"Larry Jaques" wrote in message


My HF panel kit was good for 2.8A when new, now it rarely reaches
2.0A.

How old are those, Jim?

February 2011.

That's not a long time to drop 28%. Are they kept clean and
unscratched, and test days identical? What do you think accounts
for
the loss? Mine are glass-covered but would expect resins (found on
the smaller mobile solar chargers) to do a bit of yellowing. Do
yours
still look new?

I haven't tested them as thoroughly as I do other things because I
haven't found a really good location for them that combines safe
year-round access (not on the roof) with plenty of exposure to the sun
but not to passing thieves. My deceased solar water heater was in the
best south-facing spot and still was shaded before 10AM and after 2PM.
Really I have too many big trees, which do cut my air conditioning
cost, $10 for all last summer.

Speaking of testing, HWiNFO32 version 4.06 can display and log the
voltage, charge/discharge power, and estimated remaining capacity of a
laptop battery.
http://www.hwinfo.com/download32.html

I just received a hi capacity one from Amazon and am cycling it to
update its internal capacity estimation. The last one they sent me ran
an hour, this one has already gone three and may have another 1/2
left. The log preserves the shutdown time (or the record just before
it) and any steps in the capacity estimate, which creep in if it
hasn't been recently updated by a full discharge+recharge cycle. The
Windows Event Log catches when the computer sleeps unless the battery
drops out too suddenly, but this also records data I can graph and
examined.

jsw