Solar blanket

[landoman]

Bought a Rydge Ryder solar blanket to charge my auxiliary fridge battery
I am waiting for the Anderson plug to arrive to hook it up

mean time I plugged it in to its regulator and put it in full sunshine .....and checked if any voltage was coming from the lead that will plug into my battery
butverything is dead ....it appears to be generating no voltage .....and no lights are on on the regulator .

question

does this only generate volts / amps when it's actually hooked up to the battery ? Or is it faulty in that no power seems to be coming out of the line that goes to the battery ?

[roverrescue]

Most (all) solar regulators need to be hooked up to a battery prior to the panel
You can check the output of panel by placing it in sun not connected to regulator
But as you suspect hook it to a battery then check for output

S

[landoman]

Most (all) solar regulators need to be hooked up to a battery prior to the panel
You can check the output of panel by placing it in sun not connected to regulator
But as you suspect hook it to a battery then check for output

S
Thanks for that
yes checked the output of the panel itself and in today's nice sunshine it's knocking out 19.2 v
.......when I plug it in to the regulator no current coming out of either the battery lead or the "load" lead so I suspect that's my issue ......got an Anderson plug on the way so when it arrives I'll plug to the battery all should be good then

Tnaks again for that

[Ferret]

... checked the output of the panel itself and in today's nice sunshine it's knocking out 19.2 v

And when you do connect it to a battery and then start measuring voltage and current, understand the difference between how your solar blanket and your battery interact via PMW or MPPT controllers.

PWM vs. MPPT Charge Controllers - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyuxKmlBCk)

[landoman]

And when you do connect it to a battery and then start measuring voltage and current, understand the difference between how your solar blanket and your battery interact via PMW or MPPT controllers.

PWM vs. MPPT Charge Controllers - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmyuxKmlBCk)


Ok thanks for that

another question ......I want to put a 3-4 meter lead from the regulator to the battery connection .........what is the gauge of wire I should use ...4 gauge or 8 gauge ?

there is a bout a meter of wire from the blanket to the regulator .....another 3-4 meters of wire would give me flexibility where to place the blanket relative to the vechicle and sun

[POD]

This point has come up on here before; it is far better to have the regulator close to the battery and any significant length of cable between the panel and the reg. You have 19v coming from your panel, say you have 10m of cable from there to the reg, that might give you a voltage drop to (I pluck a figure from the air) say 15v; the reg tunes this to about 14v and delivers that to the battery. If you have the reg close to the panel, the reg gets the full 19v, puts out 14v, you have 10m of cable from there to your battery so your battery gets maybe 12 or 13v.
I use 10 meters of heavy cable with my solar panel so the panel can be in the sun whilst the car is in the shade. The reg is in the car. Works brilliantly.

[weeds]

Agree with reg as close to batteries as possible, you don't have to fix the ref at the car or trailer battery as this gives you flexibility.

I use 6B&S and Anderson plugs.