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diy solar

550W of panel for $120!

ed1380

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Joined
Apr 10, 2021
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These suntechs from santan are awesome. I don't know if it's the best watt per dollar but it has to be close.

They're specced for 285W but managed 275W. From what I've seen on maps the solar irradiance for north Ga isn't that great, but it is a cool day, so I'd say it's a wash. Either way I think they did great for cheap 9 year old panels.

Bad thing is that they're heavy. 60lbs each. Unloading them by myself wasn't fun. But I threw together a quick test and ended up surprising myself. I'm also surprised that horrible connection on the battery was flowing 19amps without getting warm


So they're $80 on the site, but $63 on ebay. I called them up and they rang them up for $60. I also added 100ft of wire and some connectors and shipping for everything was $230 to the local terminal. A few days later I had a box from UPS and 10 days later the panels were here for pickup.

Voc on all of them was around 43.8 and operating temp was 128f. Unconnected panel was at 138f
 

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When buying from SanTan, you have to take into account Shipping which is no less than $250 USD for at least 1 Panel.
Factoring in that cost, the figure you quoted above is not realistically what other persons will pay when having it deliverd.
Sadly not all persons can pickup in person.
 
true. that's why you buy a whole pallet. I should have bought more and listed them for sale locally

it was $220 to the local terminal across the country
 
I've been looking on their site. I want to add some AC coupled panels to my shop roof to feed into my skybox inverter.

What about their T series 290W? They have a similar description but say for off grid use, I guess because the labels are missing. But that won't matter to me.
 
No idea. I only got the 285s. Will made a video about the 250s and those are also good
 
I went ahead and ordered 20 of their 250's, probably similar to what I saw in that video. I made an offer for $700 for 20 of them and they took it. $275 freight to my residence. Not too bad, 5kw for $1000. About 1/3 of what I paid for my brand new panels for the 6kw array I setup for the house. This setup will be mainly for the shop and I'll probably get a cheaper hybrid inverter so I can couple it to the house system in the summer when I need extra for AC.
 
I went ahead and ordered 20 of their 250's, probably similar to what I saw in that video. I made an offer for $700 for 20 of them and they took it. $275 freight to my residence. Not too bad, 5kw for $1000. About 1/3 of what I paid for my brand new panels for the 6kw array I setup for the house. This setup will be mainly for the shop and I'll probably get a cheaper hybrid inverter so I can couple it to the house system in the summer when I need extra for AC.
did they negotiate on the shipping too or are you close to them? Anytime I think about ordering from Santan, the shipping is like 550-600bucks to IL
 
a pallet to atlanta is 220 to the terminal and 300 to the house with liftgate service. the shipping cost over the phone was better than the online price.
 
I had 2 pallets (24x 250w panels and 12x sunpower 240w panels) shipped to my work with a forklift for $230. But im in Central Cali and they're in AZ so it wasn't too far.
 
I had 2 pallets (24x 250w panels and 12x sunpower 240w panels) shipped to my work with a forklift for $230. But im in Central Cali and they're in AZ so it wasn't too far.
Amazing guys!!! Consider me jealous and enjoy those deals!
 
Amazing guys!!! Consider me jealous and enjoy those deals!
I am in OK and I didn't negotiate the freight, but they just offered that price when I inquired. But yeah on their website the same 20 panels was going to cost about $375 for freight so they gave me a better deal. Just call them or contact through ebay. I saved about $10 per panel by submitting an offer through ebay but probably could have done something similar just calling them.
 
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