ACOPOWER 12V Monocrystalline Solar Panel Module: 200W $133, 100W Expired

Decent price on both the 100w and 200w as more portable solar panels, although the 200 watt will be significantly more difficult for some to move.
These size and wattage of solar panels are great for using with towable trailers, RVS, camping and pulling out of a garage or closet (along with a rechargeable battery or power station) to provide low wattage power in an emergency. They're small and compact enough easily pick up and carry outside or placed and mounted around vents, skylights and other areas that would be next to impossible to fit a full size solar panel.
If you want to build a dedicated solar array for your home these small portable panels are NOT a good choice. They have a higher cost per watt than other larger panels, need more hardware to mount on a rail system, can require more cabling work, and are just generally a lot more work to install.

Right now a good target for panels alone + shipping is about $0.45/watt. You can also buy them by the pallet to get even better deals and lower overall unit shipping costs. If you have a local supplier you can save yourself a significant amount of money by picking them up yourself.

I have posted and contributed to other solar panel threads, and I've included a few of the links below. If you go through the comments you might find some general useful information. 👍


1 https://slickdeals.net/f/15756952-acopower-100w-12v-compact-monocrystalline-solar-panel-module-panel-only-66-free-shipping

2 https://slickdeals.net/f/15806137-acopower-100w-12v-portable-monocrystalline-solar-panel-suitcase-w-waterproof-20a-charger-controller-2-kickstands-150-free-shipping

3 https://slickdeals.net/f/15837301-acopower-100w-12v-portable-monocrystalline-solar-panel-suitcase-w-waterproof-20a-charger-controller-2-kickstands-150-free-shipping

One possible application is to charge vehicle batteries (a panel of either of these sizes would maintain the charge possibly on one or several vehicles at once or fairly rapidly recharge a vehicle battery not just trickle charge necessarily). For that one just needs appropriate cables and a DC input charger that can take in the variable voltage from the panel and give the right charge voltage / current to the vehicle batteries etc.

Otherwise for powering general equipment, typically one connects to a solar battery charging controller preferably with the MPPT feature.
That is a device which takes whatever the output of the solar panel is and uses the power to charge one or more batteries attached to the charger (the voltage and current taken out of the solar panel may vary; the MPPT feature of some chargers / charging controllers actively looks for the optimum voltage&current load to get the most power out of the panel in any given time based on the light level etc. so the most power at the right voltage and current is always delivered to the battery for optimized charging).

So one could have several types of deep cycle type lead acid battery (flooded, sealed / AGM, gel cell) or a lithium iron phosphate type battery connected to the battery charger, and one can possibly use one or two or sometimes more such batteries connected in series depending on whether you want a roughly 12V voltage single battery system or a roughly 24V voltage dual battery system (two 12V batteries series connected), etc.

Then the battery / batteries are possibly / typically connected to another piece of equipment which is a DC to AC inverter which can generate 120VAC or 220/240VAC according to your model's type and the power voltage/frequency used in your location so you can power suitable devices typically powered by the AC mains grid by plugging them into the inverter instead when you are traveling off-grid (e.g. camping, RV, outdoors work site ) or have a particular location (shed, gate, outdoor equipment or whatever ) which needs constant power available day or night possibly from the batteries but which gets that power ultimately partly or wholly from the solar cells charging the batteries during the light hours. One can also have a setup that switches from AC mains grid power to battery backup / solar power depending on how much of which power source is available at a given time.

Anyway you don't HAVE to have an DC to AC inverter, and if you're powering things like USB-C powered chargers / devices (laptops, cell phones, tablets ...), low voltage DC LED lighting, DC powered equipment / security systems / tools / pump / whatever then maybe all you will need is low voltage DC power coming from the solar panel and/or the attached batteries.

Also of course you don't HAVE to have the attached batteries and battery charger, maybe you only need to power charging laptops / phones etc. or something that can deal with the power being available or intermittent day / night etc.

A common alternative to using the solar battery charger controller and batteries is an integrated 'power bank' type unit which includes in itself batteries, a charger for its batteries, maybe conversion to output some USB / USB-type-C ports to plug in other stuff to be powered / charged, maybe includes an DC to AC inverter to power AC mains plug in type equipment etc.

So basically the solar panel(s) generate as much power as they can and is drawn from them whenever there is some modest light on them (even overcast, cloudy but ideally sunny).
A battery or power bank system can store that energy for future use or to supply higher bursts of power if needed to augment / substitute what the solar panel(s) put out at any time.
A DC-to-AC inverter can output AC 120V or 220/240V to power plug in equipment if needed.
A DC input battery charger can be powered from solar panels or batteries input and used to charge / power other things like vehicle, laptop batteries, USB-type-C charging outputs, etc.

This brand has been posted a few time recently
100w same price 50 days ago
https://slickdeals.net/share/android_app/fp/715918
Surely we have some people with experience?