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Q&A How to check realistic specs of small solar panel?

All good designs and design testing is based on information contained in the component data sheets. A solar panel is no different so, you need to establish the operating conditions for measuring vo...

posted 2y ago by Andy aka‭

Answer
#1: Initial revision by user avatar Andy aka‭ · 2022-12-27T17:19:07Z (almost 2 years ago)
All good designs and design testing is based on information contained in the component data sheets. A solar panel is no different so, you need to establish the operating conditions for measuring voltage and current based on the information provided by the supplier of the product.

It's quite likely that the voltage can be simply measured with a DVM but, measuring current may be a little more complex and that is why we use data sheets for understanding the testing conditions. However, for current measuring, it reasonably likely that a short circuit test is what produces the 150 mA you state. Again, using a multimeter to measure current is the route to go.

You can do other tests too using a dummy load and two DVMs; one measuring load voltage and the other measuring load current. This last method can be used to find the maximum power for a given level of light hitting the solar panel.