 Welcome to Road Gear Reviews. I'm Tom from Morton's On The Move, and today I'm taking a look at a 100 watt, 12 volt, portable, flexible solar panel system from Lens Sun Solar Energy. Stick around. So what I've got in my hands right here is a complete kit for charging a battery with 100 watts of solar energy. These systems are commonly known as a solar suitcase or solar briefcase, and they're getting quite popular in the RV boating and nomadic communities where you need power, where you might not be able to plug in otherwise. Many of the systems on the market utilize standard glass solar panels and charge controllers built into them. This system here, however, utilizes a laminated monocrystal and solar panel system, and it makes it incredibly lightweight and incredibly small. This system measures about 24 inches long, 17 inches wide, and about 2.5 inches deep if you include this pouch, only about half an inch deep if you include just the solar panels. It amazingly weighs only eight pounds and includes this easy-to-use carry handle on it. In the front, you'll see this pocket here. It includes all the stuff you need to connect it, and on the back, there's really nothing there. It's just kind of a thick fabric over the entire system. To open the system up, just unvelcro the handles and undo the two buckle clips on either side here, and you can easily unfold the system. It's a tri-fold. It's got three distinct solar panel sections on it, and when it's all the way open, it measures about 51 inches wide. The panels themselves are monocrystalline, which means over polysilicon, you're gonna get a little bit higher watt density, meaning that it can be a little bit smaller for the size 100 watts that it actually puts out. The panels themselves are a little bit flexible that you can see here. You probably don't wanna bend them too much because you could probably crack the cells inside, but basically, they are laminated in sort of a plastic-type coating that allows the light to pass through the front. They are not real shiny. They're kind of matte, and they have sort of have a dimpled texture to the surface of them. The panels are sewn into the fabric all the way around, which actually makes up the rest of the rigidity and the foldability of the structure. It's kind of a canvas-like material, but it seems pretty heavy-duty. On all the four corners of the panel, we have these nice grommets as well, so you could probably tie this down to something if you want. After you've got the system unbuckled and folded out, unzip this front pouch, and the first thing you're gonna pull out is going to be another little package that says Lens Sun on it, and this includes the aluminum legs that you can set up to angle it towards the sun. Now, these legs are basically a T. What you do is you actually insert one of these pieces into these little loops that are sewn into the solar panel system, and then there's another piece that has some threaded screws on it, and you screw that into the piece that you've inserted into the loop. And what it does is it creates a T that can flex up and down and allows the solar panels to sit at an angle using that as a brace. Once you get the legs assembled on the back of the panel, you can easily set it down, and they're just gonna kind of fall out, and it will sit up nicely all on its own. With these legs, it is a lot easier to point the panels towards the sun, depending on the time of year. You're gonna have to either angle it more or less. You're gonna be able to get about a 45-degree angle using these legs. After you've got the legs installed, go back into your pouch here, unzip it the rest of the way, and you'll notice that there are cables in here connected to the PWM charge controller that is sewn right into the material on the solar panels themselves. Once you get the system set up in the sun, all you're gonna have to do is find your battery in your car, RV, or boat, and take the included alligator clips and 16-foot of wire and run it over to the batteries and just clip it right on. Once you get it hooked up to your battery and point it into the sun, you're gonna see on the PWM charge controller a little battery meter. It says 25, 50, 75, and 100% battery. And it's going to indicate your current battery level and what it's charging it up to. Those green lights will blink up as it's charging. When it gets to 100%, it will go solid green. The PWM charge controller is going to take care of all the charging requirements for you. When your battery gets full, it is going to back off on the current so it doesn't overcharge the battery. On this PWM charge controller, there is also a USB port, which is really neat because you can plug your phone or any device that plugs into a USB and get about one amp of power out of that so you can charge your devices right from the solar panel system, even without having a battery. The charge controller also provides short and overcurrent protection. You shouldn't touch these alligator clips together when it's outside the sun, but if you do, the solar charge controller is gonna prevent any damage. I looked up the specs on this charge controller. It is a 10 amp charge controller, so it should be more than adequate for these panels. It does have this key button on here. I've pressed it a number of times. I cannot figure out what it does. I'm guessing that it changes the charge state from bulk charge to float charge, but I couldn't actually notice anything in the current or voltage coming out of the panels when I press that button. We've been testing it for a few weeks off grid, and we noticed that kind of the max current that we were seeing out of it was about 5.2 amps when we were charging in the 13, 5 to 14 volt full charge range on our battery, which means we're seeing maybe around 70 watts of power out of the system. This is completely normal for a solar system unless you use like an MPPT charge controller, which is really overkill for a situation like this. I think that these panels have been performing really well. We're also past the vernal equinox, so we're into winter sun when we've been testing these. So I'd say that 70 watts out of these panels is pretty darn good. I monitored the amperage out of these panels on Sony days, cloudy days, et cetera. We noticed that even on overcast days, we were getting about 12 to 15 watts of power out of the system, so you're still gonna be able to get a little bit of a charge even on a cloudy day. Having the legs to adjust the angle to the sun is a huge boost, however. If you were just to lay these flat, lens sun states you can get about a 30 to 40% energy gain just by tilting them towards the sun with those included legs that come with the system. When you're done with the system and ready to put it away, all you do is fold it up and reverse the order. I noticed that we were putting it away a lot at night or if it was gonna rain, and we would just leave the legs on a lot of times or at least two of them. You can leave this leg on because it just folds nicely into the system. And then this leg, if you just zip this up but leave a little gap right here, it's got two zippers on it, you can leave that leg installed right there as well. While these legs are super convenient and it makes it super easy to just move the panels around and change the angle, I am a little bit concerned with the potential longevity of them. They are aluminum and just have a simple thread into the base here. We did notice that a couple of them got a little bit bent, so I am concerned that in the long run that these might be a weak point to the system. So definitely be careful with these legs. We've been running these panels for a couple of weeks off grid and we noticed they drastically improved our battery run time. We have 200 amp hours, 12 volt batteries in our RV and we can typically go about two days off those batteries running our lights, some computers off inverters, et cetera. With these panels, that about doubled. We were able to go about four days. If you're a lighter user, 100 watts of solar might be just enough to keep you topped off for running your lights, your pump, et cetera. These panels might just do it if it's a nice sunny day for you. I absolutely love the weight and size of these panels. They are so portable. I love the flexibility and how easily they are to store. They take up hardly any space. We keep them in our basement right next to our generator and it is just not in convenience to store them at all. Weight is also an issue in a lot of RVs and being so lightweight, it's super nice. I think that they're very comparable to other solar suitcase models out there as well in their power, but their size, weight and flexibility is so, so much better. The only concerns I have with a laminated system like this is I just don't think that laminated panels are gonna last 25 years like a nice glass panel will, but this system isn't gonna be out in the elements constantly. Actually, it shouldn't even be out in the rain because that PWM charge controller on the back is definitely not waterproof. Overall, I think the panels are quite well built. Lensun is a pretty well known manufacturer in especially the marine communities where they use a lot of flexible solar panels to conform to the shape of their boat. And I think that this is a pretty well made product. I like the fit, the finish, the feel. It all looks pretty nice. Lensun is a Chinese manufacturer and I actually didn't get any instructions with the system. Not really that you need many, but it came in a nice box, but there were no instructions to indicate how to actually use the system or how it works. They do have a pretty good website though that has a lot of specs and more information about the system on it. So check that out if you're interested. Overall, for a solar suitcase, I think this is a really good option. I've been really happy with the performance and the ease of use and portability is outstanding. This has been my thoughts on the folding 100 watt portable solar system from Lensun Solar Energy. 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