Paseo gets a solar sun roof

[Matt Herring]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Know what? I just went and checked those dots around the edge of the windshield of another Toyota, and couldn't even scratch them with a razor blade.

It definitely seems physically part of the glass, not painted on. Have to wonder if it's some kind of hybrid etching/painting trick.

Hoping the Toyota you went and tried to scratch off the dots with a razor blade was your car or a very good friend of yours car...and not a random Toyota on the street?????

[Christ]

Go check your Prius closely, Matt. >: )

[Matt Herring]

Originally Posted by Christ

Go check your Prius closely, Matt. >: )

The scariest movie of my childhood just flashed through my mind when I read your post..."Do you know where your children are?"

Might have to look that movie up and watch it again to see if it scares the **** out of me like it did 20 years ago!

I'll have to check my glass tomorrow to see what the dots on my car look like. I have thumbed over the glass near my rear view mirror before and could feel external bumps on the glass near the top of the windshield...but this might be very different from Doax's sunroof.

[Daox]

I still have to get that stuff off the glass. The weather here has just been really rainly lately, and I'd like to remove the sunroof to get the work done.

[Christ]

It's been cold and rainly here lately too... but today, it's all warm again, like T-Shirt weather.

[basslover911]

So you are running them in series to get 18 volts because you want to charge the battery with it right?

Do you know if you can get away with less volts, say 14 volts, and wire the rest in parallel to raise the amperage that goes to the batteries and effectively make the solar cells more efficient? (14V x 16I = 224W) <--- assuming each cell produces 2 amps and you have 8 left over since your only using 14v instead of 18v... right?

[Daox]

I believe that you get .5V on them without a load. Once you put a load on them the voltage drops. That is why you need 18V worth of cells.

If you had more than 36 cells, you could put them in parallel. However, you'd need equal amounts, so you'd need 72 cells.

[TimJFowler]

Originally Posted by Daox

The guides for the sunroof are glued right to the window, so I don't have a means to remove it ATM. Ideas here would be really helpful.

Can you remove the guides (heat, solvent, careful pulling?) from the glass? If so, you could get a junkyard sunroof (just in case), remove the guides, use the glass as a cutting template and glue the guides to the new, clear lexan.

FWIW,
Tim

[Daox]

I have no idea. There was some substance that looks like glue on the window, but it was quite hard. If I can't remove dot matrix, I'll go about trying to find a way to remove the guides.

[basslover911]

Do you think it would be possible (if you could recover the whole roof/rear window/ maybe part of the hood) to completely remove the alternator?