Thread: before and after

Hold - on, the first pic you have 8 panels, the 2nd you have 13???

Mounting the panels higher above the roof should give better airflow and better cooling. However you have mounted them closer to the roof and are claiming better cooling???

I reckon you've swapped the pics over!
Cooling is everything, my ebay panels live high above the roof on trackers and generate excellent power with a brisk SE breeze under them. A bloke in the tropics reported excellent results with running a sprinkler on the panels during the day. Good if you have plenty of water.

If the sun has only been out for 5 min they probably have not had a chance to get hot.

Originally Posted by isuzurover

Hold - on, the first pic you have 8 panels, the 2nd you have 13???

Mounting the panels higher above the roof should give better airflow and better cooling. However you have mounted them closer to the roof and are claiming better cooling???

I moved 5 of the panels to the house roof to avoid the shadows cast by the panel on the tracking system. The panels that are on the wooden stilts didn't have them the day before and only had one end lifted. they are now running a hell of a lot cooler. Previous to the rails even on cloudy days I would hose them down and increase the output and the steam that came off them was very obvious. Doing the same thing now makes no difference and no steam comes off them. I think the major part of the increase is that they are now all on exactly the same angle and that angle is not as extreme as what they were previously. Whatever the reason the rails have increased the output dramatically.

Originally Posted by slug_burner

If the sun has only been out for 5 min they probably have not had a chance to get hot.

I agree but the output never reached even close to 1500 watts previously.

Longer rails maybe acting as a heat sink, keeping the panels cooler?

Anyways props for doing it all yourself. Who hooked it all up for you or are you a sparky?

Originally Posted by bee utey

I reckon you've swapped the pics over!
Cooling is everything, my ebay panels live high above the roof on trackers and generate excellent power with a brisk SE breeze under them. A bloke in the tropics reported excellent results with running a sprinkler on the panels during the day. Good if you have plenty of water.

On a hot summers day if i hose them down the output will increase between to 2 to 3 hundred watts for a few hours. I was going to install a sprinkler system on them and recycling the water via a 1000 litre tank and small pump i have lying around. I may do this in summer but for now i'm happy. Strinking a balance between power gained and power used by the pump may make the gains negligible.

Originally Posted by zuno555

Longer rails maybe acting as a heat sink, keeping the panels cooler?

Anyways props for doing it all yourself. Who hooked it all up for you or are you a sparky?

I ran all the cabling and did all the grunt work and had a sparky do the fuse box, breakers, check it and turn it on in the first instance. I've just kept adding panels. It's all running into a 3kw aero sharp inverter so i still have some room to add panels.