One of These Solar Panels Really Surprised Me... Renogy VS Callsun VS BougeRV

0:01 Right here, I have three popular 200 W solar panels available on Amazon. Now, I've just spent three days testing each one of these panels to see how they perform, and I have some surprising results. Now, before going through those results, let's quickly go through the specifications and pricing for each

0:17 solar panel. Now, the first panel in our lineup is the Kalson 200 W bfacial panel. It does utilize the newer end type cells, and being bfacial, it allows additional power gains through the back of the panel. Now, you'll also notice there's a split down the middle as this has two separate panels that are joined

0:34 in the middle, meaning that you can actually shade half the panel and still get good results. The price on Amazon at the time of filming this video is $151. Now, the second solar panel we have in our lineup is the Renegy Shadow Flux 200 W panel. Now, this also utilizes the newer end type cells, but the design is

0:51 quite different. This is a shade tolerant solar panel with built-in dodes on the back, so it's kind of meant for partial shading conditions. Now the price of this panel is $22 on Amazon. Now the final solar panel in the lineup is the BJV 200 W bfacial panel. This one is super similar to the Kalson 200 watt

1:10 except for the solar cells have a slightly different form factor. It still utilizes end type cells. It's a bfacial design and it also has that split down the middle. So two different panels merged together so it should perform well in partial shading. The price is a little bit higher than the Kelson at

1:24 $169. Now, I mentioned earlier in the video that I've been testing these panels for 3 days, and in order to make it as fair as possible, I've been rotating them so they've all spent one day in the same exact position. Now, let's briefly go through the testing equipment that I use

1:40 to track the performance of each one of these panels. Now, for this video, I purchased three of these Victron smart charge controllers. Now, I've never used these in the past, and I've always wanted to, so it's a good opportunity to do that. I mounted them to this board and I have each solar panel going to its

1:55 own charge controller so it can track it specifically. These have really good data logging. Now the charge controllers are connected to these two bus bars which go over to the battery. Now the battery that I opted to use for this project was the Epoch 12V 460 amp battery. And I really wanted to have one

2:12 with a display so I could see what was going on. And every night, basically, I would come in here and discharge this with an inverter. So, the battery was low for the next day of testing. Well, now that I've covered the testing equipment and each one of the solar panels, let's look at the actual

2:26 performance numbers. So, up on the screen, you're going to see the results for each solar panel I tested. Now, this is essentially a screenshot of the Victron Smart app, and there's a ton of great information here. Now, because we had three different panels and three different charge controllers, we can

2:41 break down the performance for each one. Each bar graph represents a day of performance and below that you can see the yield output in watt hours. Below that you can see the peak wattage for that day and then below that you can see the peak voltage of the solar panel. Now to make everything a little bit easier

2:56 to understand I've titled each one of these screenshots with the solar panel and then I've totaled up the energy at the bottom and the peak wattage output. So let's take a deep dive into these results. Now each day we had different solar conditions and that explains why the bar graphs are different. So,

3:12 starting with the bar graph labeled as today, that was actually yesterday. Well, that was the hottest day of the testing. It was 100° Fahrenheit, but it was actually full sun, so we didn't have any clouds. So, we got the most output. However, if you look at the Pax numbers or the maximum wattage numbers, they're

3:30 a bit low, and that's because the solar panels were really hot. Now, moving on to the next bar graph, which was titled as yesterday. This was an overcast day, so we had a lot of clouds. But as the sun came out, the solar panels were cooler and so we actually got the peak wattage for these days. If you look at

3:47 the PMAX numbers, you can see that they're basically the rated output of the solar panel. And that's because the clouds would go away, you get really good sun, and then the clouds would come back. So less total output, but our PMAX numbers were really good. Now, the final bar graph listed as 2 days ago. This was

4:05 a mixture of mostly sun and a few clouds, but the temperatures were actually a bit lower. And so the solar panels didn't get quite as hot, so you have a little bit higher on your Pax or peak wattage numbers. So super interesting. After looking at all these numbers, we do have a clear winner. It

4:24 was the Kelson 200 W solar panel. It produced the highest total energy and the highest peak wattage. Who would have thought that the most affordable solar panel would put out the highest power? Now, after all the tests that have been completed, looking at the conditions, we had a good variety of conditions. We had

4:41 a full day of sun. We had a day with mixed clouds, and then we had an overcast day. And the Kalson 200 W solar panel just seemed to put out more power in those conditions. Now, I will say this test had a little bit of partial shading, but we didn't have a ton. So, I think if you had much more shading

4:59 conditions, the Renegy Shadow Flux would have pulled ahead. But if you're in a mostly sunny condition or just overcast in general, uh, this panel should perform very well. Now, if anybody's looking for a small format solar panel like this for a project, then I definitely recommend the Kalson 200 W

5:16 solar panel. So, if you're interested, I will have the link to this one down in the video description. And I'll also include the other videos and links to the solar panels that I've tested previously. The Renery Shadow Flux and the BJV Bfacial solar panel. Now, the whole reason I did this project is

5:31 because I'm looking for a 400 W folding suitcase that I want to make on my own with kickstands because I like the form factor of these and if they folded shut, um, you'd be able to get 400 watts of solar in a really portable design. So, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to take this one, the best performing

5:49 solar panel, and turn it into a suitcase design with kickstands. So, keep an eye out for that future video, guys. Thank you so much for watching, and if you like the video, please smash the thumbs up button. We'll see you guys in the next one.