timber
Adventurer
I will get pics up in the next few days.
Which Solar Panel kit to buy?
- Thread starter dags
- Start date
timber
Adventurer
Flippac solar pics
Ok Here are pics of what I did. looking from the front you can see that the panel is sitting on two pieces of 1"x3" rectangle aluminum tube that is bolted through the top. There are 6"X6"aluminum backing plates on the inside under the bed pad and no you dont feel them they are 3/16" and bolt heads are counter sunk flush.
The panel itself sits on 4 posts with slide lock clips to locate it and uses 2 southco locking latches to keep it solid and safe.
All connections are 45 amp Anderson Powerpole so everything is easy to reconfigure. You can see for now the panel wires run down my rear light pole and feed in under the window and inside to feed the watt meter and regulator which slip into the mount you can see.
From the watt meter it plugs into the grey box and is fed up to the blue seas box, you can see it in the front left side of the shell and then on to two six volt batterys by # 8 wire
By doing it this way the panel is easy to take off for storage or to use while the top is deployed
I know everyone says dont drill through the top of a flippac and if I paid for a new one I may not have, but this is one of the reasons I looked so hard for a deal on a decent used one. I really don't see a problem after doing it to this one. There is some space and foam between the inner and outer fiberglass pieces of the lid, with the amount of 5200 I shot in between there and the backing plates this looks like it wont cause any problems even long term. Hope this helped.
Ok Here are pics of what I did. looking from the front you can see that the panel is sitting on two pieces of 1"x3" rectangle aluminum tube that is bolted through the top. There are 6"X6"aluminum backing plates on the inside under the bed pad and no you dont feel them they are 3/16" and bolt heads are counter sunk flush.
The panel itself sits on 4 posts with slide lock clips to locate it and uses 2 southco locking latches to keep it solid and safe.
All connections are 45 amp Anderson Powerpole so everything is easy to reconfigure. You can see for now the panel wires run down my rear light pole and feed in under the window and inside to feed the watt meter and regulator which slip into the mount you can see.
From the watt meter it plugs into the grey box and is fed up to the blue seas box, you can see it in the front left side of the shell and then on to two six volt batterys by # 8 wire
By doing it this way the panel is easy to take off for storage or to use while the top is deployed
I know everyone says dont drill through the top of a flippac and if I paid for a new one I may not have, but this is one of the reasons I looked so hard for a deal on a decent used one. I really don't see a problem after doing it to this one. There is some space and foam between the inner and outer fiberglass pieces of the lid, with the amount of 5200 I shot in between there and the backing plates this looks like it wont cause any problems even long term. Hope this helped.
Anyone else have any ideas how to get the cable through the roof without screwing the roof up
Just ordered one of the last batch of unisolar 68 watt stick-on solar panels. Looks like it will just fit my FWC Finch and I'll run the cables over the front of the cabover and straight down the right windowsill gap of my front windshield to my charge controller and battery under the hood. No drilling required. I'll post once I've gone through the headache of seeing how this works this a.m.
Taking a risk on ordering a warranty-less panel, but at $99 for a drill-less panel mount, I figured it was worth the risk. Check out the deals at:http://www.simpleray.com/UniSolar-ePVL-68-Laminate-Amorphous-Solar-Panel-p/1200-011.htm
-joe D.
GCecchetto
Adventurer
I'm installing 2 68 watt Unisolar panels on the roof of my FWC, that is currently getting a complete expedition ready rebuild. I reccomend them for the following reasons; light weight, very low profile, no glass to break, wiring is the only penetration through the roof, and last and maybe most importantly, while their overall efficiency is not as good as a conventional panel, they have a higher efficiency when in shaded, partially shaded, or inclement weather situations. Partially shading them does not shut the whole panel down. I'm using 2 ePVL-68 panels, their normal max voltage is 15.4 volts, in my dimly lit living room at night with one third of the panel covered I was measuring 4 volts of the panel. I am in no way an expert on solar, but Unisolar is popular in the RV world for these reasons. I have spoken to people saying their Unisolar systems are able to still charge their batteries in pooring rain. Guess I'll be finding out myself soon.
GCecchetto
Adventurer
Well, now that I see Unisolar is potentially gone, I guess I should retract my recommendation. I'm not worried about the warranty issue but it would be bummer if no buyer is found for the company as I think it's a great option for high mobility off road expedition vehicles.
GCecchetto
Adventurer
I would recommend something like this for the roof penetration.
http://http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=35103&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&storeId=11151&storeNum=50523&subdeptNum=50566&classNum=50567#.T9OAktVYukE
Not sure what that says in your mind, 4V will do absolutely nothing for you in terms of charging. The panel needs to put out enough voltage to actually be in a charging range otherwise nothing is going to actually flow to your batteries, more of an FYI in case you didn't realize.
GCecchetto
Adventurer
All it means to me is that in extremely dim lighting, with part of the panel covered, when a conventional panel would be doing nothing it was still producing almost a third of it' normal max voltage. I've talked to people running two of the 136 watt panels that are still getting over 80 watts, which is enough to charge batteries, in pooring rain. This is my last post in this thread as it seams likely to become a flamefest and I've no need for the negativity.
zidaro
Explorer
heres how i mounted mine!
heres page 5 of my build where the solar install starts:
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/43407-NorthstarTC650-n-Tundra/page5
again, flawless so far and i have been flogging it both on dirt and power consumption
But a third of the voltage is still fundamentally nothing when it comes to actually charging the batteries, I do hope you realize that. Watts alone aren't what it takes to charge a battery, watts are comprised of volts X amps. If the volts are not higher than the battery (plus a little more) there will not be any motive force to push any amps into a battery.
No flame fest, I'm just not seeing the value in the examples you're trying to provide. In reality they may not fall off much in real light, I don't know and that would be nice for the user if so.
Actually I was curious so I just googled quick on it, unisolar uses bypass diodes to go around shaded cells so they have better tolerance for shading however the links are saying once you hit 15-20% shading you've essentially lost panel output because the voltage has dropped too much to effectively charge. With a large footprint panel this could be an issue for some users. That's all, know your product and use it appropriately.