I'm Cheryl Johnson. I am one of the supporters of Veryeah from Kickstarter. I have been an advocate for the use of solar for about the last fifty years. In those early solar cells were hard to get hold of. In thoes days I had to buy the cells and mount them to make my own solar panels. Photo 1292 is one of my earliest 12V panels. The current was only 125ma but I could power some low power projects.
I live in Regina, Canada which is located at approximately 50° 27' 0.288'' N and -104° 37' 4.08 E. The amount of seasonal sunlight is quite different between summer and winter. Since I live in a condo I am not allowed to permentantly attach solar panels to the building, therefore I have to use portable solar panels. These I place on my balcony which is facing west.
Over the years I have purchased several different panels to charge my various solar generators. Most solar generators have only one solar input although the newer ones have more solar inputs and these solar inputs were limited in the input wattage of those inputs.
One of the features of the Veryeah system was that through the use of a solar hub panels of different voltage can be used to charge a Power brick(s). In my case I use either my existing MC4 cables or the manufacturer's cables. This does mean that I have to check the polarity of my cables connecting the panels and solar hub. Photo 1293 shows how I switch an incorrect polarity when I connect the cable to the solar hub (Photo 1294).
Allpowers Thin Film solar panel 36 watts Voc 24.3 V operating voltage 19.2 V. In use I connect the Allpowers Thin Film panels in parallel.
2 X-Dragon panels of different capacities: output of both panels is 18V and a USB output 5V.The panel laying flat on the chair is 70 watts and the panel leaning against the back of the chair is 40 watts. The 40 watt panel can be directly plugged into the 70 watt panel so there in only one cable needed for output of the two panels.These 2 panels are also attached to my balcony rail using bungie cords and carabiners.
In the photograph below the X-Dragon panels are attached to the balcony rail. At ground level is the Veryeah solar panel rated at 160 watts with an operating voltage 39,9 V. On the left hand side of the photo are two Allpowers 100 watt solar panels with a Voc 33V and an operating voltage of 28.6 V. These panels are connect in parallel.
While it is somewhat cloudy today I am using 4 different panels (which have different open circuit voltages to charge one of my Power bricks. I started with 0% and at 3pm the power brick wad reached 15%. I can expect about another 3 hours of usable sunshine.
Later in the day when the sun shines further onto the balcony, I remove the X-Dragon panels. This allows for theVeryeah solar panel to produce more power for the remainder of the day.
time - power brick percentage
- noon beginning of charging 0.0%
- 5:00 pm 43.6%
- 6:00 pm 56.3%
- 6:30 pm 62.5%
- 7:00 pm 68.8%
- 7:30 pm 77.1%
- panels taken down at 7:45
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