I purchased the Blue Planet 60w solar panel Kit when it was on sale, Reg. price $399. I must say that it has surpassed expectations. I use it to keep my spare 12 volt batteries charged by rotating them through this system for a few days. I am sure this one would keep a battery charged and the price is certainly right. The regular price of the charge controller is about $20. It would be interesting to see how long a battery charged with this system would run standard electrical appliances through an inverter.

I searched for a few reviews after I posted it on the good ol Google box, and one person claimed that the Blue Planet panel(s) put out alot less power then they are rated for.

Have you ever hooked yours up to a meter to measure the output?

Yes I did. I wanted to compare the output with my other panels. Mine is rated at 60watts, three 20watt panels in series. They were a little lower than rated but not significantly. I am sure they were in about 10%. It was a while ago and I did not write down the results so I forgot, sorry. That kind of variance could be caused by the angle of the panels to the sun. If it remains sunny this afternoon I'll set up another test position them correctly and post the results.

Hey there
Think your right, they rate them at mximum eficiancy and conditions
Goona loos a bit at first tll we know what we are doing
Thanks for info guys hobo

You can't beat the little 7amp charge controller at about $20. It comes with your system. Mine work great I have a couple of them. However I can't push it over 2.5 amps with the three panel system and with the 40 watt working at 100%efficiency you would not exceed much over 1.6 amps. Still better than light trickle charge.

Sorry about that last post I must have made it late at night. The panels operate at 24 volts not 12 volts although they are used to charge 12 volt batteries. Therefore the max amperage should be 60/24= 2.5 amps for the three panel 60 watt system. For the 40 watt which I assume is also 24 volts it's maximum amperage should be around 1.6 amps. I edited the previous post to fix the math. I tested my 60 watt system charging a large deep cycle battery today and it was charging at 2.305 amps that is about 92% of its rated capacity which is not bad. There was also a little haze in the sky so on a good day I might be able to do better. Either way it charges my batteries very well and I am very pleased with it.

Thanks for he intel.

I am looking at experimenting with Solar.

Hello, NEWBIE here. Tripped on this site looking for info on panels. A bit of a novice prepper i guess. After the power outage a few yrs ago i bought a generator and store water and food. I've always wanted to do cheap solar and these panels from CDN Tire seemed to be perfect.

I run it in my boathouse to keep hydro consumption down and teach the kids to be frugal.

Does anyone know much about these panels? The instruction pamphlet it pathetic....no diagrams at all and pretty vague. I have 2 40w units and want to hook together. The box claims one unit will run a laptop, cb, bilge pump, small t.v., cooler, compact 40W light etc.....all in a typical week. I'm operating one panel to a 12v battery and thru a 1000W inverter. Testing it with just the stereo system and after about 6-7 hours of use the inverter alarm goes off and battery is dead.

Idealy would like info to connect the 2 panels and another battery to run lights and possibly a small fridge.

Thanks in advance. I have some reading here to catch up on.

Welcome Rico and greetings from Northern Ontario.

One 12v battery is not enough for sure. However the more batteries you use the more panels are needed to charge them. Each 40 watt panel will charge your batteries at about 1.7 amps. You can hook your batteries up in parallel to increase your power and give the inverter a little more operating time. To run a small fridge you would need a fairly substantial system. What type of charge controller are you using? Also what type of 12v batteries do you have. We can go into it a little deeper once those questions are answered.

Another thought on lights I use LED 120v (standard socket) bulbs. These place a very light load on the inverter and do not drain your batteries as much as compact fluorescents.

I purchased the Blue Planet 60w solar panel Kit when it was on sale, Reg. price $399. I must say that it has surpassed expectations. I use it to keep my spare 12 volt batteries charged by rotating them through this system for a few days. I am sure this one would keep a battery charged and the price is certainly right. The regular price of the charge controller is about $20. It would be interesting to see how long a battery charged with this system would run standard electrical appliances through an inverter.

Hmmmm.... 399 for 60 watts, your happy with that? you paid 6.65 a watt at a time when they can be bought for 1.5 to 2 dollars a watt 😯 . Do you work for the government? and as I will show you in the next post because your charging 12 volt batteries with a 24volt panel you in effect paid some where around 12 dollars a watt by not buying the correct voltage panel.

Sorry about that last post I must have made it late at night. The panels operate at 24 volts not 12 volts although they are used to charge 12 volt batteries. Therefore the max amperage should be 60/24= 2.5 amps for the three panel 60 watt system. For the 40 watt which I assume is also 24 volts it's maximum amperage should be around 1.6 amps. I edited the previous post to fix the math. I tested my 60 watt system charging a large deep cycle battery today and it was charging at 2.305 amps that is about 92% of its rated capacity which is not bad. There was also a little haze in the sky so on a good day I might be able to do better. Either way it charges my batteries very well and I am very pleased with it.

Lets try this math again. First I bet if you look on the panel the 60 watts rating will be for somewhere around 28-30 volts, just like 12 volt panels have their wattage rating at around 17 volts. So roughly 60/28 volts would give you a amperage output rating of 2.14 or there abouts, the panel should have a short cct rating and that will be the max amperage it can put out period! I will guess its 2.2 to 2.5 So if your panel can only put out 2.3 amps ( just picked that I will be close) and you are charging a 12 volt battery what does that give you? 2.3 x 12 = 27.6 watts !! 😯
You have the charging capacity of 27.6 Watts! and you paid 399 dollars for that! That is not even 50 percent of its capacity. 399/27.6 = 14.47 dollars a watt!! for the money you spent you could have had at least 200 watts, and you have 27......

Re-read, where you said you bought it on sale from the price of 400, Good my blood pressure is droping already, tell me you got it for 60.00 thats all its worth as your using it.

Actually no I am being way to generious, I dont think its even worth that.I could get in to explaining how the crap, the seconds, the doesnt meet spec, that cant be sold to distributers who know the difference and can measure it, get packaged at a absured value, and pushed through a distributor base ( C tire,Wally world, Costco) where its defects, costs, and lack of performance will go sailing over the heads of those distracted by a sale price, pretty box, and inflated advertizeing. Oh I am not picking on you, guilty myself of falling for poor value many times in my life,
thats why I recognize it so easy now, all done buying crap...not going to do it anymore...