A Little Solar Experiment

[Winks]

Now, we've all been told that shading even a small section of solar panel has a very big impact on output. Here's a set of pictures illustrating just how big that effect can be. This was on a 45W panel which I picked up free from a member of this forum. The shading is provided only by the case for the DMM in the pictures, well less than 10% of the surface area. This shows short circuit amps, the voltage was hardly affected, down from about 22v to about 20v.

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Cheers​

H





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[jeffmossy]

Thanks for the info

 

[nabsim]

I always look at amps on my monitor as it seems a lot easier to me to work out if you are likely to be harvesting enough for your needs. Is that panel poly or mono or does it make no difference to shading?