Mono vs Poly vs Flexible Solar Panel Series vs Parallel Wiring
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Hello everybody Michael here would do it justice and welcome to the next video in our DIY
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solar power series as you see me discuss in the last two videos I’ve talked about questions you need to consider if you’re
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asking yourself is solar right for me I’ve also talked about how to properly sized your solar power system and in the
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next four videos I’m going to discuss the four major components of the solar power system and today I’m starting with
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the solar panels as far as what I’m gonna discuss when it comes to solar panels I’m going to talk about the
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difference between monocrystalline and polycrystalline which are the tried-and-true
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hard framed solar panels I’m also going to talk about the difference between those traditional panels and the newer
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flexible thin film panels and the last thing I’m going to talk about is how to wire your solar panels whether you
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should wire them in series and parallel and some advantages and disadvantages of each of those options so let’s jump
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right into monocrystalline versus polycrystalline the major differences between these panels are going to be the
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durability and looks the efficiency and the size as well as the cost per watt when it comes to durability both of
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these panels are extremely durable they have an aluminum frame with a tempered glass top to cover all of the solar
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cells that produce the energy manufacturers generally cover these panels for about 25 years which is
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actually quite a long time when it comes to product warranties now when it comes to whether these panels are extremely
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resistant to all types of weather including high winds and even medium sized hail the general rule of thumb is
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if the weather can damage your roof it can damage your panel okay now let’s talk about the efficiency and size of
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each of these panels monocrystalline panels are made with a higher grade of silicone so generally they are slightly
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more efficient than the polycrystalline panels now what I’m talking about efficiency I’m talking about the
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percentage of energy that is converted into electricity so when it comes to monocrystalline panels on the high end
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it’s about 20% and when it comes to polycrystalline panels on the high end it’s about 17% or
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because monocrystalline panels are slightly more efficient that means that their footprint is just slightly smaller
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than a polycrystalline panel so if you have a 150 watt monocrystalline panel compared to a 150 watt polycrystalline
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panel the monocrystalline panel is just going to be slightly smaller in dimensions won’t take up quite as much
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room as that polycrystalline panel now I’m going to discuss the cost per watt for each of these panels and in general
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they are around the same but because monocrystalline panels are produced with a higher grade of silicon that in turn
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means the manufacturing process is slightly more expensive which then makes the consumer have to pay a little bit
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more for those products in general three years ago when we bought our monocrystalline panels it was really
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good if you could get a panel for about $8 per watt but as time has gone on and as demand for solar has increased those
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costs have gone down so you should easily be able to find both a mono crystalline and a polycrystalline a
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really high efficiency panel for about Oh 82 90 cents per watt now I’m going to discuss the differences between those
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traditional panels that I just discussed and the newer flexible thin film solar panels and again I’m going to talk about
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the durability and looks the efficiency and the size and the cost per watt so when it comes to durability the tempered
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glass old-school panels are as I said really really durable but when it comes to the flexible panels they are not as
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durable there are issues like cupping scratches micro scratches as well as tears that can happen to the solar cells
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because they don’t have the tempered glass protection on the top of them another thing that they don’t have is a
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25 year manufacturer’s warranty generally they come with about a 10 year warranty because the manufacturers don’t
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anticipate them lasting you that long now I could go into a bunch of different issues with these flexible panels when
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it comes to durability but gone with the winds have created a really well put together video that discuss all of these
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issues and I’m gonna link that video in the video description below so go check that out and that’s going to give you a
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really good idea how durable these flexible panels are okay now let’s talk about the efficiency
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and the size when it comes to efficiency these flexible panels are not as efficient as the old-school panels so on
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a high end or the average for these flexible panels is about 13% efficiency and that is not very good when you
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compare it to the sixteen to seventeen percent of the polycrystalline and the almost 20% of the mono crystalline so
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again the difference in efficiency is going to make you have to buy more panels or each panel is going to be
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larger in size it’s gonna have a bigger footprint bigger surface area to produce the same amount of energy so now let’s
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talk about the size between the two panels the traditional panels are significantly bulkier and heavier than
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the flexible panels obviously that’s one of the major advantages that the flexible panels have over the
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traditional ones and when it comes to it just to give you an example our 150 watt panels that we have on our RV are 25
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pounds and they are about three to four inches thick to give you a comparison you can get a thin film flexible panel a
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150 watt panel that might be eight pounds and about an half an inch thick so that’s a significant difference so if
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portability is a huge factor in your decision definitely go with flexible over the hard panels now I’m going to
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talk about the cost differences between the traditional panels and the flexible panels and as you know the traditional
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panels will run you anywhere from 80 to 90 cents per watt for a decent quality panel and I did a quick search online to
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check the prices of the flexible panels and on eBay I found a 150 watt panel for about $190 that will run you about a
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dollar 30 per watt which is a little bit more expensive not too bad but a pretty significant amount more than the
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traditional panels now since we’re talking about efficiency and cost of the flexible panels I should talk about an
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anomaly in all of this and that’s so bein brand flexible panels they just came out with the most efficient solar
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panels ever made and they are 22 and 1/2 percent efficient they our flexible panels so that’s really an
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amazing accomplishment but the only thing is is they’re gonna run you an arm and a leg they cost about $10 per watt
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that’s over ten times the amount for any other solar panel that you can look for and yeah if you have healthy pocketbooks
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definitely go for that option but when it comes to just a standard flexible and traditional panels traditional panels
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went out when it comes to costs all right guys now we’re gonna jump into the final topic and that has to do with
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wiring solar panels in series and/or parallel now this topic can be extremely confusing and my goal with this little
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section is to try to make it as clear and easy to understand as possible Before we jump into it I want to refresh
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our minds on the relationship between watts volts and amps as you may remember from the previous video we discussed how
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watts is equal to volts times amps this equation is going to be very important as we go through our scenarios today so
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when I Ellis traits how to wire in both series in parallel I’m gonna use our personal system as a reference to
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illustrate those concepts so we have 4 150 watt panels for a total of a 600 watt solar array so we know we have 150
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watt panels at 17.5 volts and that gives us about 8.6 amps of current on each of those panels now the first thing I’m
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going to talk about is wiring them in series so when you’re thinking about wiring your panels in series you need to
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think of the panels as being tied into a string you’re taking each one of these 150 watt panels and you are marrying
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them or combining them into a singular 600 watt panel and this is in an electrical sense not in a physical sense
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obviously they’re going to remain four separate panels but in an electrical sense you’re going to be wiring them
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into a single 600 watt panel now let me talk about what changes with the solar array when you do that so when you’re
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wiring all of these panels to gather you’re going to take the positive line on one panel wire it to the
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negative line on another take that positive line wire it to the next native line and so on and so forth and so what
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you’re left with is like I said a singular 600 watt panel that has a single negative wire coming out of it
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and a single positive wire coming out of it what changes when you do this process is the voltage of your system what you
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need to remember is when you wire things in series the only thing that changes with the system is the voltage so when
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you’re wiring for 150 watt 17.5 Volt panels together you’re gonna take that 17.5 volts and multiply that by 4 which
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will give you 70 volts so now you have a 600 watt panel that is 70 volts and if you reference that equation that we just
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talked about Watts equals volts times amps you have your watts which is 600 you have your bolts which is 70 but you
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don’t have your amps so to solve that equation very easily you just take the Watts 600 divided by 70 which is your
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volts and that gives you eight point six amps so you’ll notice when wiring it in series the only thing that changes is
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your voltage you have a 600 watt system at 70 volts and 8.6 amps okay now that series is done let’s talk about wiring
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them in parallel so when you’re wiring the solar panels in parallel it is almost the exact opposite it actually is
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the exact opposite each of those panels each of those 150 watt panels are going to remain separate panels they’re going
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to be individual panels producing individual amounts of energy at 17.5 volts the only thing that’s going to
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change when you wire all of these in parallel meaning a positive and negative line comes out of one a positive
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negative line comes out of the next one and so on and so forth none of them are connected together the
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only thing that changes is the amps of your solar array so you still have a 600 watt solar array at 17.5
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and again let’s go back to our Watts equals volts times amps equation and if we need to find the amps for that system
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wired in parallel you take the 600 Watts and you divide that by 17.5 volts and that gives you thirty-four point four
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amps now that thirty-four point four is as you might have guessed eight point six amps from each panel multiplied by
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four because we have four panels so eight point six times four gives you thirty four point four amps so the only
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thing that changes when you’re wiring a solar system in parallel is the amps you’re quadrupling the amps okay now
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that we understand how to wire in both series and parallel what you need to do is figure out what the advantages and
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disadvantages are between those now I’m gonna tell you the three major advantages and disadvantages between
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those two types of wiring configurations and it has to do with wire sizing shading issues and the charge controller
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size as far as wire sizing is concerned if you don’t know already wire size is strictly correlated with the amount of
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amps running through that wire so each wire is rated for a specific amount of amps or current flowing through it so
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the smaller the amount of amps the smaller the size of wires so you’ll remember that our 600 watt panels wired
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in series was 70 volts at 8.6 amps and that our 600 watt panels wired in parallel was 17.5 volts in 34.4 amps now
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the ones wired in series are going to be much smaller wires coming off those solar panels than the ones wired in
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parallel now when it comes to shading that’s where the advantages and disadvantages switch the wiring it in
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parallel is a major advantage when it comes to shading and I’ll explain to you why because remember how earlier when I
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was talking about wiring them in series you’re marrying them all together so it’s a singular unit all those panels
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are working together to produce that energy now when one of those solar panels is shaded the
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entire unit goes down and this has to do with the fact that this is how solar panels work if you have a single 150
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watt solar panel and that solar panel is shaded that panel stops producing energy the only reason the entire system goes
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down when you’re wired in series is because you’ve wired them all together so each one depends on the other now the
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reason it’s the advantage when it comes to wiring them in parallel is because all of those panels are individual
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panels so if one panel gets shaded you’re only down 25% of your solar array so three of your four panels can still
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produce energy the last thing I’m going to talk about is the size of the charge controller if you remember when I was
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talking about how to properly size your system there was that solar calculator well when you think about the amperage
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coming from the solar panels when you wire it in series and the amperage coming from the solar panels when you
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wire them in parallel it’s a major difference there are much more amps coming from the solar panels wired in
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parallel versus the solar panels wired in series so the requirements for your charge controller are going to be much
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higher the higher the amps are so a solar array wired in parallel will need a much bigger charge controller than a
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solar array wired in series okay guys I hope that wasn’t that confusing and not to muddy the waters anymore but there is
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a third option that you can do when wiring in series like I said and/or parallel you could wire them in series
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and parallel meaning if we took two 150 watt panels and another two 150 watt panels and we wired those together in
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series you would have two 300 watt 24 Volt panels because we know that wiring the mid series doubles the voltage and
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then you would take both of those 300 watt 24 Volt panels and you would wire them down in parallel and as you know
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with wiring them in parallel we’re going to double our amperage so the specs for that system would be 600 watts at 35
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volts and 17.2 amps my brain is fried okay guys that is a third option but it kind of blends the
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best of both worlds for both series and parallel and obviously I just used this one particular illustration as an
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example to explain these concepts to you of course you can change the size of your solar array you can change the
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number of panels you can change all of that so remember when I said solar was
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virtually limitless this is exactly what I mean it is very confusing but once you understand all the concepts you’ll
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realize how things kind of intertwine together and it’ll start to make a lot more sense to you so if this video
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doesn’t make sense to you right now I encourage you to go out and do more research so that you can come back and
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watch this video and really digest what I’m saying in it by the way guys if you’re curious how I personally wired
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our solar panels I will be discussing this in a future video when I take you guys on a complete walkthrough of our
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personal 600 watt system on our RV and I will discuss all of the thoughts and considerations that went into place when
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I was going to wire my solar panels anyway guys I hope you enjoyed this video if you did and potentially learn
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something along the way hit that like button down below it lets both Jenni and I as well as YouTube know that we’re
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producing quality content and if you have any questions on this topic hit me up in the comments below I’m gonna do my
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best to answer as many questions as I can and if you guys know the answers please do me a favor and help answer
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those questions in the in the comments section below and as always guys I will see you on the next video
