EEVblog #844 - Solar Panel Replacement

Dave replaces the shattered LG Mono-X solar panel on his home rooftop solar power system.

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[TomMinnick]

Looks like You got your first panel to start your solar roadway project!

[crapper]

i suspect someone launched a batterizer in a slingshot from a plane

[draggonhedd]

tempered safety glass. you could probably just peel it off on a dropcloth with some gloves, and then get a new piece of glass or polycarbonate cut to fit.

[anthonydiiorio]

Pretty nice of LG to provide a replacement. Thanks for the update!

[zpvttub]

Nah, my theory is some sort of Australian insect did the damage. Have you seen the size of the bugs there?! Everything there wants to kill you! :-D

[FranLab]

I vote Micro-Meteorite or space junk at this point Dave - clearly a small object with lots of inertia.

[tbird]

Nice of LG to do that for you. My LG290 with micro inverters system is still going strong at 55Mw lifetime.

[steampunkskunk]

I have installed thousands of those panels and I have never seen a panel broken like that. They were not lying when they said it was a rare event. Melbourne was hit by a hail storm on Xmas day a few years ago, in a few areas the stones were the size of tennis balls. I performed electrical repairs on hundreds of houses.... and encountered zero broken solar panels.

[cidshroom]

Wow that came in with some force.

I don't know if ice falling off a plane could actually generate that much of an impact, or a cricket ball.

You either caught large hail from a high altitude, or some kind of space debris.

[stephenhalliwell]

still loving the videos. I've got the same SMA inverter. using an openenergymonitor system to monitor it (along with the other house usage).

[electronicsNmore]

Very nice of LG. You can still use the busted panel for something else. Great deal. Probably damaged by kids living next door. Definitely has a "ball" impact shape.

[BlazeFox]

I'd be fairly sure that it was a tiny meteorite, they are actually quite common. The smaller ones don't have enough power to shatter a car windshield, but they will destroy a solar panel.

[electronicsNmore]

Very nice of LG. You can still use the busted panel. Great deal.

[Robbie]

G'day Dave,
my home system I have designed uses 3x 24V 250 VA panels connected in series, there are 8 strings of these.
With all panels radiated by the sun each string produces 112V o/c which is not overly lethal. These all feed into a battery charger designed to convert the max of 112 into a nominal 48 to 57V for charging my battery bank of again a nominal 48V at 650 AH. The 6 KVA 48V to 240V inverter is connected to the bank and supplies mains power to the house distribution system.
I am totally off the electricity supply grid and have had the supply cable and kilowatt hour meter removed from the house so I no longer pay the electricity supply companies, in my case SP OZ-NET.

[webrosc]

strangely i was only pondering the other day what was happening in relation to the broken panel, and then this video appears to answer my pondering

[TERRAOperativeOriginal]

The bolts were probably tight due to galling between the stainless bolt and alloy nut.

A bit of nickel based anti-seize will prevent any galling or electrolysis and keep it nice and easy to loosen off.

[Graham_Langley]

Your trouble undoing the clamp bolts sounds like it could have been what's called 'thread galling' and not over-tightening. It's something that can happen to stainless steel, aluminium and other materials which rely on an oxide surface film for corrosion protection if they're tightened too quickly and/or no lubricant is used.

Edit: If you want to do something about to about the rooftop isolator box, car spray paint - the proper solvent-based stuff in a spray can - sticks very nicely to clean ABS.

[WoahWoah]

1:24 From what I've being told, airplanes actually store human wastes into a sealed container; they don't just drop it from the airplane. However, space agencies do send modules with garbage and feces back into atmosphere, but it usually just burns up before it even reaches the ground.

thats easy to replace. kudos to the design company...

[priitmolder]

In addition to a rouge piece of piss, these planes can generate pieces of ice too. The theory for that is, exactly of the "blue ice" thing. There should have been a visible chemical residue. Because there is no residue (either streaked crystals or dry rainbow) it could have been a case of a piece of ice. Piece big enough to keep it shape through air friction and hot Australian air. Or Dave also lives near a stadium, where super-human cricketeers/baseballes train. One of them must have turned his swing power upto 11 and swooosh. Or Dave should look around in his neighbourhood for kids who look that little bit guilty... parents know the look :)