On Thursday, August 13, 2015 at 11:04:33 AM UTC-5, Tony Hwang wrote:
Uncle Monster wrote:
On Sunday, August 9, 2015 at 11:37:22 PM UTC-5, 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 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
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
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.

At a price of $20.00, I'd buy one of them just to play with. I wouldn't worry about any warranty because I'd have it apart as soon as I got home. ^_^

[8~{} Uncle Solar Monster

If you want to play with it, buy a couple bags of broken pieces of
cell element, solder them together to make a higher wattage panel.
There is trace connecting each cell criss-cross under the protective
panel, when continuity broke.... There are guys building big panels with
minimal cost. All you need is soldering skill and crafy hands.

I once did a lot of soldering I still have my Weller temperature controlled soldering station I bought at the electronic supply house in 1973. I don't remember what happened to my vacuum de-soldering station but I still have a partial roll of Kester 5 core solder I bought back then. I haven't done a lot of surface mount soldering so I'll have to get one of those practice kits to learn with but I have plenty of cheap electronic stuff to experiment on. I know Weller makes SMD tips that will fit my ancient soldering station so I may order a few when I can finally get back home. à²*Œ£à²*

For the hell of it I checked Amazon and Weller still makes a soldering station similar to the one I bought 42 years ago. The only difference I see is a black cord (ESD?) and the absence of the integrated topside metal tip tray and sponge holder. Mine is the model WTCPN with a white cord. (¬€¿Â¬)

https://tinyurl.com/nhgdzus

https://tinyurl.com/p5lblr3

[8~{} Uncle Solder Monster