Mounting Solar Panels on a Van Roof Rack

[unckybob]

I have a 1991 Chevy G10 van and I want to mount solar panels on the roof rack. I would like to be able to mount the panels in such a way that the panels could be angled to catch the sunlight.<br /><br /> I don't know exactly how big the panels will have to be. I would like to be able to power a laptop pretty much continuously.<br /><br />It would be kind of cool if the axis of the panels could be pointed at the north star and then the panels could be rotated around the axis. Of course this could be sort of complicated to put on a roof rack. It might be easier to make the panels rotate around axis of the roof rack. <br /><br />Any plans or pictures you would post would be greatly appreciated. <br /><br />Please forgive me if I don't post a reply back right away. I spend most of my time camped out and I'm just in the McDonald's right now.

 

[Willy]

&nbsp;You'd be better off just to lay them flat (solidly mounted) or, like mine, at a very shallow angle to encourage runoff. Remember the KISS principle. ..Willy.

 

[Les H]

Mine are flat mounted. You may have to get a specialty rack to clear your hightop if you don't want to drill holes in the fiberglass.

 

[VanTrekker]

<p>I did the flat mount thing, too...&nbsp; (It's on my blog which is listed below)....</p><p>How does a person get around the inefficiency of not tilting the panel?&nbsp; Get a little bigger panel.&nbsp; I opted for flat for two reasons:&nbsp; stealth and the "kiss pricinciple"...&nbsp; So far, so good...&nbsp; I just took a three day trip running exclusively on solar.&nbsp;</p><p>Also, by using MPPT, I was able to recapture a lof of energy that would have been lost by using a PWM charge controller.&nbsp; This also offset the disadvantage of being flat.<br /><br />Efficiency?&nbsp; On a 235 watt panel, I see 200 watts most of the time on a sunny day, even at the flatter angle.<br /><br />VT</p>

 

[SoulRaven]

From what i have seen this is not the norm, but not unheard of... the most simple and yet this way takes up allot of time, is as follows... to rotate the panel you need to first have the extra cabling to do so, so this mount has to be made before wiring the system into the controller... your mount needs both a rotating axis and a horizontal movement axis... What i have seen is a lazy susan type rotating base to rotate at least 180 degrees... then add a horizontal angling system to go through about 75 degrees from flat... this will need constant adjustment as the sun crosses the sky, it is a pain but works and can also be automated but this is not the place for this discussion....

 

[sidat202]

Im still in the planning process, but one way of mounting it would be to mount a ball type mount on one corner. On the opposite corner you mount a bracket on each side of the corner to move the panel up and down. With this type of mounting you would be able to adjust to any angle. It will probably need&nbsp;more securing during travel.