Flexible or rigid

[Molly 3]

Flexible or rigid

Their seems to be a lot of prematurely failing of flexible solar panels, has any members had more than a couple of years service ,have you regretted going flexible .or have been Happy with them ,any comments .

 

[Mr and Mrs Tupcox]

I talked to a rep at Peterborough show for a company that make flexible panels .
He said they will last as long as framed ones .
but people install then wrong. Lines of mastic so no trapped air under panel .not a total seal around panel.

I fitted 2 flexi panels last week for a friend 2x100 w.
worked fine .
to be honest I would only fit framed ones for my self .

 

[alwaysared]

I have one of these panels, seems okay to me, I basically wanted to save the weight and did a lot of research and I believe that the technology has moved on now, Phototonic guarantee that this panel wil still produce 90% of it's power after ten years so if it lasts ten years I'll be happy. The other thing I found out was that you need to get a good controller. Hope this helps.

Regards,
Del

 

[Trek]

I bought a 70watt flexible panel from a south wales manufacturer

it started to be temperamental in that it would always work first thing in the morning but by mid day it would pack in


took it back to manufacturers who examined it ( stuck onto roof of camper with sikflex) with a magnifying microscope connected to a laptop and found hairline cracks inthe silver tracks that connect each cell together , they said that they had noticed an issue with supplier who made this material and had changed it

as panel warmed up so gap opened up in crack

so they gave me another which i stuck directly ontop of the old one, that failed same way so i was given a third one ( pealed 2nd one off stuck 3rd ontop of 1st )

guess what that failed by now manufacturer didnt want to know


so i had 3 flexible panels fail and all in about 7 years


now replaced with a 100watt rigid framed back contact panel from photonic universe

Fingers crossed !

 

[terry4156]

I fitted 1 100w panel on last van was of the framed type sold to a friend 7 years ago still ok latest van I fitted 2 x 100w framed panels now 6 years old and no problems problem is to make sure framed panel is raised off roof to alow air flow beneath as can overheat

 

[Caz]

Don't want to tempt fate but mine is a flexible one - a framed one would have made the roof too heavy for me to push up - and it's still working fine, fitted over 2 years ago.

 

[nabsim]

I bought a 70watt flexible panel from a south wales manufacturer

it started to be temperamental in that it would always work first thing in the morning but by mid day it would pack in


took it back to manufacturers who examined it ( stuck onto roof of camper with sikflex) with a magnifying microscope connected to a laptop and found hairline cracks inthe silver tracks that connect each cell together , they said that they had noticed an issue with supplier who made this material and had changed it

as panel warmed up so gap opened up in crack

so they gave me another which i stuck directly ontop of the old one, that failed same way so i was given a third one ( pealed 2nd one off stuck 3rd ontop of 1st )

guess what that failed by now manufacturer didnt want to know


so i had 3 flexible panels fail and all in about 7 years


now replaced with a 100watt rigid framed back contact panel from photonic universe

Fingers crossed !

It wasn’t just batteries had topped up so nothing showing coming in was it? Mine were full at 10 this morning as we hardly used anything last night

 

[Trek]

I wish it was just because the batteries where at 100% No these panels all failed and the batteries ran down and the panels were not charging once they had heated up enough for the cracks in the tracks to open up