steveeasy
Well-known member
Been on the interweb all night looking for a flexible 50 watt solar panel. cant find any lensun ones. can anyone recommend something that will last.
Steveeasy
Steveeasy
50 watt solar panels Flexible. which one do you recommend
- Thread starter steveeasy
- Start date
West Coast
Well-known member
50 Watt 12 Volt Flexible Monocrystalline Solar Panel
I bought 2 of these recently Not been used much yet so cannot comment re longevity but seem to be well made and good quality out of the box.
I bought 2 of these recently Not been used much yet so cannot comment re longevity but seem to be well made and good quality out of the box.
Poecheng
Well-known member
I have the same but 100w versions and like it. One particular reason is the solidity of the connector box that anchors the outlet wire to the panel.
I have a number of other-make 50w ones and the connector box has proved to be inadequate with the wires detaching from the panel - twisting off because the wire is not securely held in place.
Baggywrinkle
Well-known member
Had solar on my boat and camper van for a number of years now. My biggest mistake was thinking that "flexible" meant flexible. It doesn't ... it means they can be attached to rigid curved surfaces - just slapping them on top of a bimini resulted in numerous failures of various panels over the years.
I would also recommend ETFE panels which you can walk on. They don't seem to suffer from delamination like some aluminium panels do - this was very noticeable particularly around the fixing eyes of some of my older panels.
Next boat will have an arch with rigid panels and ETFE flexible panels glued to the deck.
My ETFE panels are this type ... very hardwearing and functioning fantastically.
Solar Module Phaesun Mare Flex 55 | Caravan Solar Panel Kits & Chargers
EDIT: accidentally wrote PTFE instead of ETFE ... now corrected.
I would also recommend ETFE panels which you can walk on. They don't seem to suffer from delamination like some aluminium panels do - this was very noticeable particularly around the fixing eyes of some of my older panels.
Next boat will have an arch with rigid panels and ETFE flexible panels glued to the deck.
My ETFE panels are this type ... very hardwearing and functioning fantastically.
Solar Module Phaesun Mare Flex 55 | Caravan Solar Panel Kits & Chargers
EDIT: accidentally wrote PTFE instead of ETFE ... now corrected.
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Bobc
Well-known member
Just make sure you get an ETFE panel.
Snowgoose-1
Well-known member
I notice that some panels have the connector box under the panel. Would seem to make sense re UV damage.
Buck Turgidson
Well-known member
I've just replaced a 110w version of that panel that failed after 1 year despite being hard mounted. My previous 55w panels lasted 6 years. I've decided these things are a consumable.
Baggywrinkle
Well-known member
Some people are just unlucky I guess.
Zing
Well-known member
Is it possible heat could damage them? In a full sun they can get very hot if mounted to a cored deck. I’ve measure them at 78 C. That seems to be asking for trouble. I’m installing some at the moment and am going to try mounting them on 3m plastic strips to allow air to flow behind.
Marceline
Active member
I'm hoping to put one or two flex panels on mine at some point (deck/coachouse)
just checking, how do people attach them (are they lashed down somehow or glued ?)
just checking, how do people attach them (are they lashed down somehow or glued ?)
Pete7
Well-known member
On a 40w Lensun panel I used 6 of those velcro adhesive pads about 40mm in diameter. Worked perfectly all through two winters with storms etc. Shame the Lensun ETFE panel didn't and started delaminating after 6 months around the edges. Fought them for 18m before they capitulated and replaced it with another one.
Baggywrinkle
Well-known member
ETFE has an approximate tensile strength of 42 MPa (6100 psi), with a working temperature range of 89 K to 423 K (−185 °C to +150 °C or −300 °F to +300 °F).
ETFE - Wikipedia
The ETFE won't be a problem, but the Phaesun panels are rated in their data sheet for operating temperature from -40°C to +80°C
Zing
Well-known member
I don’t think the absolute temperature is likely to be the failure point, rather it will be from the relative thermal expansion rates of the various components experienced frequently and causing repeated high stresses to be imparted on the components. In the Med you might see say 80 deg C on the panel at midday, going down to maybe a dawn temperature of 10 deg C whilst evaporating the night dew. It can be a huge daily range. I haven’t looked the individual components up, but plastic and silicon are very far apart, by about a factor of ten. An air suspended hard panel is likely to experience much lower extremes of differential thermal expansion - the air contact will ensure exposure to lower temperature ranges in the first place and secondly they are all glass essentially, so made of materials of similar thermal expansion rates. Maybe 20 times less thermal expansion stress.
lustyd
Well-known member
ETFE was introduced because it doesn't suffer from such things so while it's interesting to debate thermal expansion, it's unnecessary since it was specced in order to prevent that. I assume it's squidgey enough to allow expansion of the silicon bits, but all we need to know is that it doesn't matter since ETFE has been proven to cope just fine.
Zing
Well-known member
Even ETFE panels are considerably less reliable than glass panels, although they are indeed better than other flexible panels, so you are wrong to say the problem has been fixed. By the way, it is the plastic components that expand the most, not the silicon bits.
lustyd
Well-known member
Do you have some info on failure rates? I've yet to see someone with a broken or cloudy ETFE panel used in an appropriate way
Zing
Well-known member
No, I personally don't collate such data and I doubt you will find anyone that does, but I know plenty of people who have had failures. There are two failures separately reported only a few posts above in this short thread.
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Trident
Well-known member
The Renogy in the first link are great - I've fitted literally hundreds over the last few years in all sizes and never had an issue and they perform really well
lustyd
Well-known member
Anecdotes from unreliable sources aren’t ideal, most wouldn’t know whether they have ETFE or not, and a large number of people have a weird vendetta against flexi panels so there’s a lot of FUD and misinformation thrown about on these kinds of threads.
I’ll take that as a no and carry on using my ETFE panels happily.
Buck Turgidson
Well-known member
I can reliably tell you I know exactly what it was made from and what I did and what it's output was 6 months later and the cost of the battery and new panels that I had to buy as replacements. If you want more "anecdotes" I've got plenty. Mostly systems engineering related as that's been a major part of my career for over 30 years.
