Goal Zero 20 Amp Solar Charge Controller with Alligator Clip Connections for Boulder Solar Panels

Video Transcript for Review of Goal Zero Solar Charge Controllers - 20 Amp with Alligator Clip Connections - GZ56YR

Hi there. I'm Michael with etrailer.com. Today, we're gonna take a quick look at this Goal Zero 20-amp solar charge controller kit. This kit is going to allow you to charge up your 12-volt battery using your Goal Zero Boulder 200 solar panel. The solar panel is sold separately, and you can find it using the part number that you see on the screen there. But if you already have the solar panel, you're just looking for a way to hook it up to your battery, this is gonna be a great kit for you.

This will work with your gel, AGM, calcium, flooded lead acid, lithium titanium oxide, and lithium iron phosphate batteries. So if you have any of those 12-volt batteries, you're wanting to use your Boulder 200 solar panel to charge them up while you're off the grid, this is gonna be a great kit for you. And this includes these alligator clips that will allow you to make a quick connection to your battery, very easy to get those hooked on to your battery post. And then this cable is going to plug right in to our 15-foot-long, 12-gauge Goal Zero spade to SAE cable. So that's gonna give us 15 feet of room to make sure that our solar panel's out in the optimum sunlight, absorbing all that solar energy, and then we can have our battery or vehicle sitting in the shade where it's gonna be a little bit cooler for us.

On the spade end of our cable, we are gonna have indicators of the positive and negative spades. And then on the bottom of our solar charge controller, you can see we've got that little battery emblem there, with our positive and negative indicators. And then on the back side, we've got these screws that we can just loosen up, slide in our spade connectors, and then tighten those screws down to have a nice, solid connection to our battery. And then we're also going to have this two-foot-long, or, sorry, three-foot-long spade to high power port cable that will connect our solar charge controller to our Goal Zero Boulder 200 solar panel. So that electricity is flowing from our solar panel into our charge controller, and this is really what's gonna act like the brains of our operation.

It's a 20-amp pulse-width modulation solar controller that's going to adjust the solar panel's output for a quick, consistent charge for our battery. This does have automatic multi-stage charging, so it's going to switch modes as the battery charges. Because if the battery is extremely depleted, it can charge it up faster with like a bulk setting. And then as it gets more and more charged up, it can slow that rate of charge so that you're not going to overcharge your battery. So this is gonna help extend the battery life.

It does also have several safety features not only to protect against overcharging but also undercharging, reverse polarity, short circuiting, and over voltage. As you can see, it does have this digital display that's going to monitor your amperage, voltage, and battery capacity so you can see what's going on with your battery as it's charging and overnight to make sure that you're gonna have enough power and that sort of thing. This does have a maximum solar array current of 20 amps. The normal input solar array voltage is between 15 and 22 volts. The maximum solar array voltage is 25 volts. And it will operate in temperatures ranging from negative 13 degrees Fahrenheit up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, so it is going to be very durable for us temperature-wise. As far as our dimensions go, this is only about six inches wide by approximately four inches tall and only about one inch thick. As you can see, this does have the mounting bracket, metal mounting bracket that's gonna connect our solar charge controller to our Boulder solar panel. So it's gonna be very easy to get that mounted in place, and then we won't have to worry about losing it or stepping on it. It'll be on the back of our panel, so it will be nice and protected. It only weighs about a pound, so it's not gonna add a whole lot of weight to our setup. And it does have an IP65 rating, so it is going to be weather resistant and dust proof. Obviously, with electrical setups, you don't want to have too much water 'cause electricity and water don't mix well, so want to avoid that as much as possible. But it is gonna hold up well for you even if it's exposed to some weather conditions. So this is gonna be a really nice kit if you do already have a Boulder 200 solar panel, you're wanting to have a more temporary hookup to your battery. We also have another kit that's almost identical to this. It's got all these components. It's just going to switch out these alligator clamps for ring terminals so that you can get it more permanently installed on your battery. So depending on what kind of setup you have or what kind of situation you want to be able to connect your solar panel in will determine which of those sets works best for you. We also have a kit that's going to include all of this plus the solar panel itself. So if you don't already have the solar panel, I would recommend getting that kit. It's gonna include all of these components so that you can very easily set up your solar panel, get those sun rays converted to electricity to charge up your battery. But if you already have the solar panel, this is gonna be a great kit for you to get you going and charge up your battery. So that completes our look for today. Again, I'm Michael with etrailer.com. Thanks for watching..