5 Responses to " Sunforce 39810 80-Watt High-Efficiency Polycrystalline Solar Panel with Sharp Module "

1. Gregory K says:

   July 11, 2010 at 8:55 am

   Review by Gregory K for Sunforce 39810 80-Watt High-Efficiency Polycrystalline Solar Panel with Sharp Module
   Rating:
   Took the panel to Death Valley for a few days to charge my trailer battery and while I ran laptop and iPod stereo for hours during the night, it quickly recharged the battery the next morning. Built a solid stand/rack to keep it upright using pvc pipe that’s easy to disassemble, secure and lock. At 80 watts, it’s just one panel where some 65watt units have 3 panels.
2. Arik says:

   July 11, 2010 at 9:20 am

   Review by Arik for Sunforce 39810 80-Watt High-Efficiency Polycrystalline Solar Panel with Sharp Module
   Rating:
   As my first venture into solar energy this has been a nice panel. I’ve had it about a month. I paired it with a “Xantrex Technologies 802-1500 XPower Powerpack 1,500-Watt Portable Backup Power System” and a “Sunforce 60032 30 Amp Digital Charge Controller”. The panel is 12 volt, 4.6 amps though at this point I’m seeing up to 13.6 volts and 5 amps. I suspect over time as the panel weakens it will be more toward the 12 volt, 4.6 amp. The panel was simple to hook up and came with what was needed. I did go purchase new wire as I needed more distance for where I mounted it. I’m able to charge the battery from dead to full in 2 days. If I were to rotate the panel through the day I feel I could fully charge in 1 day.

   Nice for backup charging and learning. For any real application you would need a ton of these though.
3. Dana Henriksen says:

   July 11, 2010 at 9:44 am

   Review by Dana Henriksen for Sunforce 39810 80-Watt High-Efficiency Polycrystalline Solar Panel with Sharp Module
   Rating:
   I purchased 4 of these solar panels. They were easy to setup, and have been working just fine for the last month. They have been operating at near the specified 80 watts each which is pretty good for December in Utah.
4. HMMWV says:

   July 11, 2010 at 9:59 am

   Review by HMMWV for Sunforce 39810 80-Watt High-Efficiency Polycrystalline Solar Panel with Sharp Module
   Rating:
   QUICK UPDATE: Sunforce is selling obsolete Sharp 12% efficient panels no longer in production at 123W/panel, 2 panels to a kit with a junky inverter and charge controller.. See my review at Sunforce 39126 246-Watt High-Efficiency Polycrystalline Solar Power Kit but choose cautiosly as that product is from 2008 and is now obsolete which makes expansion of your system difficult due to the efficiency change.

   —back to the review as it stood originally—

   In evaluating solar panels (and systems of many panels) the typical pricepoint is $5.10/watt in high volume production. If you are finding better pricing than that something is wrong.

   An example may be inefficient panels that use larger panels, causing massive panel size such that it is 4-8 times larger than this panel with the same output.

   Other inefficiencies to watch out for are caused by voltages that are not useful. You could, for example, have a panel that output 500V at 1/10 A for 50W sold for $250 - looks good financially but very few charge controllers go much over 250 volts (and many dont make 250 volts - some are 12 or 48 volt systems). So that panel is not much use

   This panel is in the sweet spot - enough power to be useful (80W/3 is a simple approximation for what useful power you can get with a battery all day long - about 25W or so given inefficiences. So theoretically it could support a 25W load 24×7 with an 8 hour day of sun.

   The last inefficiencies to watch out for are panels that need heavy sun before they produce any output. Some panels produce usable (1-2 amps) output with just ambient scattered light such as a foggy day, while others give near zero output unless the sunlight strikes them head on. This panel design gives output whenever there is light, which is good. More light is always better, but it could be worse.

   So to sum it up - there are no pitfalls here. It passes all the checks for pricing and performance. We load tested a string of 12 of these for a customer to profile their output to help decide if a rotator would help and it showed that very little gain would come from the expense of an automatic rotation system due to the panel’s efficiency at many angles. With 12 panels we produced 1KW for 8 hours with taper up and down on both sides.

   Best of all this can be used in series strings for grid tie systems or with battery maintainers
5. V S says:

   July 11, 2010 at 10:20 am

   Review by V S for Sunforce 39810 80-Watt High-Efficiency Polycrystalline Solar Panel with Sharp Module
   Rating:
   80 Watts/4.67 Amps = 17 volts.

   Be sure to size your system appropriately to minimize voltage drop to your inverter.

   Sunforce isnt the cheapest, but still a good price and a nice, solid product with a 25-year warranty.

   Note: GET A SOLAR SURVEY - you might not qualify for any tax rebates if you dont get one!

   Also do the math yourself. If you live on the 43rd paralell and get 4.4 sun hours per day average, do NOT place these at 43 degrees! Tilt them closer to the SUMMER sun angle. You’ll get more sun in summer and less in winter, but you arent getting much in winter anyways! You’ll get more yearly output (or get a tracker and not do any math)

   The technology is getting better; cheaper manufacturing processes and better spectrum band as well as improvements leading to higher efficiencies. If you want better stuff, I dont know how “long” you should wait. It can only get so good, the potput isnt going to duble or anything. Laws of physics