Renogy 400W Lightweight Portable Solar Suitcase, Foldable Solar Panel for Outdoor Activities, Durable & IP67 Waterproof for RV, Camping, Off-Grid, Fast Installation with Sturdy Kickstands

It is a beast. It weighs less than our other glass 200W Renogy briefcase panels, yet provides double the power. Folds and unfolds nicely, has two built-in handles and comes in a soft "cordura-like" case, not a hardshell like the glass briefcase panels from Renogy. But it doesn't need that much protection. There is no glass. The folding wire legs seem a bit flimsy, but they do their job. Still, be sure to have some solution worked out ahead of time to stake this behemoth to the ground, if you go camping with it. Figure it out ahead of time... not on site. On a calm day, its a no factor, but even a slight wind, can make this thing go fly. And it WILL fly!It is a really good panel overall, very well built, as I'd expect from Renogy. We have five portable folding panels of various sizes from them and they all work great. I was able to get 385W from this panel on a bright sunny day in Chicago area and that surprised me - I expected way less. Of course, if you add an MC4 cable extension to this, your watt yield will start dropping fast, the longer the cable the more loss, so go with the heaviest gauge copper you can for your MC4 cables. I know they are very heavy, but I never buy less than 10 ga cables for my extensions. It is worth the extra watts you save in reduced loss of amperage.IMO, this panel is not for picnics or day trips. It's an overkill for such use cases, but this is a perfect piece of kit for prepper nerds, zombie apocalypse afficionados, RV-ers, or those who are price conscious and want to save a buck or two during hot summer days and run their small mini split or window A/C, which is what we did - we hooked up our window inverter A/C to an Anker F2000 power station and then ran this panel into the power station. The A/C drew around 600W on average from the battery and the panel fed back 380W into the battery, and on a 2kW bank we were easily running for ~6 hours during the hottest summer days when our energy prices were hitting 50c a kWh. You would spend decades like this trying to recoup the money you put into purchasing the power station and the panel, but that's not the point. The main benefit is the grid independence. The fact that we can run two refrigerators, freezer, some lights, a couple fans, a router, wifi on a summer day, right after a heavy storm knocked our power out for a couple days (happens every year here in Chicago suburbs), that pays for itself many times over, especially when you think of the thousands of dollars in frozen/chilled food you have in your freezer, fridge right now. If you have a hungry family and keep well stocked, you probably know what I'm talking about. I've spent way too many days without power to not be conscious of this.If you need more than a 200W panel, then get this one, instead of buying two 200W units, which is what we originally did. Many power stations these days allow you to "overpanel" them, meaning you can have a larger wattage capacity panel hooked up to them than their MPPT will allow. It will simply only take as much amperage as the station can intake and not more. I know that my Anker C1000X can be overpaneled above its 600W limit. Anker confirmed it. Just be sure to pay attention to voltage limits, if you start stringing more panels in a series and thus doubling your voltage, because this particular panel is actually two 200W Renogy panels connected in a series into a giant 4-piece kit, so its VOC (voltage open circuit) is 47.2V, not the usual +/- 23V. Bear that in mind, if you were planning to get two of these and run in series, you'd be far above the 60V limit most power stations limit you to in today's market. Let alone that anything above 48V could severely shock you and even possibly electrocute to death. This is why I said earlier to buy this 400W panel instead of two 200W panels and put them in a series. Price wise, it saves you a couple hundred bucks.This model I'm reviewing doesn't have it, but Renogy also sells this panel on their website (same price + free shipping!!!) and offer a model with Renogy Rover charge controller, so you could literally hook this up to your RV battery + some fuses or circuit breakers. Their Rover charge controller works very well - I have it on our other Renogy folding panel and it has settings for AGM, flooded, gel, LIFEPO4 batteries and is fully waterproof!As I said, this a a really great panel for back yards as an energy backup or large camping or cabin trips into wilderness, to complement your power station. It's big, even when folded, it takes a decent amount of space in the trunk (and won't even fit in smalll compact car trunks (doesn't fit in my Subaru Impreza hatchback trunk, though, just by mere couple inches...).I bought some plastic tent stakes, small carabiners, and a bunch of bungee cords to fasten this to the ground, because even in a moderate wind, this thing will tip over in a blink of an eye.What I actually bought this for is to act as a secondary off-vehicle array for my cargo trailer I'm converting into an RV - I will already have 900W worth of Renogy CIGS panels on the roof, but need a second array to supplement them when the RV will be parked in a shade and I need to top off the 5kW battery. And this is where this folding panel will come in super handy. Besides the sale markdown price, my main selling point was the weight per 100W of power. It wipes the floor with the Renogy glass briefcase panels we alreayd have. It's no contest. That's how light this panel is compared to those 200W folding glass panels, which are well over 30 lbs each. No, it won't compete with my 150W CIGS roof panels, which weigh mere 6.6 lbs each, but those are specialty, very expensive, and you can shoot bullets through those, drive a car over them, endure heavy hail, partially shade them and they still work perfectly, because unlike regular panels where you shade 5% of their area and lose 30% of output, the CIGS panels lose output proportionate to the shaded area. One 150W Renogy CIGS panel also costs more than this entire 400W foldable panel. You get what you pay for and CIGS panels were developed by DARPA for U.S. military. But, that's another story.This particular 400W one, though not CIGS, is still very good and I do recommend it, as long as you are clear on what your intended use cases and scenarios are. Because I need to repeat this again: it's big...

The build quality of the 400 watt panel is exceptional. Hands down. The good looking bag is well connstrcted. It's about 30 pounds so not too heavy. Downside? The output is less than I expected.Panel setup very easy and takes about 45 seconds.Setup: full sun, mid-day, southern California desert, south facing and default angle as provided by the built-in stands. I'm charging to an Ecoflow Delta 3 Plus with an add on battery 2000 watts capacity.Reason to purchase the entire setup is for a power bridge during outages which can happen often here.Results. I never saw more than 307 watts. With my usage at approximately 60% of the total battery, I can recharge during the day as long as I curtail usage during that time. I would need 2 panels to achieve balance or I can (and will) get a generator because I can't fit 2 of these things in my space.I never expected 400 watts but I did expect 350 based on Amazon reviews.I struggled on whether to go with the 5 stars so I went with 5. That said I will highly recommend the brand and think it's a great value.

I got one of these, tried it out, and Im getting another.I bought to replace some glass panels that I use for camping/festivaling. The panels travel in the vehicle and are installed on-site. The glass panels are heavy and have always been a lot of work to mount on the roof of the van/trailer, and need extra effort to keep from breaking in transit, while covered in gear.These fold up nice and can be stowed in the vehicle without fear of getting smashed. Each panel is made from fiberglass, not glass, with a clear plastic coating, so they wont shatter.First full usage was a couple sunny days in April, at approximately 8,000 feet in CO. Propped it up on the non-adjustable legs and turned to point at the sun - I got around 360W for the hours before and after noon and with effort could get it to peak at just under 400W.I will probably make a mount out of some aluminum c-channels, to clamp on the long edges. So I can mount on the top of the van/trailer.This seems expensive, at least when compared with surplus glass panels. But it works and is very transportable. For my use it is worth the extra cost. BTW, I was patient and kept an eye on the price, and got a reasonable % off the actual price, not their silly MSRP price.

Have only used this a small bit. Going on a 6 week travel trailer camping trip and needed this for my solar power as my other panels got old. I was able to hit 190 watts in full desert sun on the test run. The stands work well. I have to say the quality is not what I hoped. The suitcase it designed well, but includes a lot of plastic. Honestly, in the desert sun, I don't expect this to weather well in a couple years. Also, the way it folds, you have the front of 2 panels facing outward and the case is so flimsy it will not protect them when in transport, so extra care will need to be taken. The price was pretty good, so I only brought it down a star and am keeping it. We'll see.

This is my second 400W suitcase I purchased. The first one performed so well I got another one. I really like that they are portable and not on my RV roof. I can park under shade and with a 50ft. extension move the panels into full sun for best performance. I would recommend for sure.If there were one down side I would say I wish the kickstands were a little more sturdy built. They are pretty flimsy and I even broke one (my fault). A little JB Weld fixed that right up though.