Damaged panel, advice please.

[Fingers]

Whilst fitting my home made brackets, I have drilled a hole in to my new solar panel
I forgot to use the block of wood under the frame, and the drill bit went into the back of the glass.

It still gives a voltage, but I think this is probably due to the top part of the panel,
Is this going to cause problems, fire etc?

Do I open the box on the back of the panel, and unhook the bottom part of the panel so I can at least use half of the 445watts?
What do you think?
.

 

[SparkyJJO]

The panel itself looks undamaged. Clean up the fragments, inspect closer, and if it still looks ok, I'd seal it up and use it.

*edited* Hang on

Looking at the photos again - I'm realizing what I thought was the damage on the glass is actually cell damage from the drill going through the back.

Ignore my dumb comment above ?‍

 

[Solar Guppy]

Not ideal, but it shouldn't have much effect on harvest, use some caulking to seal the whole

One of the benefit of listed racking is there is NO drilling on the panels. Having gone myself with DYI racking would NEVER do it again and last system was IronRidge.

UFO

www.ironridge.com

 

[Munchie33]

Fire comes from arcing connectors. Your panel will continue to work flawlessly if you can exclude moisture intrusion. I would inject silicone (the same used to seal fish tanks) and move happily on, thanking goodness it wasn't worse. There may be better products for filling the hole, but I'm not sure what they might be. The Tedlar backing will need a permanent tape to sell that. The adhesive isn't going to cut it because capturing the edges of a PVF film isn't best accomplished with a glue glob.

Definitely do not use latex caulking. It won't last as long as your panel and because of the crappy fillers they put in, won't exclude 100% of the moisture you need for long life.
Lee

 

[Fingers]

Thanks guys, I appreciate your input.
I drilled the five other panels perfectly, stopped for a coffee, went back to it and forgot to use the block of wood under the frame.

Lesson well and truly learned.

 

[Fagaro]

Разрушение стеклянной облицовки не остановит выработку солнечной энергии. Если основная схема не повреждена, солнечная панель будет продолжать работать до тех пор, пока погодные условия не испортят эту схему.

Singature:
Tesla battery backup systems - https://powerproductionmanagement.com/tesla-powerwall

 

[Fingers]

The glass is ok, but I'm pretty sure the circuitry has been broken.
In one cell 3 very small wires (horizontal) have been cut, and one larger (vertical).
I have it up and working.

I had max power (2.7kw+) out of the six panels, and my old LF Sunny boy 3300 grid tie; not bad for mid September
I know 2.7kw is tiny, but compared to the 1.2kw that we had for years, it's a big difference.
I'll be facing the 1.2kw east facing in the next few months. Whoo such luxury

 

[onobeka]

I wonder if you managed to repair the drilled panel. Unfortunately while installing one panel today, I wanted to make a tiny hole in the rail system to be able to nicely fix the wires. The drill skipped and touched the backsheet, cutting the while foil. If I look from the top there seems to be a tiny line in the circuitry, 1mm long and very thin. I cannot catch on camera ... . I've measured the DC current on that panel and compared with the one from a good panel. It seems it's 30% less . Is there a way to fix it?
I mean, I can fix the white foil with some aquarium silicone to prevent moisture going into the circuit, yet the circuit seems affected.


This is the panel. I would expect that the current drop would not be so much as it's halfcell and only a substring would be affected.

Later edit, I've managed to take a picture with difficulty of the issue, seen from the top of the panel. It is zoomed out, that one can see the glass imperfections. The glass is untouched. The panel has some shading, a good panel now has a current of 1.9A, while this one only 1.38A, however there is some shading on the damaged one. I did not measure the voltage, maybe I should. An interrupted circuit should show a drop in voltage I guess which cannot be caused by shading.

 

[Sleeper85]

It looks less damaged than that of Fingers, the bus bar are not cut. To be sure you must test it without shade in order to be able to compare it. In my opinion there should not be a big difference in power. It only remains to repair the back well to prevent moisture from entering it.

 

[Solar Guppy]

I doubt you could measure the difference, that area is so small and still had connections busbars in all 4 directions. Just seal the back and move on.

 

[Bluedog225]

I wouldn’t put it on the roof. Sorry. This happens to everyone some way or another.

 

[JCSchwarb]

Whilst fitting my home made brackets, I have drilled a hole in to my new solar panel
I forgot to use the block of wood under the frame, and the drill bit went into the back of the glass.

It still gives a voltage, but I think this is probably due to the top part of the panel,
Is this going to cause problems, fire etc?

Do I open the box on the back of the panel, and unhook the bottom part of the panel so I can at least use half of the 445watts?
What do you think?
View attachment 109861 .



View attachment 109858

View attachment 109859

Consider self tapping wood/metal screws that are smaller than bracket height. I attached all 60 panels with 1-2 washers and went without any issues. I agree with others, that if is getting near same voltage as other panels, seal up with silicone or epoxy and be happy you got lucky.

 

[Solar Guppy]

I wouldn’t put it on the roof. Sorry. This happens to everyone some way or another.

Why?, almost all of the area scratched is still connected and will generate power. You can't return it, so just seal and use it.

Solar panels can have all sorts of defects, cracked cells, snail trails, heck poly cells when perfect are not as good as that tiny scribble on that mono. The power variance the manufacture have is the percentages, and area wise that is what 1/10,000th the surface area of the panel?

 

[JCSchwarb]

Why?, almost all of the area scratched is still connected and will generate power. You can't return it, so just seal and use it.

Solar panels can have all sorts of defects, cracked cells, snail trails, heck poly cells when perfect are not as good as that tiny scribble on that mono. The power variance the manufacture have is the percentages, and area wise that is what 1/10,000th the surface area of the panel?

Remember that if the Earth is reduced to the size of a pool ball, it would be significantly smoother than the most highly polished marble ball.

 

[Sleeper85]

I wouldn’t put it on the roof. Sorry. This happens to everyone some way or another.

Attention here we are talking about two different panels, that of post #1 and that of post #8. That of post #1 is much more damaged with severed bus bars which is not the case for that of post #8.

 

[Solar Guppy]

Attention here we are talking about two different panels, that of post #1 and that of post #8. That of post #1 is much more damaged with severed bus bars which is not the case for that of post #8.

A pencil head of silicon won't be measurable, while the bus bar(s) have damaged, the current still flows over the entire face of the cell to the closest intact trace. Its not like a single wire for the entire area, the whole surface is one potential and the grid work it just to optimize resistive losses

 

[onobeka]

Thank you all for the encouraging comments! I will measure today, again, this time voltage too. The panel is on a ground structure.

 

[onobeka]

I did the measurement. Voltage is identical, 38.7V as all the other panels. The current is lower yet I think that is due to some higher roof element above the panel. It is not cast any shade at the moment of measurement and it is a gloomy day. I will relocate the panel. I’ve repaired the backfoil with some bicomponent epoxy.

 

[Supervstech]

Remember that if the Earth is reduced to the size of a pool ball, it would be significantly smoother than the most highly polished marble ball.

Too bad this is a false statement. The rumor came out due to the published allowable pool ball damage in tournament play.
The earth would be an acceptable pool ball, but it would be a very rough version, and any competent player would get a new one.

 

[SeaGal]

Too bad this is a false statement. The rumor came out due to the published allowable pool ball damage in tournament play.
The earth would be an acceptable pool ball, but it would be a very rough version, and any competent player would get a new one.

But how many spare earths are available to hand out as replacements?