Amazon Solar Panel Review n Test (Anker, Renogy & Dokio)

0:01 Well, howdy folks. Welcome to Mower Mike's and the great solar panel shootout. Yes, I know it's a little crazy, but what we're going to do today is that we're going to compare solar panels, specifically the efficiency of solar panels. Because what I found out through my tinkering with batteries and

0:21 spending thousands of dollars on Ankor batteries and the whole review video was that there is a huge difference in solar panels that you can get on Amazon. specifically how good do they convert the sun to wattages going into your battery and how many dollars does it take per watt. So, we're going to go

0:39 ahead and compare the efficiency. Now, what is beautiful about the Ankor Solex is that it measures the wattage going into the battery. So, we can actually measure the efficiency and compare the rating of the solar panel to the watts going into the battery. so we can compare how much juice it is getting,

0:58 which I think is super super cool. Now, before we go any further, I have to do a warning. I am out here under high risk, under high stress because, as you can see, I'm at the solar maximum of the day. This is North Texas here in late October and that sun is ripping some UAVs coming down here. But don't worry,

1:21 I have got full protection. I have got my Dicki solar jacket. I've got my solar gloves and I have my Indiana Jones UAP UV solar proof hat on. So, I should be okay. But just wanted to give you a warning. And now we're done with the dumb warnings. Let's talk about the solar panels. All right. So, what we've

1:43 got here, we've got the Primo line right here. We've got the Ankor solar panels. This guy here is the best I've got. This is the Anker PS200. So that's a 200 up to a 200 watt solar panel is the rating and it cost $290. So this is the most expensive solar panel I've got. And then I've got its little

2:01 brother over here, the PS100. So this is the 100 watt solar panel out of Ankor. Cost $190. So 190 290. Now when we come back here, we are looking at the Amazon copycat of the anchor. This is the Renology 200 W solar panel that runs $175. So, it's about $120 cheaper than the Ankor. Built

2:27 similarly, the kickstands on the back kind of suck cuz they're not adjustable, but you still get a kickstand where you can get the angle of the sun and all the electronics look pretty much the same, just a little cheaper. So, we're going to see, does this one create as much power as this one? Are we getting the

2:43 solar UVs for the buck? In other words, now I went on Amazon. I was like, "What is the cheapest wattages per dollar on Amazon for a solar panel?" Well, you're looking at it right there. That is the Dokio. Yeah, it's called Dokio. 300 watt solar panel for $175. That is dirt cheap. So, I want to see a

3:07 300 W solar panel that is cheaper than these 200 watt solar panels. Is it going to make more power? As you can see, it already looks cheaper. doesn't have the kickstands on the back. It is not prop upable. Uh but hey, let's see how she works. So, with that, I've got over here the Ankor Solex. I've got the C1000 and

3:25 the F2000. Now, the F2000 is rated up to a,000 watts of solar power, which is a lot. The Ankor Solex is rated up to 600. What that means is that you could plug in, you know, a 200, 200, or 200 into the Solex and to get 600 watts. Just never go over the wattage. And at the end, what we're going to do, we're going

3:45 to splice all these dudes together. I got some uh big old connector and we're going to plug all of them in at once and see how that compares to them individually. So, let's go ahead and have a little fun. I'm going to go ahead and get the wiring going. We're going to get the Solex over here and see how they

4:01 look and charge them up. Stay with me. All right. The first one we're going to test out here is the Anker 200 W solar panel. This is the top dog that I own. Just want to show you how they all hook up. They have these two wires that go down here. And those two wires, each one of the solar panels is going to come

4:19 with a BT60 connector. So, this can plug straight into your anchor battery pack. And for me, I've gone ahead and got an extension wire for the BT60. Gives about a 20 30 foot. I think that is key to using these battery packs because you really want them to get away from the solar panels. Let's see how this guy's

4:37 doing. Oh my gosh, we got a little bit of glare, but you can see we're running 144 watts, which is pretty good. That's very good efficiency considering this is a 200 watt solar panel. So over here, we're going to go ahead and keep score. And let's see, 144.

5:03 My handwriting is awful. All right, let's try another one. All right. Next up, I've got the Anker 100 watt solar panel plugged in. You can see we're pulling 73 watts. Pretty much exactly half as the 200 watt panel. So, I think that's expected, but it's still a very good efficiency. All right, so let's try

5:23 some of the cheaper guys. All right, next we're going for the cheapo. This is a Reno G. Now, I wanted to show you a couple things off this. This looks just like the Anchor, but it is a knockoff. It does not come with some of the gizmos. The anchor comes with, as you can see on the anchor, it's got

5:39 adjustable stands on the back. When you look at the back of the Renault G, you do not you've got they're set one way and uh that's all you get. Also, on this one, it comes out with just a connector here. It does not come out with any converters or extension cords. So, you will have to get a BT60 converter that

5:58 will hook up this because you have to have a BT60 to feed into your Anchor battery pack. So, let's go ahead and follow the cord back here to our test center. All right. What is the Renault G the cheapo pulling? Oh my god. Look at that. You got to be kidding me, folks. I am shocked. Look at that. She is pulling

6:21 158 watts out of a 200 watt cheapo solar panel. That is 10 to 15 more watts than the higher dollar anchor solar panel. I I really did not expect that, folks. So, Reno G, we're at 158 watts. Holy cow, that is really cool. So, all right, let's go ahead and we're going to plug in the super cheap one

6:46 now. All right, next we're going to go through the cheapest one of the bunch, the Dexio 300 watt. Uh, I do want to point out something kind of cool. It did come with this little converter box and all sorts of hookups. So, you can charge a battery, you could hot wire it straight into something. So, I did think

7:02 that was kind of cool. And so, let's go ahead and follow the wire back to our test center. I'm super curious what a 300 W panel. Again, this one's a $175 panel. Same price as the Reno G 200 watt, but you get an extra 100 watts. Look at that. Yeah, folks, that's 128 watts. So, you can really see the

7:26 efficiency drop with a cheaper panel like that. So, that panel, folks, that panel is crap. So, let's go ahead and we're going to put 128 watts on this guy. All right, let me go ahead and run this through my R&D department and we will wrap this up and make a suggestion on which solar panel you should buy. All

7:48 right, for my final shot, I'm going to try to wire multiple of these panels together. You see, I got a three BT60 splitter. That way, we can feed them all together into one wire. And let's see if they add on top of each other here in our test center. So, I've got 700 watts of panels plugged in there. And well,

8:07 we're only at 176 watts charging. So, I don't know. Apparently, you can charge with multiple panels supposed to be at a higher wattage, but I just don't I don't get it. So, if anybody has any hints about what I'm doing wrong, uh, let me know. So, with that, let's go ahead and wrap this up.

8:23 Well, hey folks. We're just trying to slow down and calm down after that crazy solar panel review. Getting me a little crazy water in me from Mineral Wells. Ah, feeling better. So, you got to be seriously you got to be careful with those UV rays. So, how did the test go? Well, I really thought the anchor panels

8:41 would just dominate everybody just because they're so expensive and such a large brand name. But folks, as you can see on my official panel here on my board, the Reno G20 watt, it blew it away and it was one of the cheaper options. So for a 200 watt solar panel cost $175 running 158 watts here in late October

9:04 live that we measured. I mean to me that is the most efficient panel I have ever seen even though I've only seen four solar panels what you just saw too. So if it were me I definitely would get me an Anker C1000. get you a a Reno G 400 watt or 200 watt solar panel and just rock it. Because if you've watched my

9:22 review video, I can run a large screen TV, a Fire Stick, your router, your internet, all that stuff to keep you comfortable and tuned in and keep those dopamine levels up with about 140 watts. So, think about it. You can run this one panel through this pulling 150, 160 watts. You can actually charge it live

9:46 while you're watching TV and you can never run out of energy because you can use these things while you're charging them, which I think is really, really cool. So, with that, I'm going to get back to some lawnmower videos. I've got my next video working right now where we cut up some lawn mower blades and it

10:02 gets a little dicey. So, this is the end of my solar panel career. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll put links down below to all the stuff if you want to buy stuff. That would be super cool. With that, Marmike's out.