Lithium Batteries, who has them?

[Dibsy]

There a camper more on fb there panels are set into the front of there van I asked about heat problems and they said there a new style that heat dosnt hurt . I asked for the supplier and got no reaction

Dibs

[Kappy]

As I'm going to change out my panels to semi flexible 100 watt panels, can anyone suggest a good brand.

I came across these Sunpower brand that my research reveals seem ok.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/100W-12V-FLE ... SwImRYN2hW

Has anyone heard of these?

The 8 eyelet ones like those in the link mounted correctly seem to be as good as they get, but unknown if these panels are from the same factory or another factory knock off. We have been fitting ones that look similar for a while now and they have not been an issue, but how you mount them is critical, get it wrong and the panels fail.
If Vic off Road are willing to give you the 25 yr guarantee in writing I can't see you could loose, the rigid panel manufacturers don't offer anything better at a much higher price, the lower priced panels only carry a 12 mth guarantee at best. The difference between 3.5kg including mounting and Lexan v 13.5kg for the rigid per 100w means you can have almost 4 times as much solar on the roof for the same weight, add the benefits of the Lexan Thermoclear as far as heat insulation and you are way in front.

T1 Terry

Terry I see Vicoffroad offering a 25 year output warranty on a number of panels, including rigid panels.`

Are these Ebay panels as good as more expensive stuff or should one stay clear.

If flexible panels are mounted securely and I don't understand how they could fail, are they not designed to be flat on the roof?

[BruceS]

Kappy if you realise rigid ones have tempered glass faces & flexible can't have glass (they DO flex!), how can it last as long?
As far as I know glass has a very long life unless hit with a hammer!
On the other hand it's hard to place a large number of rigid panels on a curved roof without looking ghastly.

[JohnM]

To my small understanding one of the major advantages of rigid solar panels is that if they are mounted on standoff fixings, they work to some degree as a "tropical roof", That is provide shade to the roof itself, there by making the roof, and therefore, the inside of the vehicle some degrees cooler, whereas flexible panels, fixed directly to the roof would have the opposite effect in that they would transfer the heat straight to the roof, the other problem I c an see, is that the efficiency of the panels has a direct correlation to the heat of the panels. With rigid panels on standoffs the small amount of air flow under the panels most be of some benefit.

[aussiejohnny]

day 3 of running our van completely off this system. still waiting for a sparky to come and hard wire the inverter for me so i can mount it in the cupboard and tidy all my wires up. mount all the gauges and monitors.
16 x 100ah winston cells, 1.2kw of panel, midnite classic 200, projecta 2000w inverter.

hopefully will be passing through mannum on our way to qld from wa to get a t1 control box to make the system idiot (me) proof. haha

so far extremely impressed. day 1 i even ran our split system for 3 hours to try and drop the 1st discharge down as the fridge, lights, tv, computers etc hardly drew anything. it did it with ease.
today is a stinker and i have had the ac on since 10am and my battery has been accepting charge from the solar and gone from 64.4% at 7.30 this morning to 95.6% now at 1.02pm. (i think i have the victron bvm set up right, without large load the cell voltages from the cellog8 match well with what soc % the bvm shows.

16114814_10155168711298646_148192039126226467_n.jpg

thanks to terry for advise you have given me while i was gathering bits etc. hope to see you soon to run over the system and wave a magic wand of goodness.

[BruceS]

Nothing better than a happy camper!!
I can't see clearly in your photo but please make 100% sure you have protection on the top of the battery cells in case something falls on top of them.
If I'm around when you call into Mannum, I'll catch up with you as well!

[aussiejohnny]

yes i'll probably get a piece of perspex to cover it.

8 1/4 hours the split system ran for today, it was a hot day out there. i turned the a/c off where the sun was on a fair angle and i was only down to 128 watts and still had 92.9% charge.

getting about 5-11mv difference between the highest and lowest cell according to the celllog8. i think i have set it up right, still a bit to learn in the fine tuning of the classic 200.

[jon_d]

8 1/4 hours the split system ran for today, it was a hot day out there. i turned the a/c off where the sun was on a fair angle and i was only down to 128 watts and still had 92.9% charge.

The 1.2kw is doing most of the work and powering the split; which is really what you want. The batteries should be the back up when the sun input is low.

[aussiejohnny]

^ yes.

something that crossed my mind last night. can these batteries be held in their upper volatages (even though there is a draw but the solar is keeping them charged) or should i be letting them go down so they actually cycle?

[BruceS]

What I do is if it is a sunny day, let them run down to 30-40 %around lunchtime & then get up to 100% by 6PM or so.
If you have the 'magic box' then don't bother so much. You could still manually cut solar for a few hours before activating it again?
I suggest they'll get a good cycle through the night anyway!!