How NOT to treat your solar charger
02 July 2018 | Waukegan
Sunny, light wind off the lake - 70’s
I replaced my solar charger today. Step 1 was to remove the positive cable from the fuse, so the controller was no longer connected to the battery. Step two was to turn off the solar panels by covering them with beach towels and boat cushions. I bought a fuse switch so I can use that in the future to disconnect the panels.
Upon further review, it was obvious why the controller wasn’t working. To the left of the melted plastic is a clean metal box showing what the connection should look like. The wire goes in the box and then the box is squeezed tight around the wire. The destroyed connection doesn’t look anything like that. I don’t know how or what I did, but it was obviously very bad. It melted the plastic and fused the metal - 425 watts is enough to cause real damage.
The new controller is substantially beefier than the old one and seems to work better. So I ended up with a better controller without burning down the boat (barely).
Speaking of fire extinguishers, all the new ones I bought a few years ago are being recalled. Gotta love Mondays.