Seeking help figuring out j box configuration.

Looking once again, your wiring is not correct! The two outer jumpers need to be removed. Those two diodes that were there are cell bypass diodes used to bypass power around a shaded panel. They are not needed unless you have shading issues. It hurts nothing to leave them in place as they do nothing in a full sun situation.

i have one of those panels with the Solarix name on it, same 6 volt 12 volt setup.

You have some antique panels there. Probably not worth much.....but enough power for a camper van or like application. I was given mine.....its in the oldies row for show..

that second panel is rare indeed. I have never seen anything like that. It might be a gallium arsenide panel. Silicon photovoltaics do not stand up to the space environment. Gallium Arsenide with concentrators were commonly used in early communication satellites.

In days gone by I did two way radio, VHF and UHF repeaters on mountain tops. I remember the company buying solar panels at $900 each for small panels. We had one site up a mountain at 8800 feet or so that would get a lot of snow in the winter, making diesel fuel for the generators very expensive to deliver by snowmobile. The panels were less expensive than diesel snowmobiled 15-20 miles up a snowed in road......that was in the late '60's or very early 70's. solar has come a long ways since then. I bailed out of communications not long after that due to health effects of working in close proximity to many FM two way radio repeaters. Computers were hatching and I sailed that ship for a while, before going into power management.

Yep, I gotta admit I am very old school, born in the backwoods of Alaska in the '40's. I've been an off gridder for a while, born into a ham radio family started tinkering radios before I was a teenager so had very good head start, I excelled in electronics and ended up being an engineer for GE in many divisions communications, medical, power management before stepping into my own business. Basically now I do failure analysis of systems for many others. Wanna quit but the economics are not there.....the problem with retiring.....watta you do...every TV I have ever seen has a "brightness control" but no matter where I set that it just don't get any brighter, it's the same old dumb $hit!

When I worked in communications we used a single 75 watt zener diode across the solar panel output to keep the batteries from overcharging. PWM haven't been invented yet and MPPT was light years away. There were only series and shunt regulators available and very expensive because it was very new technology. This was in the era 1967-1972 or so as I remember, it's been a while. I seem to remember about 6 repeater sites where we had solar panels, way up some mountain, way off the grid, out in the boonies, in BFE, etc.

Photowit,

I have lots of stuff stored up there, sometimes I scramble the little bits then go back and retread my post later for accuracy and find I really was swapping memory of one thing with another. I just did that at MidNite forum telling a user that a MNDC125 breaker would fit in the space for the MNDC175/250......it doesn't....I remembered breakout tabs.....there were not any on my MNDC15 breaker panel. I had machined a breaker adapter to fit. I think that comes with loving your work....I found long ago if you truly love your work, it's not work. If I do not like my work environment I bail and find something I'm truly interested in. I do electrical work for a living, I really enjoy it, especially the system failure that nobody can point a finger at. I'm venturing into the unknown again as I have reverse engineered Chinese electro-accupuncture devices and now have 2 Russian PEMF medical devices in repair that nobody outside of Russia have repaired AFAIK, it's a challenge to me. I didn't want to wait 6 months to have my DiaDENS PEMF device repaired. I bought a new one and took apart the old one to diagnose it. Found the problem with no idea of what the chips were! My ex told me that when I die the earthworms had better take a hike, I would be dIsecting them LOL

@littleharbor2

Your situation is a new one to me. I have never heard of a battery based inverter being powered this way, obviously done by someone technically oriented . As I said in very early solar installations the only controller was a big zener directly across the battery. A 15 volt Zener will conduct nothing until the battery charges up to 15 volts then it "shorts out" enough power to keep the battery from overcharging. I was born in the backwoods of Alaska into a ham radio family...........does that explain why I have such varied knowledge of electric. We didn't have "grid" power. I built all tube ham radios, dozens of Heathkits, Knight kits etc. Was fascinated when transistors were available, I could not wait to get my hands on those! When computers hatched into being I had very early "microprosser development kits" and built computer kits, all the parts in baggies and bare boards. Ever hear of a RCA Cosmac or an Intel Intellic , I have both! Very early breadboard computer development kits. I subscribed to EDN (Electronic Developer News) a must read in those days. Development kits were offered to all who asked. My first computer is an Imsai 8080, paddle switches in and lights in binary output, no disk drive, no floppy, no screen.........entry in bit binary!....readout in bit binary!......no saving program! It's been a looong road. I don't program anymore. Well maybe in high level language.

I would be curious of the rating of those zeners. A bench variable voltage power supply will very quickly show the operating point of the Zener.

I need a flush mechanism......my first phone number was Broadway 78065! LOL! I'm running out of room in the attic! A variable voltage power supply with voltmeter and ammeter will quickly show the voltage, just bring the voltage up slowly, it will not conduct any energy until it hits the regulation point.