Can i glue flexible solar panels straight to Marine-grade 600D polyester canvas

[CaptainRivet]

Hi all,
The cockpit Bimini of my cat is made of Marine-grade 600D polyester canvas.
Did anyone glued light flexible solar panels straight to the Marine-grade 600D polyester canvas eg with the PVC glue to patch the dingy. That should hold like crazy and simple solution to get more solar on.
Thinking of the 3x flexible 175W from Renogy as they are locally available:
https://www.renogy.com/175-watt-12-v...e-solar-panel/

[JPA Cate]

No.

The flexible solar panels aren't that flexible.

Mount them onto something light and stiff, and attach them across the bows of the bimini. We tried it on "marine hooding", a fabric impregnated with PVC., so quite stiff, like convertible car tops. Lasted okay about 1 yr., so basically NOT a good solution w/o being mounted on something stiffer.

Ann

[boatpoker]

Inability to disperse heat from the underside will dramatically shorten life span of the panels.

[FlyingScot]

Does your canvas flex? If so, that will be the death of the panels. Semi Flex panels are ment to gently bend to a shape, not to much. Then not move. Flexing will eventually break the little wires inside the solar panel.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by FlyingScot

Does your canvas flex? If so, that will be the death of the panels. Semi Flex panels are ment to gently bend to a shape, not to much. Then not move. Flexing will eventually break the little wires inside the solar panel.

In fact, the primary aging mechanism is microcracking withing the silicon wafers.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

Inability to disperse heat from the underside will dramatically shorten life span of the panels.

And then, when they die young, how will you get the glued-on panels off the Bimini for replacement?

Bad idea IMO.

Jim

[CaptainRivet]

Thanks all for the input.
I think before continuing i should make clear that there are 3 sorts of not rigid panels out there as we don't seem to speak all about the same.
1) the flexible one, eg the 175W of renogy which they show can bent 280 degrees and are light. Efficiency is 16%, so i assume they don't get so hot as also the surface is quite large for only 175W. Due to renogy very low profil and you glue them on with total surface. You cannot walk on them. I ask renogy about gluing it to canvas and they said they need to check and will come back to me.
Thats the ones i intially ment and linked the 175W one.
2) the semi flexible ones which you can bent max 30 degrees you can walk on them and they have around 20% Efficiency. They are glued on with airpocket underneath/lines of sikaflex and need a stable base to glue to. Thats the classic flexible people people meant and most of you here to.
3)GICS panels wich is basically a thicker wrap with solar cells and an full adhesive baking meant to be one with the surface they glued on. Low efficency 10-13% and very expensive, 500Euro for a 150W panel.

[CaptainRivet]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

And then, when they die young, how will you get the glued-on panels off the Bimini for replacement?

Bad idea IMO.

Jim

Thanks thats why i am asking but i have the feeling you all talk about semi flexible one and not the flexible or GICS panels.

[SV Confianza]

We had sunpower “flexible” solar panels glued to our hard top for 3 years. They are completely destroyed already. Two points here.

1. I made the wrong hire for the install. I asked them specifically not to glue them, because of the heat problem. I normally would have done this myself, but other life issues needed my attention.

2. Turns out sunpower flexible solar panels was a racket and is now defunct. I’ve heard many explanations for this, including that they were trying to compete with the cheap brands and using their own B grade cells to make the panels.

I am getting about 25% of their rated output on a sunny day after a couple of years.

So, now we are going to test the new CIGS panels, which I believe are the 16% efficient ones you were referencing. We purchased them from BougeRV.

I will do a full writeup once we have them running for a while. The reason we decided to go with CIGs tech, is for the durability and shading resistance.

I watched a video of someone shooting bullet holes in one while measuring their output, as well as another video shading large portions, and the results were very impressive. I wish I could remember the videos to give proper credit.

Being that they’re on the hard top / Bimini, they will almost always be partially shaded. So the 16% output vs the norm 22%+ output becomes a non issue. On our brand new solar arch with state of the art Alpha Pure R panels, a little shade easily knocks them down 70%.

Excited to see how the new CIGS panels work.