EEVblog #844 - Solar Panel Replacement

[EEVblog]

Call me crazy, but don't believe it was an impact.

Stevie Wonder could tell it's an impact 

[Brumby]

As if the front view wasn't enough - the ding out the back isn't a heat blister!

[Barny]

It could have been an little meteorite.
The deformation an the backside looks like an impact with really high speed.

If its something from a plane it would impact with terminal velocity (250 to 300 km/h).
That wouldn't be worse than than hail if its small enough to disappear.

[Kleinstein]

Ice from a plane is very much like hail with blue color and without the rain and usually one 1 relatively large piece. If large enough it can damage the panel as the part gets heavier and the velocity goes up.

For sealing I would use some kind of epoxy that is UV resistant- even if the whole thing is crackes all over it should be enough to seal the really broken zone. There is a plastics foil between the gas and the cells itselt.

[Don Hills]

You  said you had a bugger of a time getting those hold down bolts off. They look like they may be stainless steel. I discovered to my frustration, decades before the internets could help with preventive advice, that stainless hardware which isn't coated in anti-seize can gall and self weld dam near instantly.

In addition, stainless steel touching aluminium will corrode the aluminium. I learnt the hard way, using stainless steel screws to hold the elements on aluminium Yagi antennae.

[HAL-42b]

It could have been an little meteorite.

+1 for micrometeorite. Whatever it was it surely must have left some residue in the glass. Time to bust out the microscope

[Barny]

Ice from a plane is very much like hail with blue color and without the rain and usually one 1 relatively large piece. If large enough it can damage the panel as the part gets heavier and the velocity goes up.

The impact dent shows clearly that it was a small, fast piece.
If it blue ice get big enough to damage the panel, the whole panel would be bend.
(Slow piece with high mass.)

[jnissen]

Jarts! I remember those wonderful projectile toys from my youth! 

Dave you scored a major donation with that panel. They are not low cost at all! Way to go.

+1 for destructive test to see if you can find any fragments in the panel for what hit it. The back sheet and front glass is laminated to the solar cells inside so there is NO WAY you will save the cells by removing the glass. In fact all the glass will be glued to the cells and why you don't have shards all over your roof in the first place.
They really seal these things well for any environmental contaminants. It's not just glass, cells, backsheet. All that space is filled with a clear glue like material. 

[Vgkid]

Just watched it, that replacement would have been alot more interesting if it was not at the end. Middle maybe  .

[f4eru]

That H+S radox wire is one of the best available wire....

Made in Switzerland... (by nude virgins ?)

http://www.hubersuhner.com

[Stonent]

The air must be clean where Dave lives.

Welcome to Australia

Nearly the same size as the US, but about 8% of the people. Makes sense.

[rs20]

I thought these panels had some sort of clear resin filling the space between panel and front glass; to (among other things) reduce the refractive index change through that cavity and thus reduce reflections and improve efficiency.

I wonder if that's why there's no obvious water ingress down the bottom, and why the glass shards are all staying together (although this particular point can be explained by a film as well).

[bitwelder]

+1 for micrometeorite.

Why micro? Could it have been a small meteorite (i.e. a bit more than a few mm of diameter) of irregular shape, with a... microhorn on the side that faced the impact, so it was this microspike that pierced the panel, but there was also the (accelerated) mass of the whole small meteorite that thrusted it forward to cause even the metal back of the panel to bend?