Does anyone know of a place to find self adhesive flexible solar panels?

Ive looked all over the place and searched online and keep finding dead ends. What I am looking to do is to cover my hardtop from the freedom panels back with solar cells, then maybe clear coat over them to prevent possible damage. Im hoping something like a 100w panel would be enough to run some small things and maybe keep the portable cooler fridge going at night without issue off of an attached battery. We do a bunch of car camping while sleeping in the back of our 4 door. About to move out to Phoenix area, so I figured with all of the sun out there that something like this might work well.

Any ideas or leads are greatly appreciated.

Cheers

 

The very first place I would have checked being in S. FL is west marine or a large sailing supply place.

 

I like the way you think! I've been thinking about doing this myself. Please post some pics when you are done!

 

Just went over there to check that out for you and found a few

 

Subscribed!

 

Let us know how this works out, Im in south texas an this shouldve been an option!

 

Very cool idea. If you get anywhere with this please provide an update. I'm not electrically inclined so what type (amps/watts/etc) would be required to run a mini/portable cooler? The panels I've seen only state that you can charge phones, GPS, batteries, etc however nothing real big.

 

Thanks man I have looked at those. They probably would work well but I am looking for something I can make a bit more of a stationary system.

After looking around a bunch online I found these new panels they put on roofs for commercial and home installs. The solar part of the panel is about as thick as a bumper sticker(so super thin) and flexible and comes in like a hexagon matrix in big sheets it looks like. They then take this solar panel material and apply it to like two foot square sheet aluminum that attaches all together and sits on a frame on the roof. The aluminum looks to be about as thick as a pizza pan or so. They then build some kind of frame system so they can elevate these two foot square panels to follow the sun.

My theory is this. Try to find some of this stick on solar panel stuff and instead of applying to a backing just stick it on the hardtop roof behind the freedom panels and basically cover the whole roof. I would like to make it look as professional as possible so I was planning on coating it with some kind of clear coat to protect the solar panel material as well as ensure it doesnt peel up over time. I was planning on wiring it back to just over the subwoofer in the back passenger side. I planned on mounting two small closed dry cell batteries with a switching unit and inverter attached. I also plan on using PV glazing for the back windows which basically is a solar panel that looks like window tint almost but also produces power. Doing some calculation based on the size of the roof and the output of the window glazing I figure I can put together about a 200w system, which even if I get half of that on average during daylight hour for say even 8 hours that is 800w of power added to the battery bank a day being very conservative. That will easily power a laptop, lights and hopefully the cooler Im planning on building.

The biggest issue is finding the solar material so far. I just sent some emails out to some of those electric car teams that test stuff in the desert to see how far they can go without added power. Ive seen on some of those project cars panel material completely covering the car. Im hoping they can tell me where to get the stuff.


This all came about from working on my other project. Im am building a built in fridge/cooler into my rear passenger footwell. Basically I removed my rear seat on my 4 door. The goal was to add additional safe storage and a fridge/cooler while making sure the deck from behind the front seats back was entirely flat with no spaces so we could put a mattress on top of it and sleep comfortable on trips. So I am building plans for a compartment behind the drivers seat in the rear footwell that will hold tools, spare parts, first aid gear, etc. Behind the passenger seat Im building plans for a box to add a very insulated fridge, plus some other storage. I already bought the compressor and blower gear from Engel for the fridge system. Now Im just coming up with the rest of exactly how I want the fridge and additional storage on that side. Ive been testing melting rates of ice at different thickness of insulation and outside temperatures. Im trying to make sure it uses as little energy as possible over the course of say a week long trip. After I am done with the custom box plans Tuffy is going to make the actual custom metal boxes. So it should be high quality and match some of the other stuff I have from them.

 

Just curious but have you tried contacting a university engineering department that does those solar races every year, they would know where to get cells that you are looking for?

My guess would be 3M but I could be wrong. Good luck hope you can figure it out, awesome idea!

 

I recently looked at Costco website for solar panels and I think this might work for you. Looks like it would have to be mount on the hard top or roof rack. I dont know if it comes with hardware or not. Hope this helps!