Now that we have a small cheap solar panel (Harbor Freight #62449) to play with, we can start exploring solar panel behavior. The initial quick and dirty test was to connect it to a car USB charger and while we were able to light a little power LED, the panel didn't do much beyond that.

Before we repeat the experiment (and tackle new ones) we'll need a way to monitor the voltage and amperage output. The multi-meter in the standard tinkerer toolkit can perform these measurements, but not both at the same time. Aside from the obvious problem of having only a single numeric display, there's also the fact voltage measurement has the meter wired in parallel with the circuit while the amperage measurement requires it to be in series. Constantly changing wires around would get old very quickly.

We can buy instruments that are designed to monitor power output and simultaneously track voltage and amperage. But for the sake of a small side project, we're going back to the Harbor Freight catalog. They sell some basic digital multi meter as item numbers #69096, #90899, and #92020. These multi-meters are frequently part of the Harbor Freight "free with purchase" coupon offering, so their prices are "free" subsidized by other sales.

Two of these were wired together so one monitors voltage and the other amperage, displaying their readings side-by-side. A few zip-ties to hold the contraption together and now we have a cheap clunky power meter. Here it is, showing that the solar panel has almost 18 volts of open-circuit voltage just sitting under the light of the photo booth.

Solar power monitor

The upside of a super cheap power meter is that we would shed no tears if an experiment accidentally destroys it. The downside is that we have to be realistic about the (in)accuracy of cheap Harbor Freight instruments. For one data point, we can connect a good Fluke multi-meter to compare readings. This difference is not great but acceptable for exploration.

HB and Fluke