Renogy 100W 12V Solar Panel Starter Kit, 100 Watt Monocrystalline Solar Panel, 30A LCD PWM Charger Controller, Adaptor Kit, Tray Cables, Z Brackets for RV, Camper, and Other Off Grid Applications

Renogy 100 Watts 12 Volts Monocrystalline Solar Starter Kit w/100W Solar Panel + 30A PWM Negative ground Charge Controller + MC4 Connectors +Tray Cable+ Mounting Z Brackets for RV, BoatI purchased this to install on the Roof of my Jeep wrangler (overland built) to serve as a way to charge an auxiliary deep cycle battery which powers my permanently mounted ARB fridge as well as all the camp LED lights and recharge phones and electronic equipment. I was fairly new at this solar thing but did a ton of research on the subject before settling on this. There are tons of off-brand products in this category as well as a vast array of pricing options, both higher and lower than this set up. However, after careful consideration and countless review reading and youtube watching, I decided that this set up was best suited for my application.The problem: I built my Jeep to do some overlanding and one thing that I cannot live with is my ARB fridge which is permanently mounted in the kitchen which sits in the back of the car. The car doesn't have a dual battery system and so the fridge is/was plugged into the cranking battery which is not optimal as you do run the risk of the fridge draining your cranking battery and leaving you stranded (NOTE: Fridge does have a shut off feature which measures the voltage of the battery and turn itself off if said voltage is below "x" volts. Also my Jeep is a standard so I can push it / get a quick tow to get it started and I do always have a battery pack / starter as a precaution...).The solution: Getting an auxiliary battery to supply the fridge (and other accessories) and a solar panel to keep this battery topped off while at camp and on the road.I chose Renogy after my many hours of research because of the name brand recognition and the the many reviews that seem to point at a great company with solid products and good support. So far I can say that the reviews are 100% correct in that I made the right choice. The package arrived well wrapped and precisely as advertised. The panel is solidly built and all the cabling provided is the correct gauge with the proper connectors. I really wanted to get a name brand Charge controller after reading that cheaply made units can both be highly inefficient and could be dangerous. In hindsight I probably would rather the version of the solar charge controller than has the integrated LED screen providing the charging and consumption metrics but price point on this project was met with the simpler unit. I am using some third party units to measure charging metrics and load usage which is fine but does require more wiring.The panel comes with all the brackets to install in on a flat surface and my guess is that 90% of the time people will need to do some custom installation of sort so these brackets, although perfectly adequate for a flat install are useless to me at the moment. All the connections are well made and this gives me no reason to believe that they will not last a long time. Right now in full sun and FLAT on my roof rack (note: flat is not optimal as the sun is never perfectly perpendicular to the panel and a 45 degree angle would be better to adjust for the that) the panel does produce about 5.5/6 AmpH and about 24 volts which according to what I calculated will be more than adequate to keep the smaller deep cycle (35amp hour) battery I am using topped off and run all the accessories I want to run off of it.I intent to post photos of the set up once it's complete as well as add to this review when i have had a chance to use the system to a greater extent.

I've never done any solar installations, but this was simple. Works great. Would recommend RENOGY SOLAR to anyone wanting a quality product at a reasonable price.

Was pricing our options for a client who'd requested off grid power for their rural sawmill. They needed enough power to run a small beer fridge and for smart phones and a very efficient little notebook. They have generators for running real equipment, and the saws use internal combustion engines.I had a small fridge lying about (actually have another 4 or so). Pick them up at estate sales and such for five to twenty bucks. Used a kWh measuring device (KillaWatt Brand) and ran it for a week, determining that it was consuming about 300 wH per day. So I figured a 100 W panel ought to be sufficient given that they have good sun resource on any day warm enough to need beer.Note that I did not calculate in the fact that they'd be putting extra stress on the fridge by putting warm six packs in it every day or so. Could have done this by factoring in the specific heat of water (how much energy it takes to raise a given mass of water a given degree) and then working backwards and assuming an inefficiency coefficient based on the efficiency of refrigeration processes. If I had done so and used an egregiously inefficient coeficient, say 1 Wh of cooling (i.e., BTU converted to watt hours) requiring 1 Wh of energy to run the fridge, I'd get about 80 Wh of energy consumption to cool a gallon of beer, or about 50 Wh for a 6 pack. Frankly, I should have included this in the estimation, but assumed it wouldn't be that big a deal. Note that a 1 to 1 ratio is fairly inefficient, so there's a lot of wiggle room here. So, bottom line is that even if they switch out a 6 pack a day, total consumption ought not to exceed about 350 - 400 Wh per day. The roof pitch and sun resource here (southern Oregon) is pretty good. I figured they'd get at least 600 Wh ,delivered, with this panel in this location, in the summer.Bottom line is that the panel seems to be providing enough energy, but we are going to need to add an additional 1200 wH battery since the depth of discharge gets too high if we get any morning fog. Even without that, 400 Wh is about a 33% DoD. That's not bad, but given the occasional morning fog issue, the battery takes some stress on occasion. For our application, and the price of an extra panel, it might not be a bad idea to add another panel as well. They don't drink a lot of beer in the winter, but it might not hurt.As for the system, it was very easy to install and came with mounting brackets and sufficient cable to do it all out of the box.The only problem was that the client initially used an old deep cycle battery, and on occasion the inverter was shutting down due to low voltage since it wasn't capable of storing 1200 Wh. I ran a new battery over and they installed it. I THINK but can't be sure, that they reversed the polarity or shorted the Charge Controller output leads. When I got there, the Charge Controller was not putting out any current. I had a small Victron MPPT unit in the truck so I just subbed it out. I haven't thoroughly investigated the dead unit yet, but noticed it's got two soldered in fuses(!) I will hook it up and jump the fuses one at a time to see if that's what happened (yes, shame on me, I should have put some fast blowing fuses in the wiring - will get back there in the next week or two to do that). Anyway, the client is happy and I can still go in there to buy lumber without a problem.Amazon has sent me a replacement Charge Controller, no questions asked, so that is good. I bought the Assurion Warranty on it.I do want to add that the Victron is overkill for this app so I am going to sub it out with the replacement. The reason is that one of the nicest things about this kit is that the charge controller, while only a PWM, IS rated for 30 amps. So it's easily expandable. (Upto 4 panels I believe.) That's a nice feature, and the Vicron can handle higher voltage, so it's wasted on this application.All in all I highly recommend this kit for small or introductory set ups. Perfect for small dedicated stand alone applications such as a Flojet Water Pump to slowly pump water up a hill to a cistern for gravity flow to an application, or small fridge. Just don't forget to add external fuses. For that matter, Renogy ought to bump the price up $10 and include them.