Homebrewed Electricity > Solar

Did i break my panel?

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juiced:
I was using a little motor to check how much physical power i was getting. I had my multimeter hooked up, parallel and everything worked fine. I was showing about 11.8 (set to the 20 on meter) and the motor span. Now, although the panel isnt in direct light it is showing 12.9 and the motor wont spin. The multimeter drops to .02 when the motor is introduced.
    What the hell did i do?!

juiced:
BTW, yes i did test the motor on a battery and it still works fine.

laskey:
Your motor is trying to draw too much current from the panel.  The panel is not capable of producing enough current to overcome your motor's startup and run draw.
Try this.  Stick the panel in sunlight, hook your motor to it, and watch the voltage.  It's pretty low right, then spin the shaft on the motor, the voltage picks up for a bit, or the motor may even stay running slowly.
To run that motor your panels need to produce more than the motor's rated draw.
Cya,

Chris

juiced:
The thing is, yesterday, a darker day it ran ULTRA fast, today it does too, but not off the panel.
   How can you test a panel to verify if it is functioning properly. Id goto the source, but they dont even know what a gel-cell is.

ghurd:
Get a 25-ish ohm (2 watt, work fast, it can get hot) resistor, hook it to the panel in the sun, check the volts on the resistor.  Shoud be 5 to 7v is my bet.

Ohms law will tell the current, then watts, etc.

G-

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