2021 Renogy 100w suitcase solar

[Osage]

Hey folks,

After reading a huge number of reviews (with mixed results) I decided to purchase a Renogy 100w 20A suitcase solar system. After I received it (yesterday 3/22/21; ordered 3/17/21) and seeing qualitative differences from the reviews I had read, I thought it might be useful to provide some more current and objective data.

For comparison - the reviews I read (dating from 2015 to current) suggested I might find: poorly constructed or aligned latch assemblies; shoddy support leg assemblies; difficult to read control panel; inadequate connectors to batteries; difficult to disconnect power connections; shoddy cover case.

I'm happy to report that a) I found none of these, and that 2) if those conditions existed in the past, then apparently Renogy pays attention to customer review comments and fixed the issues.

Here you see the high quality of the handle, the latches and the overall construction of the case.


A lot of reviews complained about poor construction of the carry case, blown out zippers and other shortcomings. Here you see the semi-rigid construction of the case. The zippers worked fine for me. I ran them back and forth about 10 times each way on each side to see if there were any hang ups. Before I did that, I did notice a few stray/hanging threads that were easily removed or cut. The zippers worked great for me. The semi-hard case is also comforting as it will protect better than a flimsy fabric case.


The user guide cautions against attaching the controller panel to the solar panel before attaching it to the batteries. But, literally as soon as I unzipped the panels exposing them to sunlight and unfolded the panels, the controller showed this "b01" figure. Yeah, they are shipped with the panels connected to the controller. I guess it didn't hurt anything. But it suggested that the panels are immediately working when exposed to sun light.

Some people commented on the difficulty of separating or detaching the cable connections. IDK, but there was NO NEED for the tool they sell on the Renogy web site. If your thumb an forefinger can manage about 1# of pressure, I'm sure you can easily detach these things.


Apparently in the past the controller was attached to the back panel using velcro or some other form of attachment and a lot of folks complained about the difficulty to see the data screen. Here you see how it hangs vertically and is pretty easy to see. The next photo shows the swiveling hinge that both improves visibility as well as still keeping it (mostly) under the panel and away from the worst effects of rainfall.

It was hard to get a sense of how big (or how small) this unit is. Here you can see it set up. It is really not that big (or heavy) and so can be easily repositioned for solar collection.

Overall, I was greatly pleased with this purchase vis-a-vis the wildly mixed reviews I read spanning a 5-6 span of years. Though my house battery (yes, I still only have 1 (for now)) was mostly charged, the solar panel went through its diagnostics, and started charging. I did not keep it connected as I wanted to give it a real test with a partially discharged battery. I'll do that soon.

But for now, I'm pleased with the product. None of the fears of the various negative reviews I had read came to fruition. Just thought I would share this with others that are also on the fence about buying this unit.

P.S. After reviewing this before posting - I am a bit PO'd. I rotated the pictures before reducing their size and saved them. And here they are again, not correctly aligned. New to this forum, but this kinda sucks.

[Reverse_snowbird]

Thanks for the review. It's nice to have someone with 'real world experience' let us know how it works.

[SeaDog]

Good review you can bet the folks at Renogy will like it. I have been considering a suitcase solar system and will look at this system. thanks.

[Don B.]

Another thanks for the review!
Can you post a link of exactly which one you got and where you got yours?

[01tundra]

Nice review.

For clarification purposes, your 100W suitcase has a charger that's rated up to 20A, but the optimum operating current of the panels is 5.68A, short-circuit current is 6.10A.

Beside that, I really like our 100W Renogy solar suitcase and love the 200W Renogy suitcase that I built.

[PhilFromMaine]

Does that suitcase claim to be waterproof?

[01tundra]

Originally Posted by PhilFromMaine

Does that suitcase claim to be waterproof?

Controller is not waterproof, of course, if it's raining you're likely not using solar anyways.

[johntaylor]

I've been using it full-time for 4 years, boondocking 80% of the time. I'm very happy with it, and with the case. 100 watts is ample for me. I don't have a television, but I do work on my laptop up to 6 hours each day, which draws 2.5 amps at 12 volts.

I took the controller off the panel and mounted it in a plastic electrical box that I sit on top of the battery box, connecting from there to the battery with thick wires. I use 10 gauge speaker wire to connect the controller to the panel. I get 1 amp more by having the controller at the battery end, and it's waterproof in its box.

The controller quit after 2 years. I bought an HQST controller to replace it, which I'm very happy with.

A year ago, the panel blew over on a rock and shattered one of the glass panels. The glass didn't fall out, so I laminated it with clear shelf liner from Walmart and calked around the edges. It still works fine and it's still waterproof. I leave it out in the rain. I bungee the panel to the towing safety chains or something heavy now to keep it safe from the wind. I hook one bungee behind the flap where the controller used to go, and another to the handle.

Just 2 weeks ago, one of the captive nuts pulled out of a leg mounting in strong wind, even though the unit was bungeed down. The mounting block had 3 nuts but only used two, so I turned it around to use the other nut.

I use a pair of Camco/Walmart wheel chocks under the legs to raise the angle of the panels when the sun is below 30 degrees.

[Larry-NC]

Originally Posted by Osage

P.S. After reviewing this before posting - I am a bit PO'd. I rotated the pictures before reducing their size and saved them. And here they are again, not correctly aligned. New to this forum, but this kinda sucks.

Great review! Very thorough and identifying and invalidating specific concerns.
Not correctly "aligned"? Did you mean "oriented" or "rotated"?

What tool did you use to rotate them? Since you've given such a detailed review, I will provide a detailed response to your question.

There is probably a gap in understanding here. Remember how you used to be able to see how a TV picture was rendered? A raster scan, painting each line going across, a line at a time, then returning to the top for a re-draw? If there were no picture and you turned up the contrast, you could actually see the beam returning to the top--it took several line-times to do that so you could see it sweeping back and forth as it returned to the top.

(In the following, you may substitute "phone" for "camera" where appropriate.)

The image sensor in your camera works in a similar way. The array of cells all capture at once, but they are "read out" and recorded in the file cell-by-cell, a line at a time, top to bottom. This array of cells is not magically read out and recorded in a different direction when the camera is held in different orientations.* Instead, when the file is written, EXIF orientation information is included which tells the display how to render the picture.**

The rendering program (which does the actual display), e.g., Windows Paint, Windows Photo Viewer, Windows Photos, browsers like Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, and others read the EXIF orientation, and render the picture appropriately.***

The software supporting these forums resizes posted photos to an appropriate size for on-screen viewing. It also deletes the EXIF data. There is at least one valid reason for doing so--you wouldn't want malicious actors using the GPS data to have your RV's or family's GPS location. The forum software could certainly rotate the image data using EXIF while it is doing the re-sizing--but it doesn't.

Why it matters how you rotate the pictures
Image editors can do two different operations. It appears that you selected one, believing it to be the other.

1. Rotate the image on the display. This is an easy operation on the image which has already been decompressed from the file. The display matrix is simply transposed. If you attempt to save the file at this point, the application might leave the image data alone and simply re-write the EXIF data to reflect your chosen orientation.
2. Rewrite the file as if it had been scanned in a different orientation. This operation is more compute-intensive, although on today's devices it could take an unnoticeable second or two. The expanded picture in memory has to re-scanned in a different orientation and re-compressed. In order to appear correctly on these forums, the image must be rewritten so that the EXIF rotation is "1", so it will render when the EXIF is deleted.

There are many articles on the internet on how to properly rotate the image.

*The metallic wiring and transistors in front of each cell covers a bit of the active element. Increasing that wiring for multiple orientations would cover more of the active element and reduce the array's sensitivity.

**This information is called Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF). It also includes things like image size, camera type, image sensor type, f/stop, shutter speed (equivalent), GPS coordinates where the image was taken, in addition to orientation.

***After the image is decompressed, the cells in memory must be arranged in one of:

• left to right, then top to bottom (native orientation)
• top to bottom, then right to left (rotate right 90, original was rotated left)
• right to left, then bottom to top (rotate 180, original was rotated 180)
• bottom to top, then left to right (rotate left 90, original was rotated right)

There are actually 8 possible values for EXIF, not these four. The others include cases where the image is also mirrored, used when using rear-projection displays.

[Bob2019]

Interesting all the info on picture orientation. I have attached several pictures and screen shots to my postings and never did they display different than planned. I always load the pictures from camera or a scanned item to "Photos" on my Mac first. Sometimes I crop the pictures or make other simple adjustments for clarity and then save and export to my desktop. Then I just attach them to my posting and they have never not displayed correctly.

[PhilFromMaine]

Originally Posted by 01tundra

Controller is not waterproof, of course, if it's raining you're likely not using solar anyways.

I have something very similar to your Renogy from Go Power. There are warnings right on the PWM controller saying it is not waterproof. Since I often leave camp and tour the surrounding areas to the camp, I point the panel toward geodetic south and attach a sealed zip lock sandwich around the controller in case there is a storm while I am away. So far it has worked well.

[Osage]

Originally Posted by Don B.

Another thanks for the review!
Can you post a link of exactly which one you got and where you got yours?

The price is now different (not by much) but I ordered direct from Renogy, not from an Amazon site. I think a lot of the bad reviews came from folks that ordered from Amazon vendors selling "refreshed" products. That was my thinking anyway.
100 WATT ECLIPSE MONOCRYSTALLINE SOLAR SUITCASE
SKU: RNG-KIT-STCS100MB-VOY20

[Osage]

Larry-NC.

Yes, exactly. Oriented. I'll attend to your detailed descriptions in any further posts. I'm a member of several other fora, and all appear to have slightly different arrangements for photos. Your comments are very helpful. Thanks.

[Osage]

Originally Posted by 01tundra

Nice review.

For clarification purposes, your 100W suitcase has a charger that's rated up to 20A, but the optimum operating current of the panels is 5.68A, short-circuit current is 6.10A.

Beside that, I really like our 100W Renogy solar suitcase and love the 200W Renogy suitcase that I built.

Yeah, actually that is something I am curious about.
So my MH has a Furion Solar connection on the side and Renogy offers an MC4 connector for it. But I know that it is only rated at 10A. But the controller is rated at 20A. And the user manual talks about a 30A fuse. But the only fuse connection on the controller wiring is 10A??!

IDK, but it is sure confusing. At this point I am comfortable just using the alligator clips to the battery terminals. But that solar connector sure seems convenient. I'd like to know if I can use it or not.

[Osage]

Originally Posted by PhilFromMaine

Does that suitcase claim to be waterproof?

Not in the RV with the docs, but pretty certain they did not claim it to be waterproof. I'll check back tomorrow.
I will say that the controller looks to be well constructed. And with appropriate sealants, I would be confident in its water "resistance".
But then I put a 4 ga plastic bag over my EMS that is water resistant too.
Too long in the Army with "light weight" and "water proof" gear to not take the prudent COA!

[TitanMike]

Good to see that the quality issues of the past were addressed.

Only comment I have is for those who don't understand "electricity' that well.

Just because the controller will handle 20 amp, don't expect more than about 7 amps.

100 watts is still 100 watts and using 13.5 volts, for exqmple, that works out to 7.4 amps.

May be confusing to some.


That said the unit looks nice.

[johnnynlin]

So if I bought these and directly connected to the battery will it work in parallel with the 50 watt? So if it is full sun giving let say 8ah and the 50 about 3ah, then I can expect about 11ah from both? Trying to get this all working in my head.

[01tundra]

Originally Posted by Osage

Yeah, actually that is something I am curious about.
So my MH has a Furion Solar connection on the side and Renogy offers an MC4 connector for it. But I know that it is only rated at 10A. But the controller is rated at 20A. And the user manual talks about a 30A fuse. But the only fuse connection on the controller wiring is 10A??!

IDK, but it is sure confusing. At this point I am comfortable just using the alligator clips to the battery terminals. But that solar connector sure seems convenient. I'd like to know if I can use it or not.

It's not uncommon for the controller ampacity to be rated higher than the panels, it is actually the norm.

Since your panels are capable of generating 5.7A max a 10A fuse will be fine.

You can use a MC4 to SAE adapter, but you must check the polarity of the SAE end because they wire them backwards on trailers sometimes to accommodate the GoPower debacle....who wires them backwards from the rest of the industry.

I added my own charge port with Andersen plugs because I don't care for the SAE type.

[eric1514]

Originally Posted by johnnynlin

So if I bought these and directly connected to the battery will it work in parallel with the 50 watt? So if it is full sun giving let say 8ah and the 50 about 3ah, then I can expect about 11ah from both? Trying to get this all working in my head.

You already have a 50 watt panel with its own controller connected to your battery? If so, then yes, it will work like you describe but your numbers are a bit optimistic.

[acadianbob]

We are using a 130W Go Power unit that is well constructed and works great. It helps cut down generator time considerably when boondocking.