installing solar power in a westy

[badgerfax]

Just adding my recent solar install

Stuck mine on with strips of 3M VHB double sided tape. 6 metres, 2 rolls for £6.10 delivered


To provide mechanical fixing I swapped out one of the skylight bolts. Bedded in with plumbers mait.


Edged panel with low modulus silicone


Decided on this cover for the hole, & mounted on the side, which fortunately allows me under the height bar at the tip!


Fixed with sikaflex, Cables not pretty tho


The Cables are hot glued in the ridge on the underside of the roof, down to the hinge. I had to bend the metal strip that holds the canvas (which I replaced at the same time)


I fitted the charge controller in the wardrobe, its pretty ugly & I did'nt want it on show. Bloody fiddly tho.


Sacrilege! I cut a hole in the westy cupboards. Did not like the bulky back box.


4 x 4 mm double insulated cables are fused at both ends. As others have done I routed over the water tank into the next cupboard, then behind panel past fridge & to emerge under sink and then to leisure battery compartment. The leads to the main battery then route under the cab floor in sleeving and pop up in the main battery compartment.

[danmetallic]

Recently completed a solar installation on our Westy. Please find some photos below. Will fill in details later.

[LeeME3]

Apologies for the thread resurrection but I've contributed to this one in the past and have a little update I thought worth sharing. I have 2 Biard semi-flexible panels of 100W each bonded to the roof of my Westy pop top and have been pleased with the set up for a few years now - to the point where 'it just works' so I've stopped even looking at the info on the charge controller all the time! However, noticed recently my fridge (Waeco CR50) was going into low-voltage mode a lot sooner than usual. Part of the issue is that I need to uprate the fridge wiring (a known issue on these fridges by the way) but on looking at the solar charge controller my panel output appeared to be zero! I then checked all along the connections with a quality multi-meter eventually getting back to the panels themselves whereupon I found absolutely no output from either panel, either directly off the panel or at the junction box. So, it appears that both panels are faulty.

There is some internet chat that these panels get hot and fail due to lack of air gap but we've not exactly had scorching summers over the past few years so if they really are dead I'll be rather disappointed. I do have a black roof but it still seems a little odd.

Anyway, the plan is to now fit a single rigid panel of 100w to at least get me up and running again (camping off-grid next week) and have a closer look at the failed panels in due course. I'm loathe to invest in more semi-flex panels until I understand what has happened to the original ones. I suspect removing them is going to be 'interesting' (they are sika-flex bonded!) so they may end up being a permanent albeit redundant feature! I would like to get them off though and test them more thoroughly.

Hopefully I won't get too much wind-noise from the rigid panel and will be back to my 'the hotter the day the colder my beer' scenario before too long!

Has anyone else had failures of the semi-flex panels? A bit gutting that both have gone!

[nordberg]

I've heard of a few flexi panels going faulty. There may be an equal number of rigid ones gone faulty, but maybe people don't feel the need to talk about that? I've gone rigid for two reasons. Easily removed if a fault does develop, and I don't like the idea of bonding things to my roof. Hope you get up and running soon

[kevtherev]

It would be interesting to see any data regarding actual temperatures experienced on or under a flexible panel
I have a rigid panel and on our France trip this year the panel got very hot indeed.
There was no discernable difference on the back.
The black collector box was cooler... being under the panel.

[waltraud]

My flexi panel failed, supplier moaned and would not replace! My solution was to fit 4 or 5 plastic sections of cable cover (about 5mm deep x 12mm wide) stick these to roof then glue solar panel to the plastic ridges which allows plenty of air to get underneath. No idea if it works better but the panel works- for now and runs a Waeco , led lighting and a stereo off a 90a leisure battery in a westy.


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[Oldiebut goodie]

I wonder if it is possible for these semi flexible panels to ripple a little at the sub-sonic speeds that we travel at causing failure?

[Da dan]

Interesting. I had an electric cut out over the bank holiday weekend where the flexi panels seemed to not charge the battery. Don't know if it's related as the kids turned on the fridge and batters went dead. But all seems fine now. Could it be a heat cut out? I did go sooooper-sonic speed ready for take off but eased off at 69.


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[LeeME3]

Well I've now removed one flex panel and replaced it with a rigid one that appears to be working fine (kept my battery sufficiently topped up to run my CR50 for 4 days 'off grid' last week).

I've left the other flex panel on the roof as frankly I don't have the energy to do another removal and having checked it over inch by inch I can't see any damage / broken tracks so it may still be of some use, although wherever I test it I get NIL output. Last hope is to remove the diode in case that has somehow failed and created a short (unlikely!).

Only yesterday I actually installed a 50w flex panel (not Biard this time) on my boat - it was one I bought before I knew my camper ones had failed! Based on recent experience I've not bonded it down and, unlike the camper, the underlying surface is white (my camper roof is black). I'll be interested to see if that one lasts any longer.

Obviously not a credible sample size and people are more likely to post failures than "it's still working" messages but it certainly seems from both this forum and others that the flex panels do have a higher failure rate than the rigid. That, coupled with their higher cost and lower efficiency, does make the case for them questionable - however, that said, you'll find plenty of posts form in the 2-3 years they were working fine where I was singing their praises so I guess it is just luck to an extent.

[clarence]

Please post a couple of photos zoomed out a little more,so i can see were you hv put the hole for the cable to run into your van.thankyou

[irishkeet]

Recently completed a solar installation on our Westy. Please find some photos below. Will fill in details later.

Dan how have you run the wiring into the van?

cheers
irishkeet

[danmetallic]

Recently completed a solar installation on our Westy. Please find some photos below. Will fill in details later.

Dan how have you run the wiring into the van?

cheers
irishkeet

Evening! It runs through that white box you can see on the left under the rack. Through the roof. Through the corner of the bed base to come out in the space between the wardrobe and the window (ducting hidden by the curtain). Then finally into the bottom of the wardrobe under that thinner outside board. Only two holes drilled. I hope that makes sense.


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