How To Tell Which Wire Is Positive Solar Panel

This is your positive wire.

How to tell which wire is positive solar panel.

You will want to ensure that you place the positive to positive and negative to negative when attaching your multimeter to the connection on the back of your solar panel. How to test a 12 volt solar panel vs other voltages. Run your fingers along the wire to determine which side has the ribbing. Just like a typical battery you may be familiar with solar panels have positive and negative terminals.

When stringing in series the wire from the positive terminal of one solar panel is connected to the negative terminal of the next panel and so on. Set the volt meter to read dc volts. Grounding the positive is also nec compliant and would thus have a white wire carrying positive. Click on calculate to see the size wire required in awg american wire gauge.

Red and black are acceptable colors to use. If this is an ungrounded system also compliant in some circumstances then neither wire should be white. If you have a wire where both sides are the same color which is typically copper the strand that has a grooved texture is the negative wire. Another way to find the polarity of the solar panel is to check with a volt meter.

Enter the total amps that your solar panels will produce all together. To measure across the solar panel terminals or wires put the red positive meter lead on one side and the black negative on the other. The positive wires are connected to a positive connector within a combiner box and the negative wires are connected to the negative connector. On bare wires a red identifies the positive lead and black the negative lead.

Enter the distance in feet from your solar panels to your battery bank charge controller. As most solar panels are 12 volts the solar panel test methods are basically the same. A simple voltage reading will show you the polarity of a solar panel even when inside. Enter solar panel output voltage.

Usually 12 24 or 48 volts.