For the initial round of testing, the solar panels of the Harbor Freight kit (item #63585) was set up in a very temporary way: they were leaned against the south-facing windows of the house. To measure the output, we're enlisting another member of the parts pile, unearthed when we were digging for the lead-acid battery: an E-Flite Power Meter designed to measure electric consumption of remote-controlled aircraft motors. It can handle the expected range of voltage and amperage and as a bonus it also tracks the total power in milliamp-hours.

Based on experiments with the small 1.5 watt panel, we knew not to expect the advertised 100 watt output with this sub-optimal, non sun-tracking orientation. The power meter gave confirmation: over the sunlight hours of a winter day, the panel generated power ranging from 20 to 30 watts. This is roughly in line with the small 1.5 watt panel experiment indicating sub-optimal placement returned as little as 25% of the power compared to directly facing the sun.

The solar charge controller allowed the battery voltage to rise to 14.4 to top it off, then disconnected the battery from the panel to avoid over-charging. Once the voltage dropped to 13.8 volts the controller kept the battery at this sustained charge level for as long as the solar panel could keep it there. All this fits expectation of a charge controller doing its job properly.

But something was wrong when withdrawing power from this assembly after the sun went down. Trying to charge a cell phone at night, battery voltage quickly dropped below cutoff threshold of 12 volts and the controller halted operations. There seems to be usable battery capacity remaining but the battery should have been able to hold roughly 12.5 to 13 volts for the majority of the power delivery period.

Looks like this battery did suffer some damage when it dropped down to 6 volts while sitting neglected in storage. Time to head over to Amazon and buy a replacement lead-acid battery with a good amp-hour per dollar ratio. The best ratio varies from day to day pricing fluctuation but at the moment meant this 20 Ah unit. (Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.)