Friday, Feb 14, 2020 at 17:16
Rambler
While certification is meaningful with quality panels with regard to output specs and efficiency etc, many Chinese panels which claim to be seemingly large output for a compact size cannot be true and they also use certification claims like, Certified by TUV Nord Germany., to further deceive the buyer. I suspect all certification for cheaper panels is simply a claim they have passed quality/performance control as nearly all fail what they claim to be. Also while some reputable manufacturers state they are a Tier One company, ie, process control to recognised international standards, all Chinese cheapies seem to claim they are Tier One too. Most likely bought the Tier One certification from dodgy Passport forgers or similar people. It is hard to determine output of panels from the specs, if supplied, because it just may not be true.
Early on, I bought some folding panels from ALDI, and while they do work OK, they do not produce near what they claim, and now they live outside to power my house fridge everyday, the substrate in the panel shows many hairline cracks across the silicon wafer surfaces.
If using more than one panel. they can be linked in series which halves the current from the two but doubles the voltage and IF using an MPPT reg which can handle the full open circuit voltage of two panels in series, you will find it starts charging earlier in the day, and shuts down later than in parallel. The double voltage and half the current = same energy level available but the MPPT reg can make better use of it for the battery system recharge time.
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