seems too good to be true
Hey Snotter, I feel your pain. Fortunately on this deal, it's only 100 bucks worth! To my knowledge, there is no one in the US manufacturing the PV cells, so maybe their claim is on the other parts (if so, that's damn shady, but I wouldn't be too concerned). For a c-note, I'd sure give it a try. It sounds good, but you don't know how the internal resistance of the panel changes under varying conditions (true for any panel), so I would stick with an MPM charger. I wouldn't plan on rigging that specific panel just yet, but maybe put the panel on test at the homestead for a time, just to see how it goes.
Here's a video about this panel...sorry, it's completely useless, but it demonstrates at least one person bought one (unless he's a shill).
If you take the gamble, they sell some DC panel meters you can hook up to watch what it's doing...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-6-5-100V...hash=item1c698023ce:m:mgiXVusK5Kbu3BR4JhCwTPA
You should be safe with the 0-20A version for the one panel (320W/24V=13.3A). It probably just means you get a smaller shunt, but the meter is good for up to 480W (if you see that much, please drop us a line).
I was planning to rig a panel on my H23.5 next year, just for fun, and maybe some added shade if nothing else - LOL (certainly not planning any trips to the Bahamas just yet). But I'm working on a tidy, low-power sensor project for the boat to compute pretty much everything having to do with wind, compass, motion, temperature, humidity, gps, and all of that stuff combined into true this and corrected that) - all in under 100mA. I know you can get most of that from a phone these days (except wind), but not without sipping 3 or 4 times that much. Plus, it's kinda what I do. I probably won't get to the solar project, so you might be a pioneer on this one.
Good luck!
