Thursday, Nov 08, 2012 at 08:35
120w is at the top end of performance Andrew in practise you won't get that much.
In my case I used silicon to stick it to the car roof with a seam of silicon right around it.
Note - my mounting method was not enough to heatsink the panel to the roof and hence it operated at high temperature most of the time.
After a few hot days you could see that the silicon seam had broken so the movement must have been 3 or 4mm.
This did not physically warp or damage the panel but it let
water get in between the roof and panel.
The Patrols have rust resistant steel and no rust formed but I suspect it would have over time. I had it on for 3 years.
I did have some trouble towards the end with an intermittant cell which I attributed to excessive heat reducing the output power.
The sucess of the panel will depend on its installation and it will need either airflow under it or flat fixing that will carry some heat away and not void any warranty.
They used to have different sizes - I like the concept and if I do it again I would get smaller panels and minimize the expansion issue.
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