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 enlarge | Brand: Northern Industrial Tools
Category: Home Improvement
Buy New: $89.99 (On sale from $99.99)
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 5883
Media: Misc.
UPC: 834319000655
EAN: 0834319000655
ASIN: B000K2HNZS
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 14
 Not so sure it's worth it March 9, 2008
Thomas H. Lawler (Everett, Wa)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm 95% sure this unit and the Sunforce 50032 are the same thing (except for maybe the boxes they're placed in). The phamplet that came with this on how to wire it up was identicle to one that came with the Sunforce 7 amp controller and shows several other panels including what appears to be the sunforce 50044 kit (I ordered the panels I have from Northern Tool but the controller from Amazon). So everything is hinting they're all the same thing in different packages. I didn't actually see any "Sunforce" names or logos on the products, but the boxes were the only thing saying "Northern tools" specifically likewise.
I got 5 of these about 2 years ago and didn't do any tests at that point (except plug them in and see that my battery voltage did slowly rise). I recently became curious about how much power am I really getting from the panels I got, so I set up a test. On a fully sunny day I placed a panel in direct sunlight, aimed it to get as much power as I could (watching my Fluke meter that was measuring the amps going from the panel to a small battery) and I could only get ~0.3 amps (which is ~4 watts). I thought maybe the battery was near fully charged and not accepting much power, so I plugged in a heater that draws at least 5 amps off of the battery, but that only increased the output of the panel to ~0.4amps (or ~5 watts). I tried another panel to see if it was just that one, but the 2nd one had about the same performance. I don't know if the lack of output is just because I'm not living in the south or didn't try that at high noon, but I wouldn't expect that big a difference (especially when I gave it the benefit by doing my best to aim it to get the best sunlight/power). So if these are really supposed to be able to give you 15 watts of power, I'm left wondering what are the ideal conditions that you need for such (or to at least be getting something close to 1amp output rather than just 0.4 or 40% of it's label)?
I've also since done some math on the cost of solar panels versus the power they give. If you really want to get into solar power, a panel (or set of panels) that can give you 1000 watts (or 1 kiloWatt) will cost you ~$5000, yet that can save you as little as $0.10 on your power bill per hour of use. So that means it'll take 50,000 hours of use for them to pay for themselves (which is over 15 years at ~8 hours of full power per day). To get into enough power to run a small house can require you to have 10-20,000 watts available and get into the $100,000+ costs (especially if you need to store up enough power to last you thru the nights & days that are cloudy where your power is greatly reduced). The panels also put out DC power, so to store that power and convert it into household power requires batteries and power inverters as additional costs (in up front and maintenance).
So unless you have a lot of money you're willing to put into such and have little concern over your return, solar power doesn't seem like a great solution for getting energy.
Addicted to solar...... February 1, 2008
Heather Sayles (Southeast,IL)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I bought 3 of these panels as well as 4 sunforce 15 watt over the past year for a total of 105 watts.they do very well for there size if you are wanting a small system or just to try out solar,I run my nightstand 13 watt flourescent light every night of the week and a 27" tv 2-4 days a week both for an average of 8 hours.it is winter and cloudy alot,I am getting appox 5-6 amps on a good sunny day.I also have a sunforce (southwest wind) 400 watt wind turbine,stick to solar is all I can say..anyhow after all is said and done,good panel for small system,output close to or above rated,quality construction....my only suggestion to future buyer,get atleast a 15 amp controller,cause you can't stop at seven.and get yourself a p3 killowatt meter...
 product in badly been January 20, 2008
Wilmer Hidalgo (Venezuela)
0 out of 21 found this review helpful
this product has bad envelope, I arrive party by half, does not work, this damaged
 Great little panels October 20, 2007
D. M. Harman
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
I purchased 6 of these for a backup system for my home. Two Northern units and 4 Sunforce units all 15 watt. ( these are the exact same units btw, northern's are cheaper). With two inverters, a 2500 watt, and a 300 watt pure sinewave for computers and such. Hooked through a 7 amp charge controller to a pair of 110 amp hour deep cells in parallel for a total of 220 amp hr's.
I first hooked two panels up to see how they did, they worked well in very low light but couldn't ever get the batteries to "full" on the controller. I then hooked up a third panel and that gave enough to bring the batteries to full after a full day. With six panels hooked up, it will bring the batteries to "full" in a very few hours from a 30% drained condition.
These units are less then optimally placed and rarely get full sun, but do very well even without that. Two panels in full sun may very well have been able to bring the batteries to "full" but location is a problem for me. One other product of note is the P3 international "Kill A Watt" electrical useage meter. Doing a survey of electrical useage in my house to get ready for this project was an eye opener to say the least.
Great panels, at a good price, that do what you pay for...all you can ask for.
Nice Solar Panel October 2, 2007
A. Moore (Hamilton, MS)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Simple to connect and worked as soon as it was connected! Excellent solar panel for the price.
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