In alt.home.repair, on Sun, 09 Aug 2015 23:34:16 -0500,
wrote:

I bought one of the solar chargers they sell at Harbor Freight for
around $20. They are made to charge a 12 volt battery at 1.5 watts.
Granted that is not a lot of power, but just to keep a battery topped
off, it worked fine.

I used to have a problem with my battery and I used one of those** all
winter. Sitting on my dash. It solved my problem.

**Not from Harbor Freight though. I don't think the store existed then.
I think I got it at a hamfest.

I actually bought a second one just because I liked it so much, even
though by then I had Battery Buddy (which they don't sell anymore) and
now I have Priority Start, which works great.

I particularly bought it to keep a car battery charged for a battery
powered electric fencer, but I also took it when I went camping, so keep

Why would you need an electric fence when camping. Scared of wolves?

my car battery charged after running my laptop computer off the car's
battery without starting the car to recharge the battery. The computer
often ran for several hours to play movies.

Anyhow, aside from the fact that it's cheap Harbor Freight junk. It
stopped charging completely. There was a blue LED on it that would
indicate it was charging, and that LED no longer lights in bright sun,
and my volt meter shows no output.

I took it back to HF, but was told that unless I had bought their COSTLY
extended warranty, it was only warranted for 3 months. Of course they
tried to sell me another one, which was on sale at the time for $15, and
their $10 for 2 years extended warranty. I told them I would not buy
another one and would never buy anything from them again. (And I wont).

Anyhow, my question is what can go wrong with a solar panel? It was not

A bad connection inside? At the very least you can measure each
section and find the section that's bad.

dropped, smashed, cracked, or anything that would physically damage it.
Since it's junk anyhow, I am going to try to open it, but it appears the
screws or (whatever) holds the two halves of the case together are
embedded in some sort of plastic. So, I guess drilling them out is my
only way.

That's a good idea. I've taken a bunch of things apart that way. YOu
can even use a drill in reverse with left handed drill bits. You can
get an inexpensive set of those at Harbor Freight.