BEST WAY in 2021 to INSTALL FLEXIBLE SOLAR PANELS on RV - NO DRILLING

So if you've been thinking about

install

ing some semi-

flexible

solar

panels

like this on the roof of your RV or caravan, then I know for a fact that you've been online, you've been researching, racking your brain trying to find the

best

approach. mount them on your roof and I know exactly what you're going through because I've been doing the same thing for at least five or six years with these semi-

flexible

panels

. I've come up with a few different ways. to do it, but I think each iteration gets a little better and solves another problem and just makes big improvements over the last one.

I wanted to show you this last way that I've been doing it, it still allows for an air gap under the flexible

solar

panel because now we know that's the

best

approach and also there's no uh there's no screws on the roof I've actually removed a lot of that. Eternabon tape look around here and create a different system that uses a little more high end components and I think you're really going to like it. In fact, I've been road testing this this entire trip from Washington to here to the southwest. You know, it's held up very, very well, it hasn't shown up. drop it and I'm excited to share it with you, show you how I put it together, and give you some tips for doing it yourself.

There were a few aspects of this build that I wanted to improve over the previous one. one and the first was to use a better material and try to improve this airflow problem under the panel. If you have seen the previous video, you know that we use that plastic cardboard material as a layer between the panel and the roof, and I have expanded on that idea and this time I use a more robust material, which is this thicker polycarbonate wall material than It actually has a larger air gap channel on the inside and I cut it a little differently just to provide better airflow and drainage there. which I will show you below.

The second was to improve this whole mounting system so that it doesn't have this kind of taped-on look and provided a little more security than just having that bolt through that aluminum tab and you know, using the tape primarily to hold it in place. low, so using this T-rail material is really the solution. I've been looking for some kind of rail system I can use to mount this and other things and thought of this. It would be a good application for these panels, so it really worked and I'll show you more about it now. Finally, I really wanted it to look really good and have a really finished look on all sides and using the t. -The track was actually a big improvement.

I also added some materials for the front and end caps using just vinyl lattice caps that you can get at Home Depot or Lowe's and just cut and trim them to give it a nice finish, but also on the front it creates that barrier for wind or anything gets under the panel and creates any kind of lift once you can solve that problem and you don't get any lift then you're ready to make sure that this the panel is going to stay safe and yeah one last thing was to use all the hardware from stainless steel on this as everything is exposed to the elements.

You know, stainless steel is the way to go. I picked up a very large sheet of this polycarbonate. material to use for the backing of the solar panel and it came on a 4x8 sheet and it's pretty easy to work with you just cut it with a saw or you can use a knife but what I did was cut it to its full height. of the panel but a little bit narrower, about three inches narrower than the width of the solar panel itself and the reason for this was to provide some channels on either side for airflow to come out of these little channels inside that wall. material and be able to drain out the back, so I wanted to make it a little narrower to have about an inch and a half on each side.

What I also did was cut a channel about three inches wide in the center so that it had even more places for air and moisture to flow through to keep it in place. I went ahead and simply glued the polycarbonate material together using some Sica Flex. I just glued it or just taped it to the back of the solar panel. panel, so that's pretty good, the next step was to get some of this vinyl lattice material and cut it to the size of the front and back edges of the solar panel. I had to make some notches and cut some pieces to make it fit around the corners where the corner bolts were and also on the back, providing some holes that you know to line up with those spaces in that polycarbonate material so that there are still those holes for flow and moisture to come out and it turns out that the space inside the lattice cap material is just the right thickness to fit exactly, the height or thickness of that polycarbonate material plus the thickness of the solar panel is actually very snug and it just fits perfectly there and I was able to just tap it in with a little mallet and there was really no need to secure it further like screwing it or gluing it or anything because it was so tight now before I secured the T-rail to the roof of the RV, first I needed to lay out everything and figure out exactly where those rails needed to go so they were perfectly aligned with the grommets on either side of the solar panel.

I just attached the T-rail. I took a Sharpie and marked the corners at the end so I knew exactly where they were going to go. They took some acetone. Now you can use isopropyl alcohol or any solvent like that to really clean both the surface of the roof and the surface of that aluminum. -trac material so it's really nice and clean so it sticks really well to whatever adhesive you end up using now you can use, say, vhb tape or you know, psychoflex or something like that, if you wanted to use some of that, but I actually , I have used this quite a bit on several different projects and it has worked very, very well.

It's just eternalbon double duct tape and I have a lot of it so that's what I ended up using now, it was a little wider. than the width of the T-track, so it's an inch and the T-track was like three quarters, so I ended up just taking a knife and cutting it down to the exact thickness once I had it there in some sections. long, I just glued the T track in place and applied a little bit of good pressure and that worked very, very well now as a final way to secure it just for added security and gave it a nice finished look.

Take some sica flex and see it stuck to things. Now I used a sica flex uh 715 here and I actually put a bead around that T track as well just for a little bit of extra bonding and sealing and it gave it a really good look too now there wasn't a lot of drying or anything that had to happen because it's mainly held on by that eternabon tape and there's such a large surface area that it adhered very, very well, so once we got to the next step it was basically just putting the solar panel on and sliding the bolts into the right location.

I ended up using a quarter 20 threaded bolt, I used a washer and then a lock washer and then a nut on top and then to lock it I just used a second nut, now a tip if you end up doing this because that track is aluminum, that 20 quarter hex nut slides in there and is pretty secure, but if you really tighten it, you can definitely carve a little slot into that race, so what I would recommend is using a second set of pliers or a second wrench to hold the lower nut while tightening the upper one; otherwise, eventually, if you really turn it, it will start to turn a little once everything is screwed together. to the tracks, I'm almost done so that's really all there was to do and the rest was essentially just hooking up the solar system and connecting the cables.

Now I didn't even have to cut the length of the T-track because it left me with just a couple of three inches here sticking out of the end, which worked out great for me because I could still use this wing nut and this cable clamp basically and just slide that nut onto the track. and it gave me an easy way to secure the cables right there to the T-rail so you know you can also find other uses for this beyond just a solar panel, you know, being able to mount a lot of different things on your roof. overall it was a really simple

install

compared to the previous setups where you had all this tape and everything that had to happen here, it looks really great and even from the front and the sides if you look at it you know it looks So. a nice little white square, so feel free to take these ideas and improve them for your own installation.

For me this has worked really well so far and I can't really think of much to improve on at the moment because it's just really solid, looks good and kind of checks all of those boxes for my setup. The only thing I can really think of that would be a downside to this new mounting system would be the cost of some of the materials that large sheet of polycarbonate material for the backing was a little expensive, about $80, but I was able to make some of these insulated layers with that sheet and the t-track itself was also a little more expensive, I think for a four pack it's the best.

The price I found on Amazon was for a four-pack. I think they're 48 inches and it was about $45-$50, but you know the four pack would make two different solar panel installations, so beyond that, I'm very happy with it. I'll be sure to put a materials list and some instructions. step by step in the description to help you and yes, I look forward to seeing what you come up with and sharing your ideas as they arise. with them and maybe we will have another iteration in the future that incorporates something even newer, but I hope to try this on a rigid panel because I think it is strong enough to support a rigid solar panel installation as well, but I hope to try this in the future , but for now I hope you enjoyed the video it gave you some good advice, something to think about and if you like videos like this and you're not subscribed make sure to subscribe.

Button and I'll see you in the next video, so take it easy.