Aero friendly flexible Unisolar panels are now getting affordable
 

Just thought someone may be interested in these for an battery charging project as they are now getting a lot cheaper.

Available on ebay for about $ 1.00 a watt. They used to be a lot more when they were last mentioned here on Ecomodder. They are US made but I think the company ran into financial problems.

The Airstream and Fiberglass RV people have figured out how to cut and rewire the panels if you need 'em shorter.
Anyone have experience with unisolar flexible pv - Page 2 - Airstream Forums

Edit :also available here for $1.00 per watt complete with cables.
http://www.sunelec.com/unisolar-lami...mp-p-1805.html

I see a market for solar car covers. Sew them into sheets to throw over your car in the summer sun. Not only will it cool your car by shade, it could power cooling ventilation. Also would save your paint, and give you some environmental street cred.

Great for EV's or hybrids to trickle charge their packs when left parked for extended periods.

That would be really cool since I now park outside all day every day. But the power is confusing... when they list XX watts, what time span is that in? It will put out XX watts in one hour (watt hour)? One day?

confusing
 

between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM under clear sky,if pointed into the Sun,you might expect the panel to produce that much power.
If at 12-volts,you'd divide the power by 12,and that would give you your charging current in amps.

Watts is power, in the case of solar cells that's amps X volts. 746 watts is 1 hp. Time doesn't come into it.
If you have a 100 watt light bulb it needs 100 watts for as long as you have it turned on.
The watts listed for solar cells is generally the power available in full sun (noon in the summer). So if you imagine that around lunch time you have about an hour of full sun you can have XX watt-hours. Watt-hours is work or energy. Of course during the day the amount of sunlight varies, so over a full day (24 hours) you could get the equivalent of 4 to 6 hours of full sun, if the solar cells always face the sun. If you stored the electrical energy from solar cells (rated at 100 watts) sitting in the sun all day, then at night you'd have enough to light a 100 watt bulb for 4 to 6 hours.
-mort

We have some Unisolor panels, they were they only solar panels that I've ever seen fail, they also had the shortest warranty I've seen on solar.

The power output is under standard test conditions, you can look it up, but you can also look up "Sun Hours" and that is more or less the amount of sun per day on average that you will get to give you a rated output, where I live we average around 4 sun hours per day for a year round average, so if I have a 100 watt panel I should average around 400 watt hours per day from it, this is assuming that IT IS POINTING AT THE SUN, the sun is not straight up, where I am it is at a 45 degree angle right now (spring) and will rise to be at a 60 degree angle at the peek of summer and get down to 30 degrees on the first day of winter, unless I lived on the equator it will never be at 90 degrees (straight up) so having a solar panel flat will both reduce the effective collection area and will increase the reflective qualities of the glass or plastic coating on the PV panel so at best you will get 3/4 of the output at mid day from a panel that is pointing straight up, but more likely is that the output will be reduced to 50% and even less in the winter.

Thanks guys. Still confusing, but less so. :)

I would not expect any warranty since the company is now out of business.
Flat roof performance is here
http://www.flexenergydelsol.com/wp-c...-roof-data.pdf

There is plenty of room on the roof of the suburban for a few of those.

A while back I figured that if I covered the roof of my electric car with mono-crystal panels (higher output per sf) that I could add about a mile of range per day to my battery pack, about 250 watt hours, that should be enough to run day time running lights, ECU, vent fan and everything else for about an hour per day I would think.

My argument of course has always been that PV panels should outlast the vehicle (25 year warranty is standard) Uni-solar... before they went bankrupt had a 25 year warranty, but they also had some of the highest failure rates with a lot of their panels not even lasting 10 years, but assuming that the PV panel lasts 25 year and the average car lasts 8 years why would you put PV panels on the car where they have a reduced output because they are not pointed at the sun, they are at a greater risk of damage, add weight to the vehicle and are more likely to be shaded by trees or buildings.
Put your solar panels on your garage or house where they can point at the sun, get the least shade and just plug your car in when you are home.

Agreed, Ryland.
I kicked around the idea of these panels over the top of my trailer design, then nixed that because of the unfavorable angle of incidence. Then I thought about a deployable monocrystalline panel, complete with tracking.
Then I looked at the EU1000i generator I paid $400 for, and realized I was beating a dead horse. The money is just not there for what you get. I could get gas for that honda for decades and still not spend as much as a 200 watt panel and hardware.
The handy place for a solar panel and a car/truck is to maintain a battery on a rig that does not get used much and is parked at a remote location without power.

That generator is going to cost you around $0.40 to $0.50 per hour to run, so after buying the solar panel, charge controller, deep cycle battery and small inverter you'd have spent enough to run your generator for about two hours per day for a year and for anyone who wanted to buy that same generator new today it would cost them $800, so right there the solar set up is cheaper without factoring in the cost of gas.

If you were installing this on your house and wanted a grid tied inverter then getting panels with micro inverters that get wired right in to your house electrical system would be the way to go, $2 per watt and your only extra costs would be wire, disconnect switch and hard ware to put it on your roof, then you let it generate electricity for the rest of your life without any other added costs and if the old 10 year warranty that the panels my parents bought 30 years ago and moved twice (are still putting out more then their rated output) say anything about the current 25 year warranty then your solar panels might outlast your grand kids... and people want to put them on the roof of their car?

I ran our refrigerator and freezer a few times a day through two power outages with that generator, so you are talking an apples to grapefruit comparison. I saved $400 in meat in the freezer with it.
I use the trailer 10 times a year, and use a generator no more than an hour a day on about half the days.
So, at about a gallon (maybe two) of gas a year I don't see buying any solar panels there. :)

Right, but if you were using the electricity every day then the fuel use would quickly add up and the solar panels produce electricity every day.

I've used the spare batteries for my electric car for remote power and figure I can power my fridge for or freezer for about 3 days per charge without noise and recharge them off solar.
But it really comes down to what best fits your needs, if you want to offset your electrical use every day, year round for the rest of your life then solar for sure is the way to go, but there are times where a gas generator does make more sense, but I wouldn't want to rely on that gas generator for my electricity every day.

Me neither. For an off grid genset it has to be diesel, for me anyway. I am very interested in solar but my current location is prohibitive. Too many tall trees :(
If I get to move to my dream place it will have no obstructions to solar heat or power.

Thanks for all the info guys. Did not know about the high failure rate on the panels. Good to know for sure

Here was my thinking.. I am building a light weight self contained truck camper and am trying to incorporate as many aero features as possible.The project is just for fun really and does not need to make any economic sense whatsoever . I already have the small honda gen but just wanted to add the solar option so we can camp in more places.

I noticed these panels are now much cheaper than in the past so I thought I would mention it. That was my main point in the original post but I guess it it came across differently. I agree they certainly would not suit everyone for sure.
Your absolutely right . More suited to an rv in certain cases than a car. I will change first post to reflect that.

your thinking is fine :)
Sorry if I seemed like a downer, I had just looked at those panels, hashed it out round and circles, and came to that conclusion. All on a trailer I have not even started :P
You, OTOH, are well on the way. That was also great info on the failure rates. This has been such a great resource, just the other day I was warned away from a hybrid that had bad transmission history.
Cheers.

Most PV panels don't fail, there are panels that have been in the field for over 60 years now that are still working perfectly, but they are all mono crystal panels, the poly crystal panels are also good, it's the thin film panels that break down in sunlight... the fact that they are flexible is also a draw back because electrical connections don't like to flex, so light hail can dent the thin film and break an electrical connection.
Crystalline panels tend to be laminated behind safety glass (like a car windshield) so they hold up much better.

If you are going to install them on an RV or other type of trailer then having a grid intertie option might be a good idea, that way when the trailer is parked at home you can plug it in to the house and back feed to the house, or if you have a garage or shed that you want electricity to use it to power that building, they are going to be producing electricity whenever it's sunny out so why not put them to use? also a rack that can have the angle adjusted will help a great deal in boosting your output while parked.

Oh , not a downer at all ! and I agree about this being a great resource. I would be cool to see your trailer design sometime . The ideas are half the fun IMO.