portable solar panels?

[Craig]

A friend is looking for a set of portable solar panels around the 160 watt range. Can anyone give any recommendations please?

Craig

[T1 Terry]

My recomendation would be to buy 2 x 100w folding panels instead, 160w is 2 x 80w panels, they get a fairly heavy very quickly. Make up leads with MC4 connectors from each panel and the matching mate pair into a 50 amp Anderson plug. Then buy a 10mtr length of 6B&S with Anderson plugs each end and fit the regulator off one of the panel sets close to the battery with more 6B&S cable from the regulator out to another Anderson plug on the tow bar for a motorhome or the draw bar for a caravan. Then you can park in the shade and put the panels in the sun.
These ones http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-GP-100w- ... 257a2049e6 have better legs and the regulator is adjustable when you take the lid off, the one regulator will handle the 2 panels so you get a spare thrown in.
I pulled mine apart and made them fold the other way, less likely to smash a panel when in the bag the, put a piece of styrofoam inside the panel back before zipping up the bag, all the bits roll up and fit in the pocket of one of the bags.

[Craig]

Thanks Terry,
I wanted to keep it fairly simply for the guy, I'm not putting a system together for him. I was looking at this system
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-G-P-Mono ... 4170c6c295

But was wondering if anyone could recommend plug and play system for him.

[T1 Terry]

BluTec are good people to deal with, but they do tend to distort the truth a little in their listings. A net weight of 13kg compared to this one that's also 160w with a net weight of 20.5kg http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Solar-Panel- ... 3cc6f6834f realistically it would be up around the 28kg to 30kg with the bag and all, that gets to be quite an effort to throw them around after a while. If you look closely at the specs in the BluTech 160W panel, the specs are for 80w, there are 2 of those panels, plus the legs, plus the regulator, plus the cable, that would start to get very heavy. The wiring etc is useless for that job, might be able to use it for something else though.
I'm not recomending the second one either, that is a shit of a regulator, the wiring is undersize in this unit as well and the plug is wired back to front so an easy trap to fall into when you try to bypass the regulator.

[Noggins]

I have used this mob a few times and get good service from them
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/POWERED-BY-B ... 3f224d4654

Ron