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Old 11-29-2012, 10:48 AM   #6 (permalink)
Ryland
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How many of the PV cells are going to be pointed at the sun? I suspect that you are not going to get much output from what you can fit on a faring, it will help if the strings of cells are as short as possible because if you shade a single cell in a string then it becomes a load, reducing the output of the whole string, shade half the cells in a string of cells and you get an output near zero, same thing if you don't have them pointed at the sun and I don't mean just having them out where they are getting light, but pointing right at the sun, having PV at an acute angle cuts their output as well.

If you design it well, I suspect that you could get 100 watts out of a full faring, that should be enough to run a regular headlight, LED running lights and the engines ignition system, if it's a fuel injected bike or if it has an ECU then it might take 50 to 200 watts more depending on the age and type of bike.
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