Has anyone found a way of searching for solar panels by dimensions? It's a cumbersome process to open PDF, find specs, convert to inches, repeat 100 times.
Panels seem to be pretty standard sized in the 250-350w range. Panasonic HITs broke that a bit by squeezing 350w+ out of something ~62" long, so 2-3" shorter than some cheap 250w panels that clock in at 65"+ long.
Wondering if any company has shot for ~250w and done the same thing Panasonic did by reducing the footprint.
I have 2x100w renogy compacts on my truck's roof rack that occupy 20x40 each, so a 40x40" area side by side. I'd like to replace these with a single panel and get a bit of wattage boost. I can go as wide as about 42" and for length I'd like to keep it as short as possible, as every inch eats in to the only remaining roof rack space. This is the second setup I've had on the roof as it used to be 2x100 renogy non-compacts which were 20x47" each. Has any company accomplished something similar by knocking several inches off the length and keeping the output the same? The 62" long panasonics are hard to beat, but I don't need 350w and 62" leaves me little room at the end of the roof rack.
Edit: I can technically fit a third 100w renogy compact, which I own, but I neglected to install it when I upgraded from the 47" long non-compact panels. Reason being... mounting nightmare. I have supports running width-wise across the roof to support things currently, and would have to change to supports running length wise. I could stack those new supports on the existing width-wise supports but then the panels would be sticking out of the (yakima megawarrior) by several inches.
At present they're nearly flush with the top of the basket, don't catch any wind (flush with wind fairing), and look rather...sexy. At a 40x60 footprint, assuming I could manage to install the third up there, I may as well just ditch the basket and sell on craigslist - but my custom ultra low profile mounting solution for the basket has resulted in a couple impossible to remove bolts, so it's a permanent fixture on the shell.
I've considered doing a sliding drawer affixed to the bottom of the supports seen in the above picture. The space beneath the existing panels isn't really doing much good, can't slide much beneath them and then securing becomes a nightmare. So it's basically dead space that could be utilized for this purpose, but I'd be bummed (heartbroken) to have to go back to running in parallel. I could add another controller for the third sliding panel, but as you can see in another pic I have a bed slide - so it's already a nightmare having my two PV wires do the accordion thing to avoid getting pinched. Unfortunately there was no good way to mount an enormous 200ah lifepo4 ammo can stationary. Bed slide: one of my least favorite mods.
Sorry for blabbing, I can't even begin to tell you how many hours I've lost to playing around with this in my head and doing fruitless google searches. In between work meetings and killing time, figure posting this thread for possible leads is a hell of a lot more productive than toying it over for another year, staying up late unicorn hunting.
Panels seem to be pretty standard sized in the 250-350w range. Panasonic HITs broke that a bit by squeezing 350w+ out of something ~62" long, so 2-3" shorter than some cheap 250w panels that clock in at 65"+ long.
Wondering if any company has shot for ~250w and done the same thing Panasonic did by reducing the footprint.
I have 2x100w renogy compacts on my truck's roof rack that occupy 20x40 each, so a 40x40" area side by side. I'd like to replace these with a single panel and get a bit of wattage boost. I can go as wide as about 42" and for length I'd like to keep it as short as possible, as every inch eats in to the only remaining roof rack space. This is the second setup I've had on the roof as it used to be 2x100 renogy non-compacts which were 20x47" each. Has any company accomplished something similar by knocking several inches off the length and keeping the output the same? The 62" long panasonics are hard to beat, but I don't need 350w and 62" leaves me little room at the end of the roof rack.
Edit: I can technically fit a third 100w renogy compact, which I own, but I neglected to install it when I upgraded from the 47" long non-compact panels. Reason being... mounting nightmare. I have supports running width-wise across the roof to support things currently, and would have to change to supports running length wise. I could stack those new supports on the existing width-wise supports but then the panels would be sticking out of the (yakima megawarrior) by several inches.
At present they're nearly flush with the top of the basket, don't catch any wind (flush with wind fairing), and look rather...sexy. At a 40x60 footprint, assuming I could manage to install the third up there, I may as well just ditch the basket and sell on craigslist - but my custom ultra low profile mounting solution for the basket has resulted in a couple impossible to remove bolts, so it's a permanent fixture on the shell.
I've considered doing a sliding drawer affixed to the bottom of the supports seen in the above picture. The space beneath the existing panels isn't really doing much good, can't slide much beneath them and then securing becomes a nightmare. So it's basically dead space that could be utilized for this purpose, but I'd be bummed (heartbroken) to have to go back to running in parallel. I could add another controller for the third sliding panel, but as you can see in another pic I have a bed slide - so it's already a nightmare having my two PV wires do the accordion thing to avoid getting pinched. Unfortunately there was no good way to mount an enormous 200ah lifepo4 ammo can stationary. Bed slide: one of my least favorite mods.
Sorry for blabbing, I can't even begin to tell you how many hours I've lost to playing around with this in my head and doing fruitless google searches. In between work meetings and killing time, figure posting this thread for possible leads is a hell of a lot more productive than toying it over for another year, staying up late unicorn hunting.
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