diy solar

diy solar

Topsolar Brand flexible solar panels?

Generally Sunpower cells are very good and Maxeon is a subset of them.

But will you know if you are getting rejects that don't pass, or are just being lied to? - since the market reserves cells that pass for manufacturers only generally. Perhaps you will get good cells, but only you will have to determine that.

Also know that these are monocrystalline cells, and not bendable thin film. Thus, you'll have to be very careful about shadows greatly reducing the output.

The problem at this low end is that the end user generally doesn't know the difference between flexible thin-film, or broken / reject / floor sweeping chips of rigid monocrystalline cells sewn together in a flimsy nylon sheet.

The hype marketing at this low end is so high, that it is nearly impossible to make any sort of reasonable recommendation. The only way to do it is try and make your own conclusion.
 
Back to the original topic - you'll just have to find out on your own truthfully.

At this low end, where manufacturing and qc can vary wildly, and end-user recommendations can also be suspect, it is hard to make any *hard* recommendations.

It is interesting when I looked online, I see that thin-film has for the most part gone away (except at the high end), and the new buzzword is "flexible monocrystalline" and ETFE.

Ok, cool. But remember these are not thin-films, which have better shadow performance (only the part shaded doesn't produce output with film), whereas monocrystalline does not like shadows at all for the most part.

Be careful where you park. Babysit the panel often to make sure that shadows haven't crossed it, especially later in the day when shadows go long.
 
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