That seems to be another issue that would deter people from using the flexible solar panels.
To me it seems like it would be a hassle to replace/swap them out when they are fastened to the roof of the GFC using adhesive. I went with Z brackets attaching mine to my DIY beef bars. There’s at least an inch air gap between the GFC roof and the bottom of my panels.
I consider the roof mounted panel because I use my racks on an almost daily basis. I didn’t realize they made the tent hotter though.
You could mount them to corrugated plastic, I think a lot of people do that.
I was checking out this guys video and was wondering why you couldn’t just glue to the corrugated material to create an air flow channel and then glue that to the top of your camper and save yourself the steps of adding the aluminum rail. My 2 cents if you’re just trying to get the heat up off your camper and provide more air flow.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen people do that. Attach solar panel to corrugated plastic panels and then vhb tape those to the roof. This also makes replacing the panel easier if/when you need to do that.
I know my build thread is like 100 posts long, but I actually tested that, here’s the post on corrugated plastic, multiple layers of corrugated material were worse than a simple air gap.
Maybe if your corrugated material had very deep (close to 1") corrugations…
¯\__(ツ)_/¯
I have used the 3m VHB on my hood mounted panel. For the first 2 years I never had any issues with the tape/panel separating from the hood.
At some point the panel just decided to stop working for whatever reason. It was replaced under warranty.
I used that time to vinyl wrap my hood and attached the new panel with the same vhb.
Let me tell you that using double strips around the perimeter of the panel plus a double strip down the middle was a B**** to remove the panel AND the adhesive residue after.
In my experience vhb adheres to surfaces better with heat.
Just my $0.02 though
Awesome setup, thank you for sharing. What is the black device in the middle of the packout? Do you have a pic of the fan for the dcdc charger?
@ashley868 the black thing is just a plastic cover I made to hide where the wires exit the case. The blue buttons turn on a 12v cigarette plug and case lights (not used too often)
Unless your mean the BlueSea Safety Hub 150? I use that as a fuse block/busbar. It contains all the high and low amp fuses and Negative bus bar for the system. Saves a bunch of wiring.
As for a fan, I never ended up needing it. I cut the back out of the case behind the DC/DC and solar controller to get airflow over the cooling fins. It seems when it’s hot, it’s also sunny (duh!) so the solar controller does most of the charging. When it’s colder I need the DC/DC more and it does fine without a fan. (2 year and lots of desert 
charging)
I just got a solar panel in and noticed some of the squares are discolored. Any idea if this will affect the panel and what it’s pulling in?
I have a different panel type - the flexible Sunpower panels - but they’re absolutely covered in various defects and it doesn’t seem to affect performance at all. If you can, I’d say plug the panel in and see how it performs. Good is good.
Are those ecoflow panels?
Solar system installed. Designed for fridge and electric blanket as primary loads.
Renogy 2 - 100W solar panels mounted on beef bars. I want to find z brackets to recess/drop the panels below the bars.
Renogy 200ah lifepo battery
Victron 75/15 solar controller
Victron 30ah DC-DC charger
Bluesea breakers, fuses, and fusebox
scavenged wire
mounted on birch ply
Thank you for sharing your builds, suggestions here influenced my design.
You don’t need z brackets to mount the panels below the bars. A piece of sheet metal is all you need. I just used some scrap I had around. See my post (~225-227 can never tell what it is for sure) above.
Do you know how thick the sheet metal you used? I’m going to order 4 pieces (4"x6") of aluminum from SendCutSend. I’m not sure if .125" is too thick. .08" might be more ideal.
For what it’s worth, either of those thicknesses will be fine.
But there’s a good maxim here. “When it doubt, make it stout, out of stuff you know about”. Go thick.
I recently built a beef bar based solar rack and I used 1/8"/3mm aluminum as the bracket material. It felt about right - it definitely wasn’t too thin.
Thanks!! Nice setup!
This tool from them is really helpful if you are having them make the bends too. Lets you get really precise.
