Comments on: Modifying a Harbor Freight Solar Charger

By: Rick F.

Rick F. — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 20:41:19 +0000

I don’t suppose your vehicle has an older LoJack installed on it? If so, your battery (on the LoJack) may be DOA like mine was — it was causing it to completely flatten my trucks 12v battery to the tune of about 900ma — 24 hours a day.. I tracked down the LoJack and removed it — problem solved. My neighbor’s Mustang suffers the same affliction — he’s not had a chance to remove the circa 1995 LoJack on his yet.. YMMV!

By: Sean Weatherford

Sean Weatherford — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 16:39:04 +0000

Is it possible that the LED only flashes when the panel voltage is above 12.6V? Just wondering if that may be the reason that it flashes intermittently.

Don’t worry too much about the color code. The electrons do not care and most everyone in the world will assume red/black is 12V.

By: Andy from Workshopshed

Andy from Workshopshed — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 12:59:18 +0000

I’ve got some very similar looking pannels I bought from Maplin in the UK, I’ll have to see if they also have a pointless PCB in them.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 02:14:38 +0000

I am a firm believer in PowerPoles, I have my amateur radio station and computer desk wired with them using colors and configurations to separate the various voltages. This site and a few others you can find in QST have the colored shells “À la carte”;
http://www.hamcq.com/powerpoles/powerpole-connectors/cat_71.html

I am using orange and black for 5V with the orange “below” rather than to the “left” of the black. That helps avoid letting the smoke out accidentally.