DOKIO 110w 18v Portable Foldable Solar Panel Kit (21x28inch, 5.9lb),Solar Controller 2 USB Output to Charge 12v Batteries/Power Station (AGM, Lifepo4) Rv Camping Trailer Emergency Power

I got the 110w 18v portable folding solar panel kit. It was a very good price compared to what else is out there. Packaging was fine. The quality looks good. I also got a 20 foot Dokio XT60 extension cable so my power station doesn’t have to be so close to the solar panels. I set up this kit to charge my Bluetti EB3A. The connections were easy. The EB3A was just above 50% charged at the start of charging. The solar panel was in good sunlight and the charge rate was about 65w. It charged the EB3A the rest of the way up to 100% in about two hours. So far it works great and I’m happy with it. This is a good deal.

These 220W panels work great. Just camped for 6 days with our travel trailer. We have two 6v golf cart batteries, and at the end of our trip, they were still at 13.4v. In direct sun, we could get up to 7 amps, and even in no sun, we were getting around .7 amps. They fold up fairly small and are lightweight. The controller works great as well.

Final update, July 2024. After having (now a total of three) of these Dokio panels, I need to update my review. I won't change the stars, but really only think they are a 3 star product now. Two issues. The first, and most important, is I'm finding the SAE connectors coming off the panels expand and soften when they get really hot (90 degree day in sunshine), and lose connection. They also pull apart super easily, and you may not immediately notice you've lost that connection. Second issue with the SAE (and XT60) are they are not standard for solar. Virtually every other brand out there uses MC4 connectors. Neither the SAE nor the XT60 allow you to connect panels in series (which you may well want to do if you are using any other controller than the cheap one provided). I ended up cutting the SAE connectors off and wiring directly to the XT60 from the panel, then building an adapter from that to MC4.Second major reason for "downgrading" my review is the amount of power they produce (or don't). I have two "brand x" panels each rated at 200 watts, and they provide about the same amount of power as the three Dokio 220 watt panels (in both cases,panels connected in series - so three Dokios versus two "brand x" and those combinations provide roughly the same power).I'm going to keep the Dokios, as I already have them, and they are lighter weight and more portable than "brand x", so are easy to haul for portable use where I may not need more than what one panel provides. They do work, just not as well as some of the competition.Another update. I do like the portability. Since writing the below review, I can report the absolute highest production I've seen from the panel was about 140 watts. However, this panel is priced comparable to a number of 100 watt panels (and produces more than 100), so I guess it is a reasonable value in that regard. I decided to order a second one of theses so as to have a pair of matching units that I can parallel for higher power, and the second unit arrived today. It works comparable to the first unit, and in parallel they do produce twice the power as either by itself. Today was an overcast day without shadow, so power output was quite low - about 20 to 30 watts per panel. With both in parallel I was getting 40 to 60 watts with full overcast and substantially more with partial clearing (but not direct sunlight). Usable if not ideal, but decent for the portability.Product as described, very brief setup and test late afternoon appears to work well. But one major issue, the XT60 connector for the load connection to the charge controller is not the correct connector. Am ordering correct connector, but that added $10 to overall cost. I had already cut some of the wires to put power pole connectors on, so was past point of returning. Unnecessary hassle if they checked product before shipping this would not have happened.Today I received the correct connector (ordered separately from different vendor), and hooked everything up. On the brightest, sunniest, day of the year (summer solstace), in direct sunlight, I'm pulling an absolute maximum of 8.8 amps @ 12.7 volts, or about 112 watts (from a panel rated at 220 watts). While I am neither surprised, nor disappointed (this is about what I was expecting and hoping for), it is clearly not what the panel is rated/advertised at. This is better than what I was getting from a less expensive, lower quality, panel bought elsewhere. Note, I am at 47.7° N Latitude (WA State), so solar is less effective than say Arizona or Texas. Getting about 1/2 of advertised power seems to be fairly consistent reporting from a variety of users. I have not checked performance in shade or any other condition than direct sunlight - obviously it will be less effective but I don't know how much so.

55 - 60 watts is what my panel averages while hooked up to an aftermarket Victron MPPT. Lightweight, portable, and generally enough charge to power a 65 watt laptop with a little help from a small battery. If you need more than 55-60 watts, buy 4 panel setup or get two of these and set them up as a pair.

11/06/2017 – Review updated to three starsFor my full original review, please read below. Would I buy them again? Yes, probably.Only three stars due to the included charge controller. The included controller has the deficiencies described below in my original review. I will likely replace this controller with an MPPT controller.I basically quite like the panels, their fold-ability, the canvas “package” they are mounted in, their light weight (about 11 pounds), and the fact that they fold down to a small 21” x 29” rectangle, less than 1” inch thick.I have determined that the panels are working, thus the upgrade to three stars. When the panels are placed on plywood backing (the panels themselves are semi-flexible, so when tilted towards the sun on their own without the plywood support, they tend to flex, which means that the sun angle is then not optimum), on a cloudless day, I obtained the following readings (all readings using my digital multimeter – not with the included charge controller):1. About 6 amps short circuit current (panels flat on the ground), then 8.5 amps short circuit current (on plywood backing, tilted towards the sun) out of rated max 11.36 amps short circuit current. Not sure why this is three amps short of the rated max - probably my sun angle tilting was not optimum. Will need to experiment further.2. 20.6 volts open circuit voltage (out of rated max open circuit voltage of 22.5 volts).3. 2.9 amps operating current (out of rated max 11.12 amps). I am assuming that this low operating amperage is due to the fact that my battery was nearing capacity.____________________________Where to start with this review?I don’t actually hate them (I purchased the 200 watt version) – but I can’t seem to get these panels to work, and wish VERY much that I could. However, I am not (quite) ready to give up, as I really like the idea of folding panels, so (maybe) by posting this review I can get some assistance from Dokio, or maybe someone else who has purchased these panels.If things change, I will definitely come back and update my review. At the moment I am quite disappointed, and am also out quite a few bucks over and above the cost of the panels (for all of the various “bits” that are needed for a solar system).Firstly, the panels came very quickly, about two weeks after placing the order. The information on the packaging indicated that these panels came from China, so the speed of their delivery was quite impressive.So far so good.The package was double bubble wrapped, to the extent that it was even a bit difficult cutting though the bubble wrap to get at the actual box (a good thing!) The actual cardboard package within the bubble wrap was undamaged in any way.In examining the panels, I was very impressed (and had high hopes!) that these panels would really fill the bill. I had spent years waiting, and literally tens of hours scouring the web for something like this. I travel in a converted cargo van, and needed something lightweight (so that I could easily lift them, as I have some age on me) and compact enough to store (the folded size was very attractive – easy to find a place to stow them in the very limited space inside my van).I liked the way the panels were sewn into a kind of heavy-duty canvas fabric, with nice sewn canvas handles, and a convenient pocket to stow the charge controller. Very pleasing to the eye. I also liked the fact that there are small rings sewn around the edges of the panels, I assume that these rings could be used to connect the panels to some kind of tie-down. Especially nice were two usb ports in the charge controller.The entire package seemed a compact and well made product, although there was a small divot in one of the panels that one could not see until the panel was put in direct sunlight, and the wiring that connected the charge controller to the battery is only about 12 or 14 gauge.I travel and camp in my van, and have been wanting solar for many years so that I could run my Dometic ac/dc refrigerator, charge my cell phone and computer, and maybe run a few lights. At last (or so I was hoping) I would be able to boondock and avoid hefty campground fees (the kind that have electric hookups).As I was waiting for the panels to arrive, I acquired three brand-new 75ah deep-cycle batteries ($200/ea - $600 total) that I planned to wire in parallel for 225ah, boxes to put them in, and had a battery isolator installed in my van ($225) so that I could charge the batteries while going down the road as well as when they were actually connected to the solar panels.I decided to hold off on the rest of the bits and pieces of the install (the bits that would be on the load side) until I had the panels in hand and could verify that they worked as advertised.It was when I opened the package, getting ready to whip these babies out into the sun, that I discovered the first problem.The entirety of the “Users Manual” is printed double sided on a 5 ½ inch x 8 inch scrap of paper. About the size of a normal sheet of paper, if that sheet was folded in half. Since one side of this double sided manual is in Chinese, effectively the whole of the English-language owner’s manual is on one side of this tiny scrap of paper. I took a photo of the “manual”, and am including it below. Hopefully this is permissible under Amazon rules. You will notice on the photo that there was some kind of glue on the pages, so that when I opened the pages part of the information was lifted away, stuck to the glue, and thus unreadable.Under the “Technical Parameters” heading there are several “model numbers” listed. I could not find that any of these model numbers corresponded with any similar number on either the charge controller nor on the panels themselves.Under the “Display/Seeting” heading (what is “Seeting”? Darned if I know) there is an icon showing the factory-set start point of each of the settings (seetings?) that one can scroll through (see “LCD Display/Key” heading for scrolling information) but no explanation of how, why, when or even if any of these factory settings should be changed, or what, if any, effect that they will have on the system if they are changed.Nothing.I then spent about four hours in the hot sun trying to understand the extremely minimal information presented on the “manual”, with not a particularly good result. Since my batteries are not yet wired in parallel (was waiting to do the final wiring until I could see that the panels were working) I tried each battery, individually, three separate times.Each time the charge controller appeared to work – somewhat (at least it lit up) – but at no time did the panel icon on the charge controller light, which would/should indicated that the panels were actually charging the batteries. The only icons that would come up was the battery icon pointing at the load icon.The panel icon just never appeared.When clicking on the buttons, sometimes the information on the controller would change, generally it would not. Even clicking on the button of the Main Menu generally it would work – but sometimes it would not. This may be because the holes punched in blue label on the front of the charge controller seemed as though they were offset from where the buttons needed to come through. They would kind of click when pushed, but with part of the blue plastic covering the button holes it may be that the clicking function was impeded by the label, keeping the buttons from fully extending. I thought about getting a razor blade and cutting the label so that the buttons were fully unimpeded (to see if that might help), but decided not to do this.Although my batteries were bought new (directly from a battery retailer), the date of manufacture was May of 2017. Since, as of this writing (October 21, 2017) these batteries should have had some minimal discharge in the five months from May to October, so should have been able to accept some minimal charge. Again, never once did the panel icon ever show, indicating that the panels were actually charging. Only the battery icon and load icon ever showed during my testing.Finally, at a loss of what else to try, I plugged my cell phone into one of the usb ports. My cell phone did indicate that it was charging – but my guess is that the charge was coming from the batteries, as the panel icon still did not light.Thus still no definitive indication that the panels were actually working (charging).Another problem is that the charge controller display only shows volts (i.e., under the heading on the manual “Display/Seeting [sic] – (I have no idea what “Seeting” is supposed to mean. Is it a typo,and actually means “setting”? Who knows), it does not show the flow of the current, i.e. how much current is flowing from the panels to the batteries (amps).I guess I could purchase an additional display of some sort that would show amps, but this is just more money that I am not willing to spend at the moment. Anyway, at one point the controller showed 20v, when the panels were fully opened to the sun. I then folded the panels closed, one by one, and with only one (out of four) of the panels open to the sun, the controller still showed 19v. When I closed the final panel, the charge controller turned off.To sum up, I would again like to say that I would very much like to see if these panels can be made to work. Their size, fold-ability, carrying weight, and wattage are just exactly what I have been searching for. However, I have tried just about everything I can think of to get these to work, and if I have to return them I will also have to (try) to return the batteries ($600) and will be stuck with the battery isolator ($225).Thanks for reading. Comments appreciated. Help welcomed.