Well, what an ordinary day!
The plastic tank I intend to setup for my electrolysis project got dragged to it's permanent location, and I washed out the inside. Then I started filling it. The bloody thing leaks! Isn't that just typical? Previous owner put about a cubic metre of Silastic sealer in the outlet tap, because he (and for that matter, I) didn't need to use the tap, and wanted it sealed off. That was years ago now, and neither of us had really thought about how future years of exposure to the sun would break the sealer down!!!!!
Regardless of the slow leak, I was determined to do a test piece, so cut a round hole in the lid, and attached the small solar powered extractor system.
I wanted to watch the cleaning process, so kept the lid off at that stage.
Solar panel pointed to sun, I attached the battery charger/regulator.
I've been slowly acquiring all the correct connections that need to be used with Photo Voltaic panels exposed to the elements, just like the professionals use.
I decided to use one end of a pair of auto jump leads as the clamps that hold the parts to be cleaned and the sacrificial anode. The gold connectors you can see above, are just fancy looking auto battery terminals. I chose those because they have the ability to connect 4x seperate wires to each of them, all being held in place by individual hex head grub screws. That is a property which may be useful in future, if I want to add anything directly from the battery. The charger/regulator takes power from the panel to storage battery (not yet got), but also has power out leads that allow direct connection of load items. In my case, that means the battery clamps holding metals in the tank, but it could be used for anything really, including lighting. The load out wires can draw current from the PV panel during daylight charging time, and drains off battery once charging voltage drops down below the amount needed. Quite clever, isn't it? Well, it would be, IF IT BLOODY WELL WORKED!!! I connected everything up, correctly, and hey presto......NOTHING. Filthy swine of a thing. I eventually trouble shot back to find it is the charger/regulator that isn't working. Typical chinese CRAP! What a damn let down.
The only bright spark of the day, literally, was when i connected the battery clamp wires directly to the PV current output wires, to check where the problem lay. When I lightly struck the two clamps together, fireworks! Plenty of current flow. The solar panel is working, alright. Nothing wrong with that. With the clamps still running current straight off the panel, I chose a suitably rusty test piece x2 and suspended them in the water, on the off chance I may not need the charger that doesn't work. I can honestly say it was spectacularly
unremarkable. Yes, the sun was about 45 degrees from the vertical, but so was the panel. The same current that would have blown holes in my clamps, didn't produce anything more impressive than a few small bubbles. I had even added a suitable amount of washing soda. The PV panel may have250w, but does it have sufficient amperes for the job? I doubt it. As it turns out, I certainly DO need a suitable deep cycle storage battery.........oh, and a working charger would be nice too!
Now off to send a terse email to a chinaman who flogs dodgey electronics equipment on ebay.