Habor freight Notice!!

[Bruce S]

Hello All

To all you fellow HF solar system owners and possible purchasers!!

I need to let you know about a problem that I have found in 3 of the 4 units that I have helped to install, there is a potential problem with their controller. :-(

While working on my neighbor's that was working so much better than mine; then suddenly one day the output of the controller went to less than 2.5Vdc Measured at the battery terminals

 Scared me just a little , I began by disconnecting the battery, just in case there was a miss-soldered wire or something and didn't want to smoke the battery.

The batery a 12V 7.5Ah SLA was okay although low. Low= 12.2Vdc

I put a meter on each of the panels after disconnecting them one at a time, and they were just fine. Connected the panels to the controller , and measured the output that is supposed to go to charge the batteries.

The first time we did this the power was way up there (13.5Vdc) this time , no such luck. It read 2.5Vdc!!

Popped open the controller and could not see anything obvious so it was time to get deap into the system, meaning I got out the glasses :-D

What we found was on the extra out put taps ( the 3,6,9Vdc taps) there are what seems to be cold solder joints and there was on this one a very poor job of soldering plain and simple, as the solder was touching the metal body of the controller!!

We disconnected everthing , I resoldered ALL the joints and hooked eveything back up. Now it works perfect.

The other units that we were about to return, showed the very same problem!!

SO for those who own these , you might want to take a moment and while you have it open to stuff cotton into the sreamer , take a good close look down at the front panels connectors and make sure they aren't even close to sending whatever power you have to ground.

We got lucky, if this had been a full short, the battery would've smoked or worse.

I've already contacted HF and the company that seems to be either the importer or manufacturer and they have yet to answer back.

Cheers ALL & Stay Safe!!

Bruce S

[rippersoftware]

There have been a number of complaints on Yahoo Groups about these controllers and how crappy they are.  The folks in China need some good QA.

Have a good day!

[Bruce S]

You are so correct!!

If I hear from them I'll let everyone know.

Personally, I opted to listen to a friend (Ghurd) and got a true controller, however I do use their controller as a PDU ( power distribution unit) for this it works perfect. On a side note, I looked at mine one more time and I have not seen any of those nasty solder jobs in there.

Cheers

Bruce S

[Bruce S]

Edit of my last post---\

I don't subscribe to the Yahoo groups, could you pass this little tid bit over to there? may save a few headaches and possibly worse :-(

Thanks

Bruce S

[snowcrow]

Thanks Bruce, but you're too late!!! I've already had dealings with the Harbor freight Co.!!! A few years ago I buy a Coleman Power Mate 2Kw inverter. Well... I was going to hook it up for the first time when I noticed, that the insulators on the battery terminals, were screwed to the battery terminals. The scary part is, that both screws were touching the back plate of the unit!!!!!! I'm glad I wasn't in any big rush to get it done!!! There would have been a really bright light, not to mention lets of magic blue smoke, maybe some even coming from me!!!

Well...I called the number in the Owner's Manual and some import rep. answered the phone. I said, "Is this Coleman's customer service?". "NO.. he said, "We only reserve rights under license to use the Coleman trademark. Then I asked about a replacement, "Oh, we don't do that here, you'll have to take that up with Harbor freight Co. Well.. then I looked for a UL Listed label "lol", called UL and asked if units such as this should conform to US codes before being sold to the public, and he said, "Well....its more of a guideline then a code really." Hey, I've heard that somewhere before, and then suddenly an image, the captain of the Black Pearl, sitting behind a desk, eye patch and all, came to mind!! Those were his exact words, I kind you NOT!!

Blessings and be safe, Snow Crow

[wooferhound]

 I purchased the Harbor Freight 45watt solar kit last month. So I searched Fieldlines for others who have had this system. Everybody was saying "great panels. bad controller. When I looked inside the controller it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. But there was a ton of 'point to point' wiring which should have been on a PC board. The Charger circuit didn't look to bad. But the Regulator section looked like a mess. Mine has HeatShrink tubing over all of the terminals on the 2 regulators so not much chance for shorting out.

 The low voltage outputs are 9, 6 and 3 volts. There are two regulators. A 9 volt and a 6 volt. The 3 volt output is just 3 diodes in series to drop the voltage from the 6 volt regulator. The way I see it, the regulators are pulling some small amount of power even if nothing is connected to the low voltage outputs. Since I'm only going to use the 12 volt battery output, I decided to cut the power wire that went to the low voltage regulator system.

 I haven't had a chance to put this system up yet as I'm remodeling a business that I have, so I can't tell you any results. I'm also guessing the the circuitry in the Low voltage regulators is the main problem with these controllers, besides the fact that they beep when the batteries are fully charged.

[johnlm]

My brother in law recently bought the 45W panel(s) (3 15W panels) fro HF.  When he got it home he faound the box had been previously opened, & some of the pieces were missing.  I had offered to set it up for him since he knows very little about anything electrical.  When he saw the unit had been "previously owned" he took it back fearing something was probably screwed up with the unit.  HF told him he would have to wait for a check in the mail as they could not give refunds directly at the store.  Just another perspective.

john

[nothing to lose]

Thanks for the update Bruce.

I have 4 of those HF controllers that came with panels and a spare a nice person sent me, so 5 here now. I will check mine. I only been using 3 right now and mostly just for a power switch for the 5 watt CFLs and similar items.

 I also got the good controllers from Ghurd for actual charge controllers.

[Bruce S]

Hey Wooferhound;

   Take a good close look at the "speaker" the first time I heard that little bugger I knew something had to be done. Luckily , there was a good dicussion going on here about it. I too pushed a cotton ball into it. Best thing I did was take the controller apart and using the contacts that go to the speaker, soldered some wires to it. I did a little reverse engineering and what I could tell was that it wouldn't be a good idea to just disconnect the speaker, what I did was to connect a test dump controller from plans sent by Ghurd.

Some time soon he'll be back from vacation and should have the "kits" ready, I'm got an order for 5, this works perfect for me.

Even with a solar controller charging the batts and then that output going to the batt connector to the back, the controller can still "beep/scream" . Using the dump controller, I use it to charge my NiCd packs.

I use the LVC to charge my drills so I need to keep it there until I come up with something better.

Other than those problems with the controllers mine has been outside since last fall and have had no problems with the panels.

Hope that helps too;

Bruce S

[Bruce S]

John;

  Bummer about that. I have not had any problems with them. There is a check list and a number inside the box to call if anything is missing.

Did he keep the unit anyway?

Bruce S

[Bruce S]

NTL;

  Good to hear from ya. I knew you have had some problems with your units and wondered if this may have been the problem.

The best so far was the neighbor went to Lowes and picked up one of those flouro units, bought a connector from a music center and wired it up. Oh man does it light up the power shed!! the pot that can be used to adjust the light output works really well to. We used my good meter and set it for the best light with pulling the lowest current. It took some doing and the light of course changes once on for a bit. Put it puts out more light for the area that both 5watters and is only using a good 6 watts.

Works better when paired with a reflector.

I'm waiting for the next 15 of 30 percent off flyer before I get the next panels:-)

Still have the weld the holder up on the second floor.

Cheers

Bruce S

[ghurd]

Hey Woof,

I'm back.  If you need more info...

G-

[nothing to lose]

YA, I took back 2 kits and got a now hassle exchange on both. 2 panels were near dead, one was dead when it got hot. So I checked them all and compared them to the best one in the same sun at the same time, took back the 6 lowest ones which were low enough they should be took back! All is fine now. I was not using the HF controllers at all durring that testing though, mostly connected direct to battery one at a time.

E-mail me the details on that light if you can. I might want to buy them next time I am at Lowes and want to be sure I get the right ones. Lowes for me is like HF, about 150 miles away!

[scorman]

John,

In one of your old threads I noted that you had a design for a tiltup furling mechanism and was hoping to get some advice/commentary on that effort/performance.

I couldn't find a means to send you an offline note or email, so I posted here

You can contact me directly at scorman@stny.rr.com if you don't want the dialog as a new thread on this forum

TIA,

Stew Corman from sunny Endicott