I did a thing

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avslash

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@avslash I have a 100W panel bolted to the front of my FRO roof rack for THAT exact reason. Tired of the whole battery charging issue.

I added a front pivot point on the panel so that I can tilt the panel up and stuff fire logs under it, which also acts as a wind deflector for my RTT. The panel up top is fine for now, but I lose a lot of real estate up there.

I gave serious consideration to fabbing up a top mounted permanent panel but at the risk of sounding a little bourgie (as my daughters would say), I didn't want to cover the sunroof and mounting it further back would eat up the rack space as you mentioned.

The benefit of the soft backed folding panel I use now is that it can be draped over any side of the vehicle to get maximum available sunlight.
 

scott schmerge

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It’s arrived! Goes on tomorrow

D82B9B19-C8CD-49EE-B503-9E929D1BAA25.jpeg


9A1C968F-5385-4370-A6A6-0AB714607985.jpeg
 

mbw

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Did you do the protective vinyl? How is it thickness wise?

I have a panel on my rack that pivots, but I may eventually add this just to add watts and I wanted a hood blackout anyway. Slick!
 

scott schmerge

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Did you do the protective vinyl? How is it thickness wise?

I have a panel on my rack that pivots, but I may eventually add this just to add watts and I wanted a hood blackout anyway. Slick!
I did the vinyl that was provided. It’s not thin. The panel itself is about a 1/2 inch or more in thickness. It’s also heavy. My gas struts are having a hard time holding the extra weight of the panel which was not anticipated. It was not hard to do and the instructions are very good.

I thought about a panel on my rack, but I use the rack a good but and just didn’t want to lose real estate up there. This seemed to check all the boxes.
 

Michael Gain

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Looks good, Scott! Thank you for the feedback and some of the friction areas. How is the wiring routed? Looks like from the box on the back of the panel. Then, just run along the top of the hood to the hinge and down?
 

scott schmerge

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Ye
Looks good, Scott! Thank you for the feedback and some of the friction areas. How is the wiring routed? Looks like from the box on the back of the panel. Then, just run along the top of the hood to the hinge and down?
Yes, that’s exactly it. There’s one set of wires that runs to the charging block which regulates how much it charges. There are then two wires (positive and negative) that connect to the terminals.
 

morrisdl

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GREAT MOD! Pics on the underside too please - Promise no judging on your wire mgt

I took off the hood/bonnet gas struts long ago and just use the hinge locks. Love how much more it opens (Vertical now). Hope you have enough slack in the wire.
 

DiscoNels

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I did the vinyl that was provided. It’s not thin. The panel itself is about a 1/2 inch or more in thickness. It’s also heavy. My gas struts are having a hard time holding the extra weight of the panel which was not anticipated. It was not hard to do and the instructions are very good.

I thought about a panel on my rack, but I use the rack a good but and just didn’t want to lose real estate up there. This seemed to check all the boxes.

So you apply the vinyl onto the hood and then tape the solar panel to that? I'm surprised by how thick the panel is, a 1/2 inch? I have an Overland Solar panel taped to my glass roof on my LR3 with 3M vhb tape and it's only about 3-4 mm thick total.

Problem with the roof mount is when I put my roof rack on it's not charging due to all the stuff I carry on my rack so I'm looking to add the hood mount to get power no matter what. I only put my rack on when I do a big adventures which is a couple times per year, and the solar really matters in the winter when I'm not driving as much.

I've contacted Lensunsolar about their panel (thanks for that @djkaosone), very similar to the Cascadia in size, but Lensunsolar was able to get more output due to the array layout and it's advertised as 2.5mm thick, also slightly lower cost.
 

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