300 watt Solar Panel for $250 good deal?

[jimindenver]

Yes Uni-solars were huge for their output. If you saw them commercially they were used on standing seem roofs. They were designed with lower light output in mind with triple layers and extra diodes if I remember right. I know someone with 256w of panels on his class C and he gets good numbers in the rain and leafy shade. The thing is modern panels that cover the same area can show the same numbers in low light and much, much higher numbers in bright light.

I originally thought the strips would be good as portables but they really are not flexible enough to be rolled and unrolled over and over.

 

[John61CT]

Recently saw a 4kW box of them for sale cheap, glad I didn't bite.

 

[frater secessus]

Again, watts output per area is IMO the main metric to look for in mobile use cases.

Assuming one is constrained by the space.  Someone who is not maxxing available space might make a reasonable decision to go by $/Watt or some other criteria important to them.

 

[breeze]

Maximizing output is all window dressing to me. Discrete capability to run ac when you need it is something else, rain or shine. Capacity to store energy reliably is a key I'm looking at. If it's cloudy, then it's often cooler. I've seen one author say he runs a modest size 80 lb(?) 420A Li-ion battery with 300 W of panels and NEVER needs generators or 110v supply. This equilibrium is what it is all about. Who cares if a smaller capacity unit is 30% more efficient if it will never have the magic capacity to be self sufficient? The overweighted li-ion production capacity and maintenance-free daily routine beats lead-acid from the start.

Without doing the math, the Lead acid can never do what he has done with an 80 lb Li-ion battery. Personally, I'd rather live the Life of Riley and not worry about maintaining the difficult Lead Acid batteries for much less than minimum wage in return: life is just way too short imo! And then when you add the REAL probability of screwing up your whole system from not constantly maintaining the lead acid correctly, then li-ion advantages are really overwhelming!

The secret of Statistics is all in variance analysis and utilizing the proper response variable being studied, and I think the Lead-acid gang is hopelessly lost on minutia variables of the past. Not only is Li-ion getting cheaper (but no one tracks that here), but the bottom line is it either 'can' of 'can't'. The Li-ion can (now) and the lead acid will Never reach equilibrium no matter how cheap it is (and hence forth, your labor maintaining them is a negative investment no matter what time frame you are talking about.)

I do understand you have invested a lot of time and energy in learning how to be slaves to your lead acid batteries; but I think getting a part time job to get your li-ion batteries would be a better investment (and THEN you could help me!
:-D

 

[tripper]

From another post I did:
LG Neon 2 panels LG Solar Panel

365 Watts
21.1% Efficiency
40 x 67 inches (60 cell)

I have an older version of these on both my rig and on a solar farm. They work flawlessly and put out the specified output. I got 3x for $860.

On the other side, I replaced a decent 100 watt Renogy auxillary solar panel on my rig with a 160 watt no name, the no name barely puts out more wattage than the Renogy, despite big much larger, stick with the big manufacturers.

BTW Does anyone know of someone who broke a large panel on a rig? I hadn't heard of anyone.