Picked up some "antique" solar panels this week.

[peakbagger]

I have been interested in Solar since college reinforced by pouring over my brothers early black and white Home Power early editions. Over the years I saw them pop up on occasion in odd places like the local very much off grid Appalachian Mountain Club huts in the White Mountains of NH who used them to supply DC power for radios and very basically power. The biggest use i would see was the coast guard that installed large arrays at remote lighthouses to run the horns and lights. Pretty much the common panels I would see were the old ARCO 16-2000 33 watt panels and the later Siemens SR100s. I have been keeping an eye out for them for 10 plus years to have a piece of history as they were the first high volume produced panels I am aware of. Most were sold in CA but some made it to the Vermont to support the back to land movement. If you search on the web, this article (partially behind a paywall) got a lot of press. https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/testing-a-thirty-year-old-photovoltaic-module. my panels are the same panel.

The hassle with old panels is they cost a bundle to ship usually far more than the worth of the panel and some people think they must be made out of silver or are trying to get the original price they paid for them. I had located a slightly newer vintage panel a while back and the local UPS store near the buyer wanted about $100 to pack and ship one from Texas to NH and the seller would not break up the set. I was keeping an eye on Craigslist with not much luck until last week where there were three ARCO panels listed for $45. Two were 16-2000 and the third was an identical M61. The spec sheets on the back of the panels do not have much on them, no dates, no specs, just a logo, a model number and serial number. Arco sold out to Siemens in 1989 so they are at least 33 years old but were in production for several years after ARCO bought a small preceeding company in 1977.

The nickname I have heard of these are the "polka dot" panels. ARCO reportedly bought "seconds" of the single crystal wafers from the solar industry and maximized the output by not cutting the round wafers into squares. This made for a large panel but the wafers were the expensive part, so the layout optimized to maximize usage of the wafers.

So now I need to come up with a use for these. I am thinking of building up a cell phone charger using the cheap 12volt USB converters for cigarette lighter plugs in cars that used to be given away at tradeshows. It mostly to counter the standard BS out there that solar panels stop working and become hazardous waste after 20 years.

Worst case is I can put it where I store my working Solyndra presentation model and my early Solarex 10 watt amorphous panel

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Maybe you can provide some pictures?

 

[efficientPV]

All my old panels have failed.

 

[peakbagger]

All my old panels have failed.

Same brand and model or just generically some random brand of some random construction?.

 

[peakbagger]

Maybe you can provide some pictures?

Just click on the link, the ones I picked up are the same model without the browning.

 

[littleharbor2]

All my old panels have failed.

Harbor Freight, by chance? Their original 3 panel, 45 watt array was good for 3 - 5 years before they burnt out.

 

[littleharbor2]

Just click on the link, the ones I picked up are the same model without the browning.

The panel in the article looks pristine. There's no browning . Are you saying yours have the browning?

 

[rhino]

Interesting perspective. In the linked article those $275 33W panels (purchased in 1980) would be over $1000 adjusted for inflation in todays dollars. Over $30/watt

 

[efficientPV]

Same brand and model or just generically some random brand of some random construction?.

These were Photowatt 100W panels, they were taken over by BP or some other major brand. That warranty was worth nothing. I remember $570 for two among several others. They developed brown holes. At first I paired the good section of each panel in series. Then they failed. Lucky enough to sell the two for the frames and glass for $30 for both.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Actually it would be nice to see images of your old stuff.

These are in use contributing to the home system:

 

[peakbagger]

There you go, fresh out of the barn (I havent cleaned them). Note despite model numbers the same as shown in the picutres above, the wafer layout it a bit different. I would guess they are an earlier version. Note these were sold as specifically designed for battery charging, no charge controller required.

The story with the Carrizo's labeling shown on the prior post was that they were installed in the first major solar farm in the US. These were tracking arrays with reflective panels that increased the solar insolation to double ambient light. The farm was in a desert, so these panels were effectively, baked turning various levels of cloudy to dark brown. The farm was eventually removed and the panels were marked with Carizzo solar tags and resold on the open market. I do not see any stickers on the panels I bought so they are either grade A used with the stickers removed or were sold directly by ARCO. There were also what I think was a different form factor used at the solar farm that had more conventional rectangular cells used at Carrizo called quadlams. I have run into them once for sale and they were of similar color as the ones in the photos above, dark brown.

Note unlike the above photos, these panels have no junction boxes or diodes on the back. Siemens partnered with ARCO for four years prior to buying ARCO and the later Siemen's panels have junction boxes. The odd part is that some of my other older Siemen's panels have two junction boxes one on each end of the panel for a single conductor and they have diodes. The ones in the photos above seem to have single junction boxes.

There really is not a lot good history on old panels.

 

[littleharbor2]

The round cell modules were Monocrystalline cells and the square ones were Polycrystalline.
Really cool seeing the Carrizo label.
Is the panel in the 3rd photo burnt all over the backsheet? sure looks like it was rode hard and put away wet, so to speak.

 

[KITROBASKIN]

As you can see, the brown-on-the-front solar panels have a decent back sheet still. First time I saw this pole mount was when we bought the place about 4 years ago. We are at 7200 feet elevation in a region known for pretty good sunshine (central mountains of New Mexico, USA). Not sure what each panel is producing but it is worth it for us to stick with them for now.

 

[littleharbor2]

New Mexico and Colorado both are known for great high elevation solar production. Cooler summer temps and bright cold fall/winter/spring weather

 

[peakbagger]

I was roaming around and saw these beauty's for sale in VT. My guess is they are some of "crispy" panels from the concentrating solar farm in CA.