Flexible Solar Panels – What To Look For
Hey guys, you know when I first got an RV, you know I always thought that putting solar power solar panels on the RV was something that I was going to do and when I finally got around to it, I did some research and then I heard about Flexible solar panels – and I thought oh yeah – that’s.
What I’m gonna do that was so cool. You could actually walk on them. They don’t really take up any. You know usable space on your roof. My options were kind of limited at the time this is about four years ago, and really the only thing that I could find that was good.
Were these panels that I got from unis solar. They’re different from your typical solar panel that you would see they came in a roll and there was a. It was a thin film style panel and they had a sticky side and you would basically roll them out and stick them to the roof of your RV.
So I thought I’d, go through some of the options available in the flexible, solar panels that are out there today and, and especially the ones some of the ones that I’ve used, and to give you some idea of some Of the things that you might want to look at thickness power, generating capability type of solar cell, they’re using type of cabling, a surface material, material, bypass diodes, grommets price and warranty.
You know, maybe some of this information will be useful and help you when you’re, looking for a flexible solar panel for your RV or van or travel trailer or whatever, but let’s. Go through it. You know there’s, a lot of companies out there selling these a lot of them from China or some us.
You know some Europe or India. You know who knows where they’re from, but they all seem to start looking alike. You know if you do a search on Amazon for hunter. What’s? Flexible solar panel? You might see companies pop up like HQ st normally, i think their energy flexible panel, greece, sonic, king soul or sun de lis.
All powers go power has always been out there. Soooo key lens sun is also another one that is popped up recently, but they all kind of start to look alike. You know like here’s, three different ones here and they all kind of look similar.
They are roughly the same size as you would see in a 100 watt standard, rigid solar panel, and the reason for that is because they are using the same high-efficiency monocrystalline, solar cells, that you would see in those standard panels.
Now each one of these cells here puts out a little over half of a volt of electricity and about 3.1, something watts. So when you add all these together, these are all hooked up in series that all adds up to about between 18 and 20 volts per panel and around 100 watt, so that’s, where your 100 watt panel comes from now.
These are monocrystalline solar cells and monocrystalline cells are the highest efficient, most efficient solar cells and most of these panels they have they’re using what’s called back contact solar cells.
So you don’t, see the tabbing strips that you would see on some of the other panels that are like wires that go across the solar cells. So all of the wiring for the solar cell for the positive and the negative are all on the back of the cells, so that’s.
A nice feature now for some of the vendors. You know you really don’t know what type of solar cell that they’re using in their panel, some of them advertise the type of solar cell. They’re, using, for example, these lens Sun solar panels.
Here they’re using SunPower solar cells, so those are from a known entity, SunPower and those are right. Now they’re, the kind of the most efficient ones. However, from HQ SG here they don’t advertise.
The type of solar cell they’re using, but I found that the performances is the same, so they’re, probably just as good, but so that’s. Another thing to look at is if they’re. If the vendor is actually advertising the type of solar cell that they’re using in their pad, so another thing to look at, of course, is the panel’s, power generating capability and what level of solar power does it generate? And for a hundred watt panel like this, they typically put out about five point: six to five point: eight amps and they generally for a 12-volt panel like this.
They’ll generally produce about at a level about 18 volts to 20 to 21 volts. So that’s, what you would see in a hundred watt panel, that’s, designed for a twelve volt system. Now that’s typical for a 100 watt panel and I’ve, seen other panels kind of pop up recently, one company called gree sonic, I believe, offers a hundred and fifty watt flexible solar panel.
So it’s similar to this, except it’s, a little bigger and it & # 39. S got probably another 16 solar cells on there. So the output of the hundred fifty watt panel is going to be a little bit higher and those I’ve, seen both in a 24 volt setup and in a 12 volt so really depends on how they organize the cells and what parts they Put in parallel verses series, but I’m, not going to go into that right now.
Now the output specifications for all of these panels is usually on the back. So when you get a solar panel, there are is a little sticker on the back. That will specify you know what the standard current output is and voltage in what they call standard under standard test condition.
So, given that you know it’s really hard to kind of replicate, perfect environment and sunny conditions all the time, you know you’re, not going to always get the the perfect output the highest level output from these panels.
Sometimes you do, but it really depends on. You know how the Sun is hitting the panel at the time. Now I’ve tested all of these and they all perform at about the same level. Now fewer the things to consider when you’re.
Selecting a panel is the type of cabling for one most will have mc4 connectors on them that come out of this junction box and the mc4 connectors will allow you to connect other panels and other solar components.
Now the amount of cable is going to vary. These HQ st panels came with about 10 inches of cable on either side. So if you’re going to wire it to something that’s further away, you’re going to need to buy some extensions.
These lengths on panels, on the other hand, have about five feet of cable with the mc4 connectors on them. So you know if you’re wearing panels close to each other. You know this is probably too much, but if you’re, you know going a distance that’s, probably fine, also inside the the junction box.
Here you know you want them to make sure that there is a bypass diodes. Now the bypass diodes are just a really inexpensive piece, but their function is to basically have the current bypass this panel.
If there’s any excessive shading or anything that would decrease the performance of this panel and not affect the rest of the solar array, so in those instances you know the pet, the current would just pass through and not get drawn down because of Any shading or things going on on one given panel now also.
Finally, there’s, a these flexible solar panels or mountable in a number of ways, but most of them have these grommets on them. If you & # 39, ll notice that the for this particular HQs T panel, it has a grommet here.
It has one in the middle. It has one on the bottom, so it has six total, so three on either side. Whereas a you know this, one from lens son has only four says one here: one here and there’s, nothing in the middle and there’s, one on the other corners.
So so that might be an issue if you, depending upon how you want to install and mount your panels, is how many grommets they have now. The surface material used on some of the panels is something to take a look at as well.
Now most of the panels you’ll, see now and probably in the last couple years, are going to look like this. They kind of a nice white laminate on the back and kind of a clear, shiny, laminate material on the front, and you know this is the kind I have installed right now and this one is from HQ ST and it’s a good panel.
Some of the downsides of these is that they tend to scratch a little bit and you know they don’t affect the performance at all, but if you’re kind of OCD about scratches something to consider but a good panel, some Of the cool features that I’ve seen lately, I’ve, had a chance to look at these panels that are sent to me from lens son to take a look at, and they have a different kind of coating to them, which Is something I’m kind of excited about it’s, not like the shiny finish, if you think of it like a photograph.
This is like the gloss, and these are kind of a matte finish and they have a they’re kind of a rubberized surface. You can see if you look at them closer kind of pitted a little bit. Give you a little bit of traction.
If you have to walk on them and they really kind of feel rugged, they don’t scratch and they’re easier to clean and they look like they’re, going to really stand up long-term. I like them, because they’re very similar to the surface that I had on my or I have on the you know, solar panels that I have, but so I think the lens son and the other one greased sonic has panels with this surface.
On I think it’s called the ETFE material that they have laminated on the front of these panels. No, the backing material is also something to take into account. For example, this lens on panel has a fiberglass backing on it, and this other lens on panel here has an aluminum backing to it, and it still has a layer of that.
You TFE material on it, but it is aluminum backing and that’s kind of different, something you haven’t really seen the reason for it. I think for the aluminum is you know they say it’s? It’s, going to help dissipate some of the heat generated by the solar cells, and you know dissipate it through that metallic backing.
Probably work really well. If you mounted on a like on a van or some sort of metal surface, you know where you can kind of use the surface of of that. You know car van to help dissipate the heat kind of like a giant heatsink, but that’s.
The reason for the aluminum backing fiberglass backing is just really similar to this. They’re all about the same thickness but different things. To consider now, the last two things to consider when you’re shopping for flexible solar panels.
I guess, like any other solar panel, is going to be price and warranty. They generally run these flexible panels. They generally range between 100 and 80 dollars through all the way up to like four hundred and eighty dollars.
You know the lower end less expensive ones like this. One, for example, is about $ 180. I think on Amazon, the lens son ones here go for about. You know, 260 to 280 dollars, apiece and all the way up to Seiko power.
You know which is kind of the high end in price all the way up to like four hundred and fifty four hundred sixty dollars for a hundred watt solar panel. So take that into consideration. You know how much money do you want to spend? You know? Maybe you’re getting a lesser panel.
I don’t know I mean, maybe not so in regards to warranty. You know if you’re buying, you’re spending, a lot of money on a flexible solar panel. You know and something goes wrong and it doesn’t perform or something goes bad with it.
You know what do you do a lot of these? They offer a warranty for maybe a two year. All the way up to, I think, go power and they offers like a 10 year warranty on their solar panels, so that’s good. If you need to ship it back and get a replacement, something that considers a lot of these are coming from China so or overseas somewhere.
So if you have to deal with a warranty issue, a part of that challenge might be that you have to ship it back at your own expense and that could be shipping it to China. Some of these, like the lens on panels, they do ship from the US, so they have supply in the US and the UK.
So your your you’re, not getting the panel from China, so these arrived in about a week, so that was actually surprising for me. So take that into account when you’re, selecting a flexible solar panel, you know how much do you want to spend? How many panels do you need and what happens if you need to ship it back? Having said that kind of my philosophy for some of these, as I kind of went more on the low end and when I install them, I don’t, install them in a real permanent way.
I always install them on the roof so that I could go bad. I can simply remove it and swap it out with another one, so that’s kind of my approach, your approach might be different. I hope I’ve. Given you a few things to think about, especially if you’re in the market, I just want to know more about flexible solar panels, and you know it’s really difficult to say, hey this one’s better than That one and it’s, the one you should buy.
They’re all somewhat similar, but there are some variations that I wanted. That’s. Why? I wanted to make this video and point some of those things out to you now. I look forward to hearing reading some of your comments.
If you have specific experience with some of these different solar panels and others that that we all might want to know about now, I’ve, made several videos about my particular solar, install that I’ll, go ahead and post adding to It over the last few years – and I also did a review of these uh lens son, flexible panels here recently – that I’ll, also link to but hey.
If you’re new subscribe, and otherwise I will see you guys in the next video take care.
