being for a specific panel.

Off the assistant went and fetched a trickle charge solar panel from the shelve and pointed out the identical connection. Apparently even though there's absolutely no mention of it whatsoever the Solar Kit is only for that solar panel as the connections on the panel itself are compatible, (reversed), to right the polarity.

The shop assistant was very apologetic and said he was contacting the manufacturer and head office about the description of the kit as it should have stated that the kit was for use for a "specific solar panel only". I shall continue to use the kit, albeit wire it reversed.

[PNjunction]

I went to the Maplins site, and on this side of the pond, the panels are the same Sunforce panels, sold typically in the Harbor-Freight stores. They also used to be seen at Camping World. One of the accessories for the Sunforce panels seen on the Maplins site is the quick-disconnect that caused me the same wrong-polarity grief when used with anything but the original panel wiring.

I guess don't blame Maplins, but Sunforce for being non-standard.