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I tooted the other day about a quick and easy way to estimate if the marketing on a particular solar panel is plausible or not, as a sanity check before buying a panel. I got lots of replies, mostly positive. Some tho question why you might need to check.
Well I learnt this the hard way a few years ago. With this panel. It was sold as a 15w panel. I've never got much more than about 7w out of it. It's 270x185mm. Which the maths in my previous toot says 9.9w is the realistic rating.
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By the time you take away the area from the border, that 7w is the real rating for the panel. I paid €16.80 in 2022 for this panel in 2022. What I got was an important lesson in solar panel design.
Solar is an amazing technology, the price has come down in ways I never expected in my lifetime. But there's a few unscrupulous sellers out there making some unrealistic claims. Esp in the portable panel market. Hopefully my toots can help people not make the same mistake I did.
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@quixoticgeek fraud is everywhere, although I'd rather call it exaggeration in case of cheap chinese tech. Years ago I bought a 20.000 mAh powerbank which couldn't possibly have had that capacity with the size given. I know that today. I didn't then and was disappointed when I tried to charge my phone and the powerbank died after 50%.
That's why I am so glad that I live in Europe. Our current customer protections laws seem ridiculous but they help. A lot!
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