Product Features :
- Flexible thin film solar provides all weather power even in low light conditions
- 12 Volt output charges many of your electronic devices including laptops satellite phones and more
- Reverse flow protection prevents discharging the devise you are using
- Durable/waterproof construction allows one to mount or pack a resourceful supply of power for a number of devices
- Compact and lightweight at 3 pounds 6 ounces
>> Solar
Great product Bought it for a boat to keep the batteries up during the day Works exactly as I expected
>> Wondering about the built in voltage regulator in the Solaris 52
This foldable Brunton panel certainly produces more power than any other little portable panel It is truly amazing in that regard around 3 amps of power in direct sunlight
Somehow I must have fried the voltage regulator on mine because it puts out 26volts even when connected to devices and batteries seeking only 12 volts I ran the current using the clamps through a volt meter as the power comes out of the panel before it goes into a Brunton SOLO 15W 12volt lithium polymer battery
The meter still reads 26 volts or so not 12volts The panel s regulator is supposed to drop it to 12volts if that s all the device needs right
The manual for the SOLO 15 says it can be directly connected to any portable Solaris panel but 12volt batteries including the SOLO 15 simply cannot handle a 26 volt charging current That will ruin the battery and I ve already done that once
I did however accidentally connect a 12v battery to it with the wrong polarity one occasion so that may have fried the regulator But any day now I will be receiving another Solaris 52 a brand new one I ll connect it to a Brunton SOLO 15 and see if the voltage coming in and out is regulated to 12 volts before I do anything else to the panel
I ll give an update after that little experiment
It would be really nice if it does automatically regulate down to 12v without needing an external 24v to 12v converter because two of these Solaris 52 panels together could re charge the best portable 12volt power source for your money the Duracell 600 Xantrex 600 under the Duracell label in only a few hours hypothetically will be able to confirm in a few days
Two of those big batteries will power the most power hungry laptops for 12 hours and Mac s for twice that long They hold 28aH of juice If you ve got four of the Duracell 600 s to capture and store all the power these Solaris panels can generate in one day then you should be able to keep any laptop going 24 hours from stored sunlight power only A Duracell 600 costs only about
It is kinda sad that Brunton s SOLO 15 lithium 12v battery is so fragile and costs because they are so light and small two of them would provide hypothetically almost as much power 24aH as one Duracell 600s 28aH with one fifth the weight and half the size
When I say fragile I don t mean it breaks easily from rough handling They are actually very sturdy in that regard The fragility relates to how the battery stops working properly after only a few uses especially when they are drained completely while charging a laptop or perhaps charged with too much voltage from a malfunctioning Solaris 52 panel
Brunton will have a winner if those SOLO 15 batteries can be redesigned with better circuitry to protect them from the common things that will hurt any battery excessive discharge and over the limit voltage while charging
As for the Solaris 52 foldable panel itself the bottom line
Even if I fried the built in voltage regulator through my own error or those voltage regulators don t always do what they are supposed to and therefore I must use a small external 24v to 12v converter like the one made by Velleman costs less than then it s still a very worthwhile product
There are many things on the plus side My favorite is how small it reduces to when folded I also love how fast I can set it up on a vehicle windshield facing the sun Then all that energy baking my dashboard is transformed into juice for my laptop pretty cool
Let s hope Brunton s partners in China start acting more like the Japanese and refining the quality of these winning designs rather than merely figuring out how to make more of them and make them faster and cheaper Focus on the quality and feature improvement first Then you ll have some VERY popular must have products for people who might want to use their laptops in the great outdoors like me
Update
The Solaris 52 is powerful indeed but it may be TOO powerful for many gadgets I just received the second Solaris 52 and tested it various ways in direct sunlight I needed to test a brand new one right out the box to make sure I wasn t getting skewed results from the one I THOUGHT I had accidentally damaged But the brand new one behaves exactly the same way so I did not damage the first one afterall That s a good thing and a bad thing It s a bad thing because the Solaris 52 is definitely NOT a 12 Volt solar panel They really should not call it that That claim is dangerously misleading
The Solaris 52 goes WAY over 12volts under normal direct sunlight conditions more than twice that voltage actually Most 12volt devices will fry if the input power is above 16vdc The Solaris 52 package itself says the voltage will vary with the amount of sunlight but it does not say the output will become regulated down to 12volts if attached to a device only needing 12volts No the panel cannot tell the difference and it will hit a connected device with whatever voltage is being generated up to 26vdc It can easily go as high as 26vdc in direct sun
The only way to bring down the output voltage to around 12 volts without a converter is to have two 12volt devices plugged in at the same time there are two 2 power ports on the Solaris 52 That will split the voltage nicely to about 12 volts per port but it cuts the amps in half also
Sometimes you want to have all the amps powering a single 12volt battery
That must be what other users are doing they must be using both power ports simultaneously to get 12volts with half the amps because otherwise there would be a lot of damaged devices out there and some very irate customers I would not want to be a customer service person for Brunton because the manual for this does not sufficiently warn users what can happen
I will soon be receiving a proper 24vdc to 12vdc converter and then I ll be returning Brunton s Solar Controller because it doesn t do voltage regulation/conversion for currents as high as what the Solaris 52 will put out The Brunton Solar Controller will be damaged by the Solaris 52 in full sunlight while recharging a big 12volt battery
The package for the Solar Controller says to ONLY use them with 12volt solar panels It is mainly designed to prevent over charging with respect to amps of big 12volt batteries like the ones in RV s and cabins and boats
The manual for the Brunton SOLO 15 lithium battery says you can definitely connect a Solaris 26 not a Solaris 52 solar panel to it It doesn t mention Solaris 52 at all
Bottom line It s a mighty powerful portable solar panel but the 12volt output is NOT regulated either as an open current or when powering devices To use it safely in full sun you must either be powering two 12volt devices at once or you must use a 24vdc to 12vdc converter to keep it from hurting some of your gadgets
I am really surprised that the manual for the Solaris 52 does not provide adequate guidance in that respect It wouldn t be so hard to do One more paragraph would do it guys
>> Lightweight Worth the Hefty Cost
Imagine being able to take electricity anywhere you go so long as you have sunlight This device might seem a bit costly but you definitely get what you pay for It will power most laptops most high powered electronic devices and most battery chargers You can even use it to charge your car or boat s battery Just plug any 12v device into it or hook up its jumper cables What you ll need to use it as something similar to a standard household outlet is another device called the Solo 15 which is is a lithium battery pack that comes with an included AC/DC inverter All together all of this equipment should weigh less than 10 pounds
To figure out whether this device will be enough to run your laptop with a positive net charge calculate the wattage of your laptop My laptop is an old Dell Inspiron 1100 which runs off 20 volts 4 5 Amps So the formula to calculate wattage Volts x Amps Watts tells me that my laptop requires 90 watts That means that I won t get enough energy out of this to keep my laptop running all day In order to do that I d need two sets of solar panels to connect together However since I m still getting a charge I can use this to slow the discharging of my laptop battery and extend my overall playtime However once powered off this would be enough to charge it Newer laptops are more energy efficient so this may be just enough or more than enough power for you
You d be surprised what you can accomplish with this I ve read online about a woman who lives off the grid and powers her fridge with this
All in all this is the top of the line when it comes to foldable solar array panels meant for personal travel purposes A steal at this price
