Solar Panel No Power

[2BLUE]

Last night I purchased a coleman 20 watt 1.5 amp solar panel.

Used the voltage meter and was working great 15.83-16.73 when sun was going down.

With a voltage meter this morning I'm only showing 1 on the display

Having the voltage meter at DC 20

Plugging in my radar detector into the panel the detector works!

What am I doing wrong?

Clearly the panel is working as its powering my detector but yet can't read the power.

Hook my voltage meter to a car battery and it works fine.

[2BLUE]

Figured it out, the panel is only spose to be putting out 20 watts but its actual is 23.4 no you need the volt meter to be on 200DCV NOT 20 DCV

[ExtraSlow]

Nice detective work. Funny how the little things can cause us the most grief.

[UndrgroundRider]

Originally posted by 2BLUE
Figured it out, the panel is only spose to be putting out 20 watts but its actual is 23.4 no you need the volt meter to be on 200DCV NOT 20 DCV

You're mixing up voltage and wattage. Most 12v solar panels will provide an output voltage between 16v and 20v+. Obviously your panel was putting out more than 20 volts and the voltmeter reported an overflow when it was on the 20v range.

The good news is that your solar panel is performing really well. The amp rating on the 20-watt coleman panels is 1.17, which means you could actually be seeing 27.4 watts.

Also, you should not plug accessories directly into the solar panel. The variance in the voltage can kill many devices. It's recommended that the panels be connected to a battery bank through a charge controller, and that any devices be connected down stream of the charge controller.

[thetransporter]

I have a 2000 watt solar sharp system, (it provides 36volt out DC) once its connected to an inverter, (AC ) the max watts I can draw in DC on a sunny day is about 700 watts- Which is a great! .