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Flexible solar panels


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Go Flex are the ones I have.... and I paid quite a bit less than noted above, a lot less. They were a lot more than all others but on sussing the level of trust in the manufacture was far higher and for my application trust is very important.

 

 

Bugger, should have said "I know KM, give me a discount"!

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The other day I had one lying on the kitchen bench not in direct sun away from any windows and the meter was reading 18.8V. Not sure if that means anything but I thought I should like that.

Nope. For this scientific demonstration, you will need a Vacuum cleaner (ask wife ;-) and Multimeter.

Take the Vaccy's plug to the wall socket, but do not plug it in. Take the multimeter set to Volts and poke the leads into the wall socket and measure the Voltage. It should hopefully read somewhere around 230V. When you do that, does the Vaccy run??? Nope!

The same thing can be done by pluging in the vaccy but not sitching it on and measuring the Voltage in a strategic place, but much easier and safer doing it the way described above ;-)

 

In a nutshell, the Panels all have an open circuit voltage. It's easy to produce a Volatage, but to "do work" you need current as well and the Panel would not be producing any current. So if you could plug the panel in to something, it would not drive the something very well or at all.

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Was at Westhaven yday by coincidence. so we went to Beacon Marine. Seems like a good product, guy there was knowledgeable and easy to talk to, but they are eye wateringly expensive.

Good news is his figures on performance were way ahead of what i had been calculating. No brainer now to go solar.

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Burnscoe have a 130w semi flexible and mppt controller for $449  100w setup is $349, any thoughts on the panel itself?

 

http://www.burnsco.co.nz/shop/rv/electrical-lighting/flexible-solar-panel-130w

 

 

I bought a 30watt v version of that one to keep the battery in the Dragon topped up while on the marina for the few months it's there. It only runs an automatic bilge pump.

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I paid $275 (including shipping) for my semi flexible 100W solar panel about 18 months ago and it was distributed from NZ.  I only use it as a nice to have and am not relying on it for anything important.  It's still working fine.

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Buying on price is, can be, false economy.

 

About 6-7 years ago me and D1 built a eco micro dwelling that is solar powered. I had a BP made panel of unknown age and I brought 2 more, which was done based on cheap, not the cheapest but they were still at the cheaper end of the spectrum. All were installed the same way and get washed every few months etc. Their life would be pampered compared to one uses on boats.

 

The BP panel still looks identical to the day we put it up and is going great guns. The other to have lots of signs they are not long for this world and their output is down a fair bit, I suspect the cells are backing up and in a variable manner i.e. some are OK and some are not.

 

Hence when I brought the panels for my boat I went top end. But then they are also very mission critical so not a situation to skimp in.

 

Did you ever use that Maxon 12v - 240v inverter with this setup?

I ended up giving them all away and never kept one for myself hence I'm interested to know if it was any good?

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Another thing that sets panels apart is the clear covering. Cheap panels can use a clear acrylic, the better clear glass but even though it looks clear to our eyes, apparently not so to the Light Bugs. Apparently some just bounce off instead of through. You will usually see in specs of the more expensive panels, a figure that relates to light transmission through the covering. This goes hand in hand with the fact that many of the more expensive panels also work in a wider bandwidth of light and the two extreme ends of the light they can use tend to get reflected of the cover rather than transmitted through it.

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I have been going through old threads with particular reference to Flexible Solar Panels. There is so much negativity around flexible panels and I understand that there have been some very poorly manufactured cheap panels that have justified this reaction. Clearly Solbian have been setting the standard at the premium end and unashmedley, with a price to match. I am sure there must be some other brands with good experience and a track record to challenge them, but the difficulty is how to sort out which ones. I would be interested in any feedback from those who have been running flexible solar panels for a while and what brands they have used.  Do they appear to be holding up to the UV??  Any drop off in output??  I dropped in to Enertec this week and had a look at their 3rd generation "Juice" panels which have a more UV stable outer skin, instigated from earlier iterations not going the distance. 

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I've used multiple brands. The best was uni-solar, did 10years. Unfortunately they no longer make panels small enough for a yacht.

Several Chinese panels, 1-2.5 years. I've done a few Juice panels as well, wont be doing more, failure rate too high. I have no recommendations right now, but would like to find something not cost prohibitive- like solbian.

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bought 2x Goflex from Beacon about 3yrs ago and they are dieing rapidly. Each year the performance drops off. I reckon by next year (4) they’ll be next to useless. I was told at the time that the extra price of the premium flexible brands doesn’t but you more power but more lifespan. Regardless, I’d never buy flexible again.

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