Tilting Solar Panel Install
Posted: Sun Jan 03, 2010 2:38 pmI recently found a great deal on a 135W solar panel from these guys:
Northern Arizona Wind & Sun
It's a Kyocera, which is the same brand I had on the teardrop. They have good quality panels that match their published performance specs. It costs the same as the 85W I bought 4 years ago (Moore's law?). It was the largest panel I could find that could be shipped by UPS instead of by freight ($150 to my house was the cheapest freight I had been quoted!!!). Its been sitting in the garage for awhile and I finally installed it on our trailer over the weekend. Since there's quite a bit of performance to be gained by tilting the panel, I came up with a tilting mount using 4 pieces of aluminum angle and two pieces of flat stock. Clears the garage door with an inch to spare...
Here it is in the down position for travel. The panel is about an inch above the roof, which is important when using in the down position. Panel output drops with higher temperature so you need space for air to circulate around the panel.
Here is it in the tilted position:
I used 1/4" cotterless hitch pins to hold it in the tilted position as well as to hold it flat during travel. I put the hinge at the front so it couldn't blow up during travel if I forget to put the pins back in or they come out.
This panel has reinforced ends so I couldn't drill through the ends like I did on the 85W panel. I bolted aluminum angle to the long sides instead.
Here's the hinge where it tilts. It's screwed into a spar so its pretty stout. I really struggled with drilling a hole in my roof. Hope it doesn't leak
I couldn't bring myself to make a hole in the roof while I was building so I brought the solar wiring in through the side of the camper. I still have to seal it up with pucky or something to keep the water out. I only had some red split loom hanging around so I'll probably change that to black sometime. I'll need to tape it to the roof or something to keep it from flapping in the wind.
Does it work? The voltmeter says its charging, even on a cloudy day:
The panel is 59" long by 26" wide. Its probably overkill capacity but since the new trailer has a diesel furnace that will run all night, I wanted to make sure I had enough to keep up with the increased battery demand. Now I need to figure out how to get on the roof to tilt it without a ladder.
Bruce
Northern Arizona Wind & Sun
It's a Kyocera, which is the same brand I had on the teardrop. They have good quality panels that match their published performance specs. It costs the same as the 85W I bought 4 years ago (Moore's law?). It was the largest panel I could find that could be shipped by UPS instead of by freight ($150 to my house was the cheapest freight I had been quoted!!!). Its been sitting in the garage for awhile and I finally installed it on our trailer over the weekend. Since there's quite a bit of performance to be gained by tilting the panel, I came up with a tilting mount using 4 pieces of aluminum angle and two pieces of flat stock. Clears the garage door with an inch to spare...
Here it is in the down position for travel. The panel is about an inch above the roof, which is important when using in the down position. Panel output drops with higher temperature so you need space for air to circulate around the panel.
Here is it in the tilted position:
I used 1/4" cotterless hitch pins to hold it in the tilted position as well as to hold it flat during travel. I put the hinge at the front so it couldn't blow up during travel if I forget to put the pins back in or they come out.
This panel has reinforced ends so I couldn't drill through the ends like I did on the 85W panel. I bolted aluminum angle to the long sides instead.
Here's the hinge where it tilts. It's screwed into a spar so its pretty stout. I really struggled with drilling a hole in my roof. Hope it doesn't leak
I couldn't bring myself to make a hole in the roof while I was building so I brought the solar wiring in through the side of the camper. I still have to seal it up with pucky or something to keep the water out. I only had some red split loom hanging around so I'll probably change that to black sometime. I'll need to tape it to the roof or something to keep it from flapping in the wind.
Does it work? The voltmeter says its charging, even on a cloudy day:
The panel is 59" long by 26" wide. Its probably overkill capacity but since the new trailer has a diesel furnace that will run all night, I wanted to make sure I had enough to keep up with the increased battery demand. Now I need to figure out how to get on the roof to tilt it without a ladder.
Bruce
