Repairing Solar Panels

[Aranon]

Anyone have any luck repairing solar panels that froze over the winter and made tiny slits in several places?
Aranon

[CarlD]

I'm trying a plastic welder on my worst panel. But I have FantaSea panels and they are very different from the rollable ones. They are 2'x4' and you walk on them.

The welder looks like an electronics soldering iron on steroids. It has variable control and comes with ALL kinds of plastic welding materials, including a heat-activated adhesive that's about as good as welding and doesn't actually melt the plastic on the target.

I got from some tool supply house called, I think, Arizona Tools (?). Seems to work pretty well.

[matt4x4]

What Carl is talking about is about the only way you will be able to repair the panels. However, I don't have a plastic welder so I devised my own method.

I had a couple of slits in mine last year, I tried marine glue, jb weld, and just about every product known to man that could possiblt fix these cuts/splits, nothing worked.
There is a repair kit available, however, it requires you to remove the broken trace from the system by cutting a section of it out and plugging both ends of the cutout, this, in my opinion reduces the efficiency of the panel significantly and i was not willing to go that route.
After some brainstorming, I came up with a method that seems to fix the panels well, it's essentially a crude version of Carl's welder.
I use my plumbing torch, a wooden handled knife and a chunk of black semi flexible PVC hose - or irrigation hose as some call it.
First, I mark all leaks while the panel is under pressure (check both sides!), then, I drain the panel, and let the sun dry the panel for numerous hours since water in the crack will cause problems. I cut a small sliver off the PVC hose, heat the knife tip and spread that onto the crack sort of like butter on toast, making sure I melt some of the panel together with the sliver of PVC. This seems to give great results.

[CarlD]

What Carl is talking about is about the only way you will be able to repair the panels. However, I don't have a plastic welder so I devised my own method.

I had a couple of slits in mine last year, I tried marine glue, jb weld, and just about every product known to man that could possiblt fix these cuts/splits, nothing worked.
There is a repair kit available, however, it requires you to remove the broken trace from the system by cutting a section of it out and plugging both ends of the cutout, this, in my opinion reduces the efficiency of the panel significantly and i was not willing to go that route.
After some brainstorming, I came up with a method that seems to fix the panels well, it's essentially a crude version of Carl's welder.
I use my plumbing torch, a wooden handled knife and a chunk of black semi flexible PVC hose - or irrigation hose as some call it.
First, I mark all leaks while the panel is under pressure (check both sides!), then, I drain the panel, and let the sun dry the panel for numerous hours since water in the crack will cause problems. I cut a small sliver off the PVC hose, heat the knife tip and spread that onto the crack sort of like butter on toast, making sure I melt some of the panel together with the sliver of PVC. This seems to give great results.

Wow! Really clever! You could also trim plastic from the panels from areas where it isn't critical. Plastic welding depends VERY heavily on matching the types of plastic. There's a "welding" rod that's really a heat-activated adhesive which you use when you don't know which kind of plastic welding rod to use.

The kit I have was a bargain at about $150...most plastic welders run much higher. But you CAN buy just the welding rods and use a CLEAN soldering iron. The universal plastic welder head is a flat disk about the size of a dime that you heat with AND press down with.

[JohnT]

The kit I have was a bargain at about $150...most plastic welders run much higher. But you CAN buy just the welding rods and use a CLEAN soldering iron. The universal plastic welder head is a flat disk about the size of a dime that you heat with AND press down with.

I had a similar issue with a molded PVC baitwell pump manifold on a boat a few years back. I found a bolt that would fit in place of the soldering iron tip. I ground the head of the bolt into a suitable tapered shape for smearing molten plastic into the cracks. Fortunately it was a variable temperature iron, and I selected an appropriate temperature and went to work using pieces of another broken one I'd found in a junkyard. Sold the boat, but AFAIK it is still working.